Friday, February 29, 2008

Poker: Fate vs Luck

So the other day I was in Waterloo with Duy and we met up with Wen, and one thing lead to another and we started talking about poker, and how it's luck-ish and I brought up how it's also fate-ish, which started some weird conversation about how... stuff... stuff... anyway, some of you will probably lose your mind reading this, and I'll lose my mind writing this so we both win. So why is poker about fate?

Well... after the dealer shuffles the deck, the cards are determined. That is, they are in a certain order that won't change. If you label the cards 1, 2, 3, ... 52, and let's say there are 4 people at the table, then for sure, player 1 will get cards 1,5, p2 will get 2,6, p3 will get 3,7, p4 will get 4,8, and after the burn cards, the cards on the table will be (burn 9) - 10, 11, 12 (burn 13), 14, (burn 15), and 16.

Okay, so the cards are already in a certain order after they're shuffled, so in a way the cards are determined, as I've shown above, so that's why poker is about fate. It's like, um, "God", he can see what the cards will be. I mean, if, let's say just before the river card, the dealer shuffles the cards, then the top card is no longer determined, and in this way "God" cannot see what the last card will be.

So if you're holding and 2 and an 8, and your opponent is holding two aces, well... it was determined, after the shuffle, that you would get those cards, and if the flop happens to be three 2's, then so be it - it's like, at this moment in history, it was determined that your 2 and 8 will beat the 2 aces. It was determined - you weren't lucky, it just was determined. Maybe it was even more determined if a computer or machine shuffled the cards, instead of a person shuffling the cards? ooh, I brought up a new point... wheee...

So here comes the question - if you can choose whether the dealer would shuffle the deck just before the river card, would you have him/her do it? I think it depends on what you want. Let's say you're holding two spades, and there are 2 spades on the flop. Nothing on the turn. Now it's time for the river, and you're looking for a spade. So you want to know if it was determined that the last card would be a spade. First, now go back to "luck" and probability. What are the chances that the top card up there is a spade? Well, it's one card out of the remaining 40-45 cards. Do you feel lucky that the top single card is a spade?

Or would you rather think that there's a better chance that there or more spades below the top card, and you would feel better if the deck was shuffled so that one of those spades might make it to the top? For some reason, I think if you were in this situation, you would feel better if the dealer shuffled the deck. If they don't shuffle the deck, then it's fate that determines whether you win or not; if you do shuffle the deck, it's luck that determines whether you win or not. And since you're not in control of this fate, you would rather go on the side of luck.

Likewise, if you're holding a great hand and you don't want any surprises on the river, I think you would rather not shuffle the deck. You wouldn't want some jerk holding two spades to get lucky because they shuffle a spade to the top of the deck. I think you have a better chance that the top card of the deck is something non-threatening.

While we're on this weird subject, I think you would feel better if you lost a hand due to fate, rather than if you lost a hand due to luck. Losing a hand due to luck, that's because of bad luck, and you just feel bad. If you lose a hand due to fate, due to the top card being determined to make the other guy win, then you kinda go, "oh well, that's the way it was meant to be". It still sucks, but you feel like you understand the reason why you lost more... if you lost because you're unlucky, it's harder to justify it.

Are you confused yet? I know I am. Anyway, the actual question that I posed was, if I polled 1000 poker players, how many of them would say that they would want to keep the game the way it is, or to have the dealer shuffle the cards before the river (or the turn, or whatever)? I think I decided that most would keep it the way it is, but more interestingly, bad poker players would want to allow the shuffling, and good poker players would want to keep it the way it is. Good poker players understand the game and they usually like to be more certain of the results (and perhaps they would be winning in the hand before the river anyway), and bad poker players like to depend on luck to help them win.

What do you think? Are you super confused yet? Or did you just go "meh" at the whole topic? heehee.

Monday, February 25, 2008

Home is where it's best... or is it?

So the other day we went skiing up at horseshoe valley, and the first night we were in our lodge, we were watching American Gladiator. But it was a rerun. And it was on a smaller tv. so someone observed, "we paid money to drive all the way up here, to watch reruns on a smaller tv? what a waste of money!" - and rightly so.

I walk around in the cove in Waterloo, and I see games like Capcom vs SNK 2 and Marvel vs Capcom 2, and I say to myself, "I'm not playing these here. I can play these at home for free." And $4 for a Corona? Hmmph! Haha, I don't think so. 4 bucks for a shot of Polar Bear? I can make those at home, thank you very much.

So why go out? Everything is cheaper at home. Plus you don't have to dress up. The bathrooms are pretty nice at home too. So why go out?

To be social. It's a social thing. Sure, you can have friends over, or you can go out with friends. For now, let's just discuss Dave & Buster's, but we can talk about other things later. When you're out, you're all dressed up and you feel prettier than when you are at home, so you feel like a different person. There are a bunch of people around and they're all having a good time, so you're more likely to have a good time too. They're enjoying themselves, drinking and playing games and laughing at jokes, so you start doing the same too.

Sure, you can play games in the comfort of your own home, but it's more impressive in a social environment with other people around. Sure, you can drink at home, but it's more... social... to do it in a social environment. It's much more expensive though, which is a price you pay for social envinronmentation. A lot of people pay a lot of good money for social envinronmentation, which is something that I only recently started doing, but I want to do more of.

Clubbing/dancing? Well, we have music at home, and to an extent with have disco lights and stuff... but once again, in a real club, there are thousands of dancers (girls too! imagine that) and people drinking... and overall it's very social. And that's what it is.

It's all the social scene. You buy a beer at a restaurant to be social, you pay for a group of shots at D&B so to be social, group-like, and you play arcade games because everyone else is doing it and it's fun in a big group social environment. You go out and dance at a club because your basement isn't as awesome as a club.

Friday, February 15, 2008

Puff Puff!

Yay, I finally got my shotgun of choice in Call of Duty 4. First I thought it was level 21, but when I got to level 20 I checked again and it was 31, so.. yeah. But now I have it, and yay! It's the shotgun that I used during the last level of the single player campaign, and I loved it. I call it (the) Puff Puff - it's a fast firing shotgun, maybe 2 shots per second with almost no recoil, compared to a regular shotgun, which is, what, 1 shot every 1.5 seconds with a lot of recoil? So yeah, the Puff Puff is really strong. Sure, the magazine only holds 4 shots before you have to reload, but if you're a good shotgun player it's not a huge problem.

Why Puff Puff? You walk into a room, you shoot 1 or 2 bullets, and you kill someone. You're a few feet away from a guy and you just walk up to him and "Puff Puff!" And he falls down. I think of it less of a shotgun, but more like... those ZSU-23 anti-air guns that the Allies have in Red Alert. They fire rapidly, and when they fire they emit puffs of black smoke, and they make puff puff noises too, but they're strong as hell.

Anyway, I'm enjoying the shotgun, a lot! Unfortunately, as you probably are aware, it's only good in short range. In most levels, it's better if I use an assault rifle or light machine gun... I think I can main a shotgun and pick up some weapon dropped by other people, and it seems to be working sometimes... but I should probably be smarter and just main an assaultrifle/LMG for those kinds of levels and just main the shotgun for several smaller levels. But once I reach level 37 I can main both! heehee. Not sure if I will though, it'll reduce the number of fun perks I can have... but we'll see.

Other GameTypes

What am I, an instruction booklet? Why am I writing about different gametypes? Well, lately I don't read instruction booklets anymore, and instruction booklets don't really have too many opinions. So of course there are other gametypes than just Team Deathmatch, which we've been playing mostly. Different gametypes give you different kinds of experience (exp points).

For example, in Team Deathmatch, when you kill someone, you get 10 exp (and it counts toward your team total, since the limit rules are 750 points / 10 minutes). In Headquarters, the main objective is to secure or destroy a certain target, so your whole team gets points as long as your team secures the target, and those points count toward your experience too. Since your main objective is not to kill other guys, you only get 5 exp for killing someone, and those 5exp do not count toward your team-winning points, but you do get exp for it.

In Secure and Destroy, when you die you don't respawn - but when you kill someone, you get 50 exp instead of 5 or 10, which is quite sweet. I like S&D, players seem to play more... realistic then. More cowardly you might say, or more sneaky. I think when you play S&D you learn to play better, since you only have one life and you are handsomely rewarded when you take away someone else's "one life". hehe. (once again, I don't think I'll main shotgun in S&D).

Classes

So you can create custom classes so you have multiple to choose from. For Team Deathmatch, for now I'm switching between a shotgun class and some assault rifle class which I haven't fully leveled up yet. As for my perks, for my assault rifle class I have 3x special grenade, juggernaut (more health), and usually last stand (pull out pistol before you die). For shotgun, I'm still starting out, but I have 3x special grenade, stopping power (strong bullets; obviously, shotgun depends on killing the other guy before he kills you)... and my 3rd perk... right now I'm trying better non-targetting accuracy, so I can puff puff without aiming. Or I might have martyrdom (drop a live grenade upon death), since I'm close to people all the time anyway.

For Headquarters... I haven't puff puffed here yet, but I will probably have the same thing as in deathmatch, but more likely to drop live grenades upon death since it works nicely in this mode. I also like the 3 special grenades in HQ since I use them a lot. When I reach level 41 and I unlock 3 frag grenades, would I use that in HQ? Not sure. I'll probably use it in Deathmatch and S&D, but I'm not so sure about HQ yet. In S&D (the 1 life only game), I main either assault rifle or sniper, and I'm a fan of extreme conditioning, which lets you run longer - this lets me be sneaky and run to people to knife them. Shooting them from a far you might miss, but if you can sneak up to him (by running to catch up to him) and knifing him, well, there's that 50 points, and that's nice. Something like dropping a grenade or pulling out pistol on death... nah, since you only get to do it once, I don't really think this is all too useful. It could be very epic, but nah.

Friday, February 08, 2008

Level up! You've been promoted to General! + Call of Duty 4

Why does leveling up feel so good? Well, it's partially obvious... leveling up makes you better, or, it makes the game more fun. Sometimes you get stronger, sometimes you get a better variety of skills, you get better versions of those skills, etc... and I like it in games when you can level up several things at once... like, you can kill enemies to gain experience, but you can also kill enemies with a certain weapon or spell, and that weapon gets stronger. Also, I like it when there are other objectives than "kill enemies" that gain you experience... like, collect 5 herbs in WOW, or perform 5 air kills or whatever... that said...

I love Call of Duty 4. I found it a bit surprising that you can level up in Call of Duty 4. But it sure brings a lot more playing value to the game. Sure, I can play Halo 3 for hours and hours and have fun, but in Call of Duty 4 you do the same but you feel better since you're 'growing'.

In Call of Duty 4, there are 55 levels. Unlike WOW and RPGs, you don't get stronger when you level up... when you play multiplayer, you can be level 1 or 8 or 20, and you'll fight anyone from level 1 (or maybe 0? I forget) to 55. If you do get stronger as you level up, level 8 vs 40 would be so unfair! Instead... well, first let's explain what you have.

In Call of Duty, when you start a match or respawn, you start with a primary weapon, a sidearm, and a certain number of grenades. Before you start a match, you choose a class, which you customize. In the class, you choose your primary weapon, sidearm, special grenades, and perks. Each character has 3 perks, which can be thought of as Relics in FF6 or Materia in FF7. There are perks such as more life, stronger bullets, deeper bullet penetration (so you can shoot through wood and stuff), faster reload, hold more grenades, longer sprinting, etc...

Each player has 5 custom classes, and you choose which class you want to play before you start a match. So if it's a small map, you might pick a shotgun class with exploding bonuses upon death... or if it's a huge map or you're playing a 'defend a territory' gametype, you might be a sniper with better accuracy... and things like that. That's pretty cool.

So, back to leveling. At level 0, you have a certain number of perks to choose from, and a few number of weapons; 1 assault rifle, 1 shotgun, 1 sniper, 1 sidearm, 1 sniper, 1 light machine gun, 1 submachine gun, etc... so as you level up, you get to choose from a higher variety of different weapons, and you get more perks too. Additionally, after level 5 or so, you open up the 'boot camp' challenges and separate weapon challenges.

Boot camp challenges give you bonus experience when you do certain things, like "kill an enemy with a knife", or "kill 3 enemies with grenades", or "successfully call in an air strike". So you get extra experience when you do these things, but also, while in game, when you first finish a challenge, you get an awesome guitar riff sound effect and a big achievement pops up on your screen. Makes you feel good.

Weapon challenges upgrade your weapon, and they also give you more experience! If you kill with a certain weapon a number of times, you might get a new scope (for better zooming/accuracy), or if you get a certain number of headshots, you unlock some other new feature. Like bootcamp challenges, you also get an awesome feeling of rewardness when you complete the challenges.

You get a lot of exp bonus when you complete these challenges, so I think I'll be rotating between each of the assault rifles, lmg's and smg's and getting all the experience. Wheee... hehe, funny story. I really liked the shotgun I used in the last level in single player, so I was looking forward to it in multiplayer, but unfortunately, you don't start with it. I somehow read that you get the weapon at level 21, so I got to level 20 and I was so happy that I was almost getting it, but then I rechecked it and you get the weapon at 31! Argh! I slipperysloped myself, but that's okay, hehe.

In case you're wondering, nowadays my primary weapon is a Light Machine Gun (when I'm not leveling other weapons), preferably the M249Saw, one of the weapons you start with; pretty strong, but has a huge long reload time. I use it with the red sight scope. I have with me 1 frag grenade and 3 flash grenades (which have an awesome effect on the screen, btw), a pistol (I don't really care which one, until I get the desert eagle, haha), and I'm using extra grenades, more health, and Last Stand. When I die, I usually fall down, pull out my pistol, and lie on the ground bleeding for a few seconds more, but I get to look around and shoot people with my pistol. It's very surprising to some people, and I love surprising them.

This was a long entry, about stuff... anyway, I'm really liking Call of Duty 4. And that's why I like it... it's fun too.

Tuesday, February 05, 2008

I am So Upset right now!

I am so upset right now! and I'm kinda disappointed because I was looking for a specific webcomic on a blog to express my upsetness, but I couldn't find it.

Anyway, so I wanted to play some xbox, but my parents were using the tv, so I might as well use the wii - I haven't used it in forever, and there are still games that I have to play/finish. So I wanted to play Super Mario Galaxy.

There are 9 gamecube/wii game-boxes surrounding the wii, one of which was Super Mario Galaxy, and it was empty! And Smarty Pants was in the wii, so I took it out and put it in its box. And all the other 7 games? They had games in them! Smash, Big Brain, Wii Sports, Wii Play, Link's Crossbow Training, Zelda, and Warioware - they all had games in them, except Super Mario Galaxy!

What the fuck? I only want to play that one game right now, and that's the only game that isn't there. What the fuck is up with that? It's like the world is all against me. Logically, all games would be in their boxes, but nooo... the one game I want, is the only game that isn't there. What the fuck?

Fuck.

Saturday, February 02, 2008

Life is chaotic

If a butterfly flaps its wings in one part of the world, it could cause people at the opposite end of the globe to watch a Discovery Channel special on butterflies.