Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Just Call Me...

Massive headwound Headcold Harry. Phlegm is me. Yech.

Update 7/27: Thanks for the kind words. And the unkind words too, Bill. Feeling much better today.

10 comments:

reader_iam said...

Poor Pooh. Chicken soup really does help--especially with red pepper flakes, or even curry powder. Wish I could send you some of mine.

vh: fkycguwm

Somehow, this seems to fit in a bunch of ways, not least in the fact that it sort of looks like what a sneeze sounds like.

Frankie said...

I wuv you even with your boogers, Pooh-bear!

bill said...

Floyd Landis won the Tour de France on a disintegrating hip and you're complaining about the sniffles?

bill said...

Perhaps the Landis comparisons should be shelved for a bit.

Icepick said...

Perhaps the Landis comparisons should be shelved for a bit.

Hey, we don't know that Pooh ISN'T juicing. All of those Ultimate guys are over the edge....

Pooh said...

Hey, we don't know that Pooh ISN'T juicing. All of those Ultimate guys are over the edge....

There were unsubstantiated rumors a few years ago that certain elite teams had widespread EPO usage. I have no actual information either way, but to some degree I doubt it, as that seems a little expensive for a compltely amateur sport.

Icepick said...

[T]hat seems a little expensive for a compltely amateur sport.

Seriously, I wouldn't be surprised to hear that your example had actually happened. I'm a chess player (yeah, LOW end of the social ladder!), and it isn't at all uncommon for online players to cheat by using computer assistance. I'm talking about very bad players, playing against other very bad players in games that have NO meaning except as entertainment. And STILL they cheat!

Lesson Learned: A certain pecentage of people cheat whenever they think they can get away with it. (And some will cheat even if they're practically guaranteed to get caught.)

Slight subject change: Did you ever encounter cheating players in your online poker days?

Pooh said...

Slight subject change: Did you ever encounter cheating players in your online poker days?

I doubt it. Aside from the rather dubious allegations of such things as "pattern-mapping" or other ways in which people had 'cracked' the shuffle algorhythm (sp?)*, the main way to 'cheat' is to play either in teams either with yourself (using multiple CPU's and an IP-spoofer) or more likely with multiple players using good old IM.

However, both of those things are both A) hard to pull off, both in terms of the 'technique' (how to best trap the dupes for extra chips) and in avoiding the poker rooms' detection software - it's actually much easier to catch any pattern of suspicious play online than it is in RL - and B) provides a relatively small edge, which in some of the games I played regularly (single table tournies) didn't make up for the entry fees and in others didn't make sense as the games where soft enough that two people who could competently team could make much more simply playing seperately at different tables.

Where it seems most likely to be a problem is in the middle-limit "big-bet" (Pot-limit/No-Limit) games as the big games are fairly heavily monitored (plus 'Spirit Rock'** et al probably still have an edge over most team cheaters who tend to be cheaters because they are bad at poker), and there is potentially much more value to a well timed team play in big bet poker than in fixed limit.

Hope that made sense. I almost want to play some cards now, damn you, 'Pick...

*which was perhaps something of a problem in the earliest days of online poker, but they had fixed that wayyyy before I started in '03

** Online handle of Prahlad Friedman - legendary for destroying people in the biggest No Limit games on UltimateBet

Icepick said...

You don't want to play cards again. Poker is a fundamentally boring game, especially stripped of its social element.

Pooh said...

There is some truth to that. Playing 'seriously' though (as in 10k+ hands/week) has some pretty interestin aspects on the meta-game level - unlike the perfect information available in chess, you are constantly making probablisitc guesses based on your opponents observed tendencies, all the way trying to judge the extent to which they have observed your own. At lower limits this rarely gets past 3rd level thinking (1st level is what do I have/what are my odds. 2nd level, what does he likely have, 3rd level is what does he think I have) and usually tops out at 2nd level. Higher-level play gets much deeper.