HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: levesque@mprgate.mpr.ca (Steve Levesque)
Subject: Vegas Trip Notes
Organization: MPR Teltech Ltd., Burnaby, B.C., Canada
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 92 22:50:12 GMT

Thanks to all that responded to my posts, it was much appreciated.

A couple of notes on my trip:

Went down on Friday the 13th, but luckily it wasn't a horror story:-()
I didn't get to see the fight, but at least I got to sit in the traffic jams
generated by the fight;-)

Went to the Comedy Stop at the Trop, it was hilarious!
Ryan Kenny was the host and he was really funny. The last guy was
the funniest but I'm damned if I can remeber his name, Lenny somebody,
from Boston, I've seem him on TV but I just can't remember his name.

As far as gambling goes, I played Craps the most and I ended up losing 
about $40. Had some good rolls and some not so good rolls. Such is Craps.

Again had no luck at BJ. Using basic stategy and Hi-Lo, was consistently
dealt lousy cards. Coincidence, I think not;-) I mean I must have been dealt
a stiff on 70% of my hands while the dealer had a face card showing at least
80% of the time, and I think I had 3 stinking Blackjacks the whole time I
was there.

I'm really beginning to get turned off with Blackjack. The dealer's are
almost always miserable, you get heat if you win and no sympathy if you lose 
(not that I want any), and they probably cheat. I mean I can play computer
BJ games until I'm blue in the face and usually do well, yet the minute
I sit down I'm constantly sittin 14 against a dealer 10. 

Anyway, now that I got that tirade off my chest, the good news.

I got a Royal Flush on a 1$ Video Poker machine at the Excalibur
that paid me $5770! Not bad for 2 minutes work (my 3rd hand I was dealt
10H, JH, QH and received KH, and AH on the draw).

One question? Being a foreigner (Canadian), they took 30% off the top
for income tax ($1731), is there any way I can get some or all of that
back. Not that I'm complaing, they peeled 40 $100 bills into my hand,
however $1731 is $1731.

Even after all that bitching, I'm still looking forward to next time;-)

Steve Levesque

Newsgroups: rec.gambling
From: mbn@skeletor.hf.intel.com (Mike Northam)
Subject: Re: Notre Dame vs Penn State
Reply-To: mbn@greyskul.hf.intel.com
Organization: Shorter Software Solutions
Distribution: usa
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 20:41:17 GMT

>>>>> "renie" == Renie Maycon <49ers@eb5ts4.EBay.Sun.COM> writes:

renie> This week I am planning to put $1000.00 on notre dame, they are 9
renie> 1/2 point favorites over penn state. is that a safe bet? does any
renie> body know any other for sure games to put money on ?

Safe bet?  I don't think so.  BTW, I hope you didn't get this one down,
'cause you wudda lost big time.  (Don't ask me about my Washington vs.
Arizona bet from last week, OK?)  :-)
--
Mike Northam, Shorter Software Solutions, on contract to Intel Corp.
(h) (503) 324-1831 (intel office) (503) 696-4860 (shorter) (503) 357-1010
mbn@greyskul.hf.intel.com
"You ducks are really trying my patience...but you're SOOO cute. --Apu 9F01
From: erwin@bend.ucsd.edu (Sean Erwin)
Newsgroups: rec.gambling
Subject: Re: Net Poker Server Problems
Date: 19 Nov 92 01:51:54 GMT
Article-I.D.: network.1eervqINN6ba
Distribution: usa
Organization: Linguistics Department, UCSD
NNTP-Posting-Host: bend.ucsd.edu

In article <1992Nov18.225123.20262@i88.isc.com> oconnor@i88.isc.com (Tom O'Connor(Genesis Project)) writes:
>
>Yep, we on table 8 are experiencing the same thing - errors from the mailer
>at the server end saying the "Fork function failed - too many processes exist."
>I and others have sent mail to the floorman and to one of the addresses
>from which instructions were sent, but nothing has happened.
>
>Just when I was going to bet a thousand, no 3 thou..., I mean go all-in!
>Yeah, and so were 1, er 2, er the ENTIRE table!  Yeah, that's it.  And my
>hole cards plus the up cards were giving me a straight, er a flush,
>yeah a straight flush - and it was Ace high!!  A royal flush to clear out
>the entire table!  That's the ticket!!  I was gonna win the entire tourney
>on that hand and get a trophy from ah, ah, .... from Kathy Ireland!!
>
>Tom O'Connor
>Member, Liars Anonymous


Just what is a 'fork function' and does it have anything to do with Kathy 
Ireland (I hope!)?

---Sean

>
From: jacob@ocf.berkeley.edu (Jacob Jin)
Newsgroups: rec.gambling
Subject: Re: Trip report - Dubuque Casino Belle
Date: 18 Nov 1992 12:10:29 GMT
Organization: U.C. Berkeley Open Computing Facility
NNTP-Posting-Host: earthquake.berkeley.edu

In article <BxvMsv.J8q@news.iastate.edu> whisnant@iastate.edu (Kerry L Whisnant) writes:
>Went to Dubuque, Iowa over the weekend; here's the obligatory report:


Why get all excited at a phony Mirage volcano when you can see
real live burning crosses and effigies?
From: elliott@aero.org (Kenneth B. Elliott III)
Newsgroups: rec.gambling
Subject: Re: Las Vegas Advisor Party? [Free nights in LV in December]
Date: 17 Nov 92 16:29:27 GMT
Article-I.D.: solarium.ELLIOTT.92Nov17082927
	<rlw.721997588@elan> <1992Nov17.142514.3244@sei.cmu.edu>
Organization: The Aerospace Corporation, El Segundo, CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: solarium.aero.org
In-reply-to: weinstoc@sei.cmu.edu's message of Tue, 17 Nov 1992 14:25:14 GMT


[weinstoc@sei.cmu.edu (Chuck Weinstock) writes:]

>
>I suspect if you've ever been rated by a Las Vegas casino that you could
>promote a few free room nights in December (notoriously slow).
>

No doubt.  My wife and I just received a bunch of "certificates" from
the Trop in LV for free weekend and weekday nights at various times
from now until New Years (but not during Thanksgiving or New Years;
must not be high enough rollers. :-) ).  Too bad we just moved to
Maryland... :-(

KBEIII
--

Ken Elliott III                  The Aerospace Corp.
elliott@aero.org                 Suite 4400
(410) 312-1405                   8840 Stanford Rd.
                                 Columbia, MD  21045
Newsgroups: rec.gambling
From: s4lawren@student.business.uwo.ca (Stephen Lawrence)
Subject: Re: Playing Double-up in roulette
Organization: University of Western Ontario
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 01:15:14 GMT

I spent several days in LV this past Christmas using a roulette technique 
called the "Rabinowitz sub-sampling method".  Put simply, if you use your 
36 number sample size as a "base" or "foundation" for the normal 
distribution of the random number intervals, you can accurately predict 
certain series or "combinations" of numbers under certain circumstances.  
For example, take a regression analysis of a 12 number random 
combination:
        1,8,0,8,27,19,00,10,11,32,24,1
now take the mean of the sample size (11) and plot a regression line 
BACKWARDS (not forwards) from the x axis.
        Now, look for outliers in your plot.  For example the 00 does not 
fit the pattern.  Remember that your regression line will be 
y=BoX,B1X1,...BiXi.
        Using this forecasting method you can accurately predict, within 
three sigmas (99%) the outcome of the next pattern or "series" of 
numbers.
        At the Riviera I was asked to leave due to my winnings and the 
fact that my laptop and bubble jet printer spilled over several of the 
other gamblers drinks and ashtrays.
        For details on the Rabinowitz and other regression style roulette 
forecasters please leave me a message.

        Happy gambling!

s4lawren@student.business.uwo.ca (Stephen Lawrence)
Western Business School  --  London, Ontario
Newsgroups: rec.gambling
From: exl0@moose.chem.yale.edu ()
Subject: HOW TO PLAY POKER IN NET
Organization: Yale University, Department of Computer Science, New Haven, CT
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1992 20:21:05 GMT

Hi, is anyone here can tell me how to play poker in net? I am new to use the netand any help will be greatly  appreciated.      please e-mail to exl0@moose.chem.yale.edu


Newsgroups: rec.gambling
From: irwin@uvmark.uucp (Frank Irwin)
Subject: Re: Yeehah!
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 92 19:28:00 GMT
Organization: VMARK Software, Inc.

In article <zlsiida.426@fs1.mcc.ac.uk> zlsiida@fs1.mcc.ac.uk (dave budd) writes:
>I'm the poor guy in the UK who can't find a nice cheap poker game, I ask 
>every 6 months or so and get no response.....

You're always welcome to ours, next time you're in the Boston area.

>Last Thursday my old pal Ralph calls me up, some friends of his are coming 
>over the hills to see him, and they play....count me in, quoth I
[Dave does well at the track (at least, I think that's what he said ;-) ]
>So when I get to the game, I announce that I just can't lose because of this 
>and (blow me down with a feather) I was RIGHT!  A 200 unit buy-in gets me 
>120 units profit in 5 hours - OK the units were a bit too small to give up 
>the day job, but it's percentages that count here!

Those "easy" wins are the ones you have to watch out for.  The new guy (do
Ralph and the boys play regularly?) is always allowed to win, just so he'll
bring more money to the next game.  I was invited to a game last week by
a fellow netter, where the stakes were 10-fold of what my weekly game plays.
It was a good game, playing soley hold'em, Omaha hi-lo, and 7 Stud hi-lo,
none of the silly BS that's so prevalent on Fridays.

They let the new guy (that'd be me) better than double his buy-in.  Thanks,
guys!  However, I think it's all a ruse, especially since the guy who
invited me was in on the monster pot that I scooped.  I expect to be fully
battered tonight.  I'm taking another new guy (this one's a real bozo), to
test this hypothesis.

-- 
 ============================================================================
 Frank Irwin                | "There's only one game that the house is
 Vmark Software, Inc.       |  guaranteed to win money at.  Blackjack."
 irwin%uvmark@merk.com      |     -- Dealer at a recent Las Vegas Night
From: erwin@bend.ucsd.edu (Sean Erwin)
Newsgroups: rec.gambling
Subject: Re: Net Poker Server Problems???
Date: 18 Nov 1992 22:20:13 GMT
Organization: Linguistics Department, UCSD
Distribution: usa
NNTP-Posting-Host: bend.ucsd.edu

In article <1ee0p6INNf0o@crcnis1.unl.edu> jdodson@cse.unl.edu (James Dodson) writes:
>
>	I am in (in a manner of speaking) the current Hold'Em tourney
>	here on the net, and until yesterday things were fine.
>	I didn't get any poker mail from the server yesterday (I know
>	our table is slow, but _no_ mail is unusual).  I sent requests
>	for a hand update and an overall score last night, and I got
>	mail error messages in my mailbox this morning (something about
>	unknown address or something...).
>	
>	Anyone else had these problems??? Any clues???
>
>	-Jim


It looks like, from people that I've talked to, that the whole damn thing is
on the fritz.  I have no idea what's being done about it, if anything.  Hope-
fully someone in control will post here about it or send mail.

In the meantime, apologies to those who have been receiving multiple blank
messages from me, I tried to use the poker-alias that sends mail to every
one in the tournament, and it doesn't seem to have worked, either, though
our table alias worked as of this morning.  Very peculiar.  Hope it gets
fixed.

---Sean Erwin
Table 8


Newsgroups: rec.gambling
From: s4lawren@student.business.uwo.ca (Stephen Lawrence)
Subject: Rabinowitz Sub-Sampling Roulette
Organization: University of Western Ontario
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1992 15:34:35 GMT

Just got back from a 36 hour session in Las Vegas using the Rabinowitz 
Sampling method, here are my results:

Day 1 (Thursday Nov. 19) Riviera   Day 2 (Fri) Ballys Day 3 (Sat) Riviera
Hour 1  -$155                      +$75               -$205
Hour 2  +$45                       +$24               -$110
Hour 3  +$115                      +$65               +$175
Hour 4  +$226                      -$134              +$224
Hour 5  -$15                       +$124              -$24

Total   +$216                      +$154              +$60
Total all three sessions +$430.00

Return on opening bankroll of $500.00 = $430/$500 = +86%
Not bad for 15 hours work (works out to $29/hour,...a little light
but the drinks were free!)

s4lawren@student.business.uwo.ca (Stephen Lawrence)
Western Business School  --  London, Ontario
From: tylerh@cco.caltech.edu (Tyler R. Holcomb)
Newsgroups: rec.gambling
Subject: Re: Rabinowitz Sub-Sampling Roulette
Date: 22 Nov 1992 19:59:29 GMT
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
NNTP-Posting-Host: punisher.caltech.edu

s4lawren@student.business.uwo.ca (Stephen Lawrence) writes:

>Just got back from a 36 hour session in Las Vegas using the Rabinowitz 
>Sampling method, here are my results:

>Day 1 (Thursday Nov. 19) Riviera   Day 2 (Fri) Ballys Day 3 (Sat) Riviera
>Hour 1  -$155                      +$75               -$205
>Hour 2  +$45                       +$24               -$110
>Hour 3  +$115                      +$65               +$175
>Hour 4  +$226                      -$134              +$224
>Hour 5  -$15                       +$124              -$24

>Total   +$216                      +$154              +$60
>Total all three sessions +$430.00

>Return on opening bankroll of $500.00 = $430/$500 = +86%

Since the proper mathematicians in this group are probably
tired of debunking posts like this,  I think a lurking lightweigt
like me will have to do.

1.  Are these results are statistically significant?  Roulette
is a high- variance game (hence its popularity), so your sampling
seems *way* too small to me.

2.  Based on your empirical results, have you computed the probability
of ruin?  Any "sytem" where you regularly lose over 20% of your
bankroll in an hour (e.g. saturday morning)  strikes me a pretty
good way to go broke.

3.  Until I see a more mathematical treatment of your data, I will
place greater credence in the "passenger 57" system:  always bet
black.


-- 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tyler Holcomb   *   "Remember, one treats others with courtesy and repsect *
tylerh@juliet   *   not because they are gentlemen or gentlewomen, but     *
  caltech.edu   *   because you are."  - paraphrased from Garth Henrichs   *
From: mbuck@fibers (Michael D. Buck)
Newsgroups: rec.gambling
Subject: Trip report - Reno, NV Nov 13-15
Summary: Reno
Keywords: Reno trip report
Date: 18 Nov 92 16:32:00 GMT
Reply-To: fibers!mbuck@dg-rtp.dg.com
Organization: Allied Fibers, Petersburg VA

I spent Nov 13-15 in Reno.  It was my first trip there, and here some details
about the BlackJack games I saw there.  Most places have the standard Northern
Nevada rules (H17, NoDAS, D10-11, No Surrender).  Exceptions are noted below.

Reno Hilton
  (near the Reno airport, not in the downtown cluster)

  Best SD rules in town.  Same as the Frontier in Las Vegas, except they
  hit Soft 17 here.  (H17, DAS, DOA).  They also have 7-spot tables, rather
  than the 6-spot tables used at the Frontier.  I had my first somewhat
  unpleasant experience with being identified as a counter here, details
  of which I will post separately.  There were at least 8 SD tables open
  while I was there.  A dealer told me that this is an increase from the
  past when Bally's ran the place, at which time there were only 4 SD
  tables total.  There are no 2-deck games.  All others were shoe games.
  All available SD games were $2 or $3 minimum bet.  Shoe games were $5
  minimum.  Is this a trend?  It used to seem like SD games were priced
  higher than less advantageous games; now it seems like the reverse,
  ensuring more full tables of SD, keeping head-on play unavailable.

Cal-Neva (downtown Reno)
  2nd best SD rules in town.  (H17, DOA, LS, No DAS, No insurance) These
  rules are only available in the pit on the 3rd floor.  $2 minimum bet.

Flamingo Hilton (downtown Reno)
  Good 2-deck rules.  (S17, DAS, DOA)  No single-deck available.
  All games $5 minimum bet.

The Nugget (downtown Reno)
  Strange place.  All-slot joint, except for one lonely 2-deck BlackJack
  table.  Standard Northern Nevada rules, but very deeply dealt.  Usually
  about 10-12 cards left before shuffling.  $2 minimum bet.  There were
  two alternating female dealers working when I was there.  The one who
  was not currently dealing would sit in a chair just off 3rd base and
  watch the game, while the other one dealt.  Since there was no "pit"
  to speak of, a guy wearing suspenders and a "shift manager" badge
  would wander over occasionally and look over the dealer's shoulder
  for awhile.  Couldn't figure out how good they were at looking for
  counters, but I was paranoid at this point, having just left the Reno
  Hilton.  Anyway, I had bad cards and lost money here.
________________________________________________________________________
Michael Buck                          |
UUCP: dg-rtp!fibers!mbuck             |
Internet:                             |
  fibers!mbuck@dg-rtp.dg.com          |
From: bobf@dbrus.Unify.Com (Bob Feldcher)
Newsgroups: rec.gambling
Subject: Re: Vegas Trip
Date: 16 Nov 92 23:01:01 GMT
Organization: /usr/lib/news/organization


Casinos that have ATMS often charge a $1 "surcharge".  This surcharge is in
addition to any that you bank, credit union, or savings and loan may charge.
Newsgroups: rec.gambling
From: Jonathan Rosenberg <jxr@thumper.bellcore.com>
Subject: Re: Not the Monty Haul problem
Organization: Bellcore
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 92 02:32:41 GMT

In my last post, I gave a long analysis of the cute problem posed by
Jeff Tang.  I've been rethinking what I said & I've realized the
problem's even trickeir than I thought.

All of my comments at the beginning of that post were ok, but I think
they missed the point (though some of the reasoning will help you
understand the rest of this).  In particular, at the end of my message I
said:

	On rethinking this, I realized that you might argue that the problem is
	well-defined & that the chooser just is not told the distribution used. 
	That seems to be ok.  In that case, answer #1 is correct.  Answer #2 has
	flawed logic because it is calculating an average of repeated trails
	that are not like the original trial.  I.e., answer #2 assumes that in
	each trail the envelopes will contain either 0.5 & 1 units or 1 & 2
	units.  But, that ain't the original problem.  The original problem says
	that you have no information about the amounts in the envelopes (other
	than 1 is twice the other).

I think this is closer to the truth: the problem is well defined & we're
just not told the distribution.  Answer #1 is, in fact correct.  But my
explanation of why Answer #2 is incorrect is just wrong.  (I believe the
other 2 explanations of why #2 is bogus are also wrong.  I don't think
it has anything to do with "utility values" or with "changing the unit
size".)

The problem with #2 can be found in the calculation of the average:

	Answer 2: Well, the other envelope has either .5 or 2 units.  Since there's a
	50% chance of each of these, ...

The problem is the assumption that the probability of the other envelope
holding .5 units is 0.5 (and, likewise that the probability of it
holding 2 units is also 0.5).  Believe it or not, this is just not
possible.  This assumption is equivalent to saying that it is possible
to choose a random number uniformly from an infinite sequence.

This takes a little while to see, but think about it.  You'll see that
the 0.5 probability assumption implies that there is no upper bound on
the number of units that can be placed in an envelope.  If it is
possible to put N units in an envelope, it must be possible to put 2N
units in an envelope.  Recursively, if there can be 2N units in an
envelope, there can be 4N units.  And so on, ad nauseum.

The assumption that P(N/2) = P(2N) = 0.5 then implies that all numbers
in the infinite range are equiprobable.  As stated in the earlier post,
this is not possible.  Therefore, the calculation of the average is
incorrect.  In fact, since we don't know the distribution of the units,
we can't calculate an average.

JR

Newsgroups: rec.gambling
From: cdm@pmafire.inel.gov (Dale Cook)
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 92 15:24:06 GMT
Organization: WINCO
Subject: Re: Is 4-of-a-kind a Pat Hand?
Summary: 
Followup-To: 
Organization: WINCO
Keywords: 

In article <1992Nov13.002534.947@trl.oz.au> jbm@hal.trl.OZ.AU (Jacques Guy) writes:
>I was surprised to read that some books on poker advise
>staying pat with 4-of-a-kind (5-card draw, of course, it
>goes, or rather, should have gone without saying).
>
>Staying pat betrays a straight, a flush, a full-house, or...
>a bluff. But discarding one card normally shows two pairs,
>more rarely a four-flush or a 4-card straight.
>Since two pairs is a good raising hand,
>what is the point of trying to appear as having a straight 
>or better? In my view, it can only have players fold who
>would not have on smelling two pairs, 4 to a flush or 
>a straight. It's a rare case, I think, when someone else
>will have enough to stay against a pat hand, and the
>loss of the bets by other players does not seem to
>make worthwhile to stay pat with 4 of a kind. Does it?

It would depend on how you had been playing the particular game, wouldn't
it?  If you had been playing very loose, and been called on a couple of
bluffs, perhaps standing pat with four of a kind could be a good play.
On the other hand, if you were playing tight, drawing might be a better
play, to give the appearance of drawing to a straight or flush or even
two pair.

Probably the best answer is "it depends".  It depends on the other players
and how you think they perceive you.  This kind of question underscores the
importance of understanding your opponents.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
...Dale Cook    "I don't much care how a man prays -- there's plenty of
                 room in hell for all of us."  --- "Mad Jack" Duncan
The opinions are mine only (i.e., they are NOT my employer's)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: jacob@ocf.berkeley.edu (Jacob Jin)
Newsgroups: rec.gambling
Subject: Re: craps
Date: 20 Nov 92 11:59:59 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: U.C. Berkeley Open Computing Facility
NNTP-Posting-Host: earthquake.berkeley.edu

In article <JACOBS.92Nov19070000@cells.cs.utah.edu> jacobs@cs.utah.edu (Steven R Jacobs) writes:
>In article <1992Nov19.082233.10603@netcom.com> edan@netcom.com (Edan Shalev) writes:
>> my last 2 visits to vegas proved that betting on the 6 and 8 (with odds)
>> when the table was "hot" and betting on the dont pass when the table
>> was "cold" seemed to have worked well.  I only made about $75/hr
>> but for the 2 trips i have gone craps has gotten me ahead, where
>> blackjack (with the 5 decks) usually empties my pockets.
>
>You got lucky.

Psh! Do I detect a little babyish cynical envy here? Next thing you be
telling me that I didn't deserve to win my 8-5off vs black rockets. (To
quote Highway 61: Yeah, I was lucky. Lucky I got to play with a bunch
of losers like you.)