"It was my luck (perhaps my bad luck) to be the world chess champion during the critical years in which computers challenged, then surpassed, human chess players. [...] What if instead of human versus machine we played as partners? My brainchild saw the light of day in a match in 1998 in León, Spain, and we called it "Advanced Chess." Each player had a PC at hand running the chess software of his choice during the game. The idea was to create the highest level of chess ever played, a synthesis of the best of man and machine."
The Chess Master and the Computer: A article/book review on computer chess and the state of the top-level chess world by Garry Kasparov.
[more inside]
posted by painquale
on Jan 26, 2010 -
43 comments
Several months ago, poker player
Tom "durrrr" Dwan issued an
unprecedented challange. In effect, he is offering 3:1 odds—his $1.5 million to the challengers $500,000—that, playing high-stakes heads-up (one on one) online poker, he will be winning after 50,000 hands. The challenge is open to anyone except for durrrr's good friend
Phil Galfond;
three players have reportedly
accepted, and play in the first match began yesterday. The results are being tracked in real time
here and
here; you can brave the inanity of twoplustwo (
previously) and read the ongoing match thread
here.
posted by cmyr
on Feb 20, 2009 -
27 comments
Google Web Toolkit + Texas Holdem Poker = gpokr.com. I should probably be embarrassed about how much time I've spent in the last few weeks playing poker online for pretend money. As the site operator mentions in his
development blog, it seems to be the small things that make the site so sticky: elegant ajax design, players' rankings displayed and updated right next to their names at the table, a slew of player statistics presented on the main
ranking page, even more statistics and graphs on each
user page. (
Oh, and out of 5000 or so current players, I seem to be #1).
posted by nobody
on Aug 17, 2006 -
35 comments
When it started more than 36 years ago, the World Series of Poker was more like a trappers' rendezvous than anything else: a small gathering of professional poker players and road gamblers getting together amongst themselves to see who was “the best.” Now, of course, it is an industry unto itself, with
extensive media coverage,
televised coverage on ESPN, and a large fan base that follows
the daily results of this now
six-week long series of tournaments, which culminates in the $10,000 buy-in “main event” to determine the “world champion.” In 1970, eight gamblers put up the $10k each to play in the main event; in 2005, that number had grown to more than 5600, making the total prize pool of $56M one of the largest ever contested, a number that is either exciting or appalling, depending on your point of view. The 2006 WSOP begins today with the casino employees event, and then the larger “open” events begin tomorrow, and continue until July 28, when the main event kicks off. This year’s main event has been lengthened to almost two weeks to allow for enough play to reduce the field from the estimated 6000 starting participants to the final 9 who will vie for an estimated first prize of $10M. Shuffle up and deal!
posted by mosk
on Jun 26, 2006 -
59 comments
A Chip and a Chair: The World Series of Poker's Main Event started today at the Rio in Las Vegas. That's a change from every other year, when Binion's Horseshoe hosted the event. With the rise of online poker and televised tournaments, it's no surprise this is the biggest year ever: 5,661 people registered for the $10,000 no-limit event. That's about $50 million in prize money, once the tournament and casino costs are taken care of. CardPlayer has
up-to-the-minute updates on the tournament. Things at the WSOP can get pretty crazy, as you've got thousands of gamblers ready for any sort of action. For instance, poker celeb Phil Gordon put together a
Roshambo tournament (paper rock scissors) together with a $10,000 first prize, just to kill time. The main event, by the way, is only one of 45 events,
started back in 1970 by a group of hard-core gamblers. Despite the record turnout, however, there's still plenty of people who didn't make it to the main event, including former Harper's reporter
James McManus, who placed 5th in the Main Event in 2000 and wrote a fascinating novel on the subject.
posted by Happydaz
on Jul 7, 2005 -
22 comments
The Reader of Gentlemen's Mail In the spring of 1919, when the father of American cryptography,
Herbert O.
Yardley, drew up a plan for a permanent State Department codebreaking organization — a "
black chamber — he estimated that a modest $100,000 a year would buy a chief (Yardley) and fifty clerks and cryptanalysts. Yardley rented a three-story building in New York City: on East 38th Street just off Fifth Avenue, he put two dozen people to work under civilian cover—as the
Code Compiling Company. His summary dismissal happened in 1929 at the hand of incoming Secretary of State
Henry Stimson, who closed down the
Cipher Bureau with the
casual observation that "
gentlemen do not read each other's mail". The son of a railroad telegrapher, a man with a lively Jazz Age interest in money, good-looking women, and drinks at five, Yardley not only taught his country how to read other people's mail but wrote two of the enduring American books—the memoir
The American Black Chamber (1931), and
The Education of a Poker Player (1957).
posted by matteo
on Apr 22, 2005 -
6 comments
Poker player plays for 24 hours in a row?
Yawn. Online poker player plays eight tables simultaneously for 24 hours in a row?
Interesting.
posted by bdk3clash
on Jan 10, 2005 -
20 comments
Poker Redux: Poker is sweeping America (and other countries as well). From million dollar online Texas Hold 'Em tournaments to the weekend nickel, dime, quarter games with friends to the
World Poker Tour (heavily promoted on the
Travel Channel), poker is forcing itself into the spotlight. [more inside]
posted by hawkman
on Oct 23, 2003 -
19 comments
Now,
this is what Ammuricka's all about! Let's be honest about our electoral process....
posted by EssenDreck
on Jul 25, 2000 -
10 comments
