Hacker's Poker Invitational
Fear Uncertainty and Doubt
Exploiting Chips for Fun and Profit
ENOCHIPS
There are many good poker players in the world of information security. However some are better than others...
If you think your poker face is worth a crap, come play with the best of the best in our field. No corporate mumbo jumbo, no boring shwag, just real, true green, cash money! We won't take your information to sell you junk, nor do we even care who you are. If you buyin and win, the cash is YOURS!
The event is to be hosted at the Caesar's Palace Poker Room on July 28, 2010 at 6PM. You can buy in any time prior to the event by visiting the poker room and checking in at the registration desk. Buyin for the event is $200 USD payable at the time of registration. Game of choice for the event will be Texas Hold'em. This is the same game played on TV and at other major poker events. 100% of the entry fee goes to the prize pool with a small portion kept by Caesar's for hosting.
Start time is 6:00 PM by the poker room clock.
If you think you've got what it takes come take a shot with the rest of the wanna be poker players in the information security field. Determine which player gets the trophy, the bragging rights, and most importantly.. THE CASH!
RSVP not required, but preferred to ensure enough space.. so please RSVP
I came across this blurb today. I found it very interesting. It discusses the difference between a "mystery" and a "puzzle". Poker is most DEFINITELY a mystery!
"Risks and Riddles"
The Soviet Union was a puzzle. Al Qaeda is a mystery. Why we need to know the difference By Gregory F. Treverton
There's a reason millions of people try to solve crossword puzzles each day. Amid the well-ordered combat between a puzzler's mind and the blank boxes waiting to be filled, there is satisfaction along with frustration. Even when you can't find the right answer, you know it exists. Puzzles can be solved; they have answers.
But a mystery offers no such comfort. It poses a question that has no definitive answer because the answer is contingent; it depends on a future interaction of many factors, known and unknown. A mystery cannot be answered; it can only be framed, by identifying the critical factors and applying some sense of how they have interacted in the past and might interact in the future. A mystery is an attempt to define ambiguities."
Another really interesting blub from the same article is regarding the use of Bayesian mystery framing in modern medicine. This same type of logic is exactly what one does at the poker table!
While few doctors would put it this way, they act upon something that might be called Bayesian mystery framing. Bayes' theorem is a statistical technique for adjusting subjective probabilities in light of new, but inconclusive, evidence. Doctors base an initial assessment of a patient's health on propensity, as revealed by his or her medical history, and on diagnosis, determined through an examination. If the doctor's initial assessment is of a high probability of disease, he or she orders more tests, which in turn refine that probability. For chronic concerns, such as high blood pressure leading to heart disease, the initial assessment leads to a decision about whether and how to treat, followed by subsequent tests to see if the original probability of problems can be revised downward.
http://www.smithsonianmagazine.com/issues/2007/june/presence-puzzle.htm
While I snatched this blub off of an infosec mailing list, I couldn't resist matching it's comments to my other passion. Thanks Gunnar for sending this to the mailing list
I haven't yet posted about poker, but since it's my other passion (besides infosec), here is an article about observation. The concept of JDLR ("Just doesn't look right") is described and examples of observation are outlined. What's of most interest is the following paragraph:
"In any occupation that involves repetitive motion, the person develops learned motor skills, things that he or she doesn.t have to think about doing that are the same over and over again. What about when, as you are watching some veteran dealer on a game, she hesitates halfway through picking up the losing bets, or makes some unexplained flub like dropping chips? That should be enough to cue the Investigator that this dealer is thinking about her motions, and she needs to be watched very closely. He might find she's just having a bad day, but she might be paying the rent from the casino's pocket."
This is what we call a "tell" in poker. Anything that deviates from the norm because the player has to consciously think about the action should be a trigger to the astute observer. This can be extrapolated to online play as well. The player who habitually bets within seconds when he has the goods all of a sudden hesitates to the max time limit then raises. Most likely this is a bluff (and a poor one at that).
Watch the patterns, watch the norms, analyze for deviations from that norm.
