Maths Extended Essay - Probabilty in Gambling (BlackJack or Poker)

Hi! Im kind of getting a panic rush since its less than a month for a first extended essay draft and i still havent startded writting!!! :eek:

My extended is about probabilty in gambling but i still havent decided what game am i going to do my research on. I was thinking between Poker and BlackJack. Does anyone know which of theese two is "more resourcefull"?

Also if you know any good books related to the topic i would greatly appreciate it. Tnx in advance

Reply 1

omfgman

Have you considered a different topic? I don't think this topic has much depth to it other than calculating the probability of getting different hands which is tedious work but it doesn't really show that you have any insight.

Less than a month is plenty of time to do a first draft. I would suggest you take a look at some of the old math IA's and try to do some of the last questions in each of them. Those actually require quite a bit of investigation and if you are really a math person, you'll be very into it and you can definitely write 4000+ words on one of those questions if you rephrase the questions or look at certain aspects of it.

Reply 2

jhomie

11

Poker would be too complicated.

There are already mathematical methods for blackjack which you could analyze mathematically.

You could read the book Bringing down the House and/or watch the movie 21. Analyze the Hi-Lo method or something...

I don't know exactly what you're supposed to do for a Maths EE

Reply 3

daMuffinMan

I did a similar topic - but I did my EE in Computer Science instead of mathematics.

You should consider reading the book "Beat the Dealer" by Edward Thorpe, it's the definitive guide for mathematics behind Blackjack...

IMHO, poker is rather difficult as there are so many different variations as opposed to Blackjack, which follows the same rules in virtually all casinos.

Reply 4

Hyeree

this EE sounds interesting :smile:

can i read it when you're done?? pretty pretty please??
=D
good luck writing though.. im stuck on mine atm :s-smilie:

Reply 5

kaliero

OP

thanks for all the help. I've bought "Beat the Dealer" and it is really helpfull. Ill let you know how it went when Im finally finished with it :biggrin:

Reply 6

SunderX

14

I wouldn't do an EE on poker (I'm assuming you're talking about Texas Hold 'Em, which is usually taken to be 'poker'). While you could easily calculate the probabilities of getting something in the flop considering what you have in your own hand, the real depth would come from using an algorithm to determine whether to call, raise or fold based upon the current bet, your hand, and other people's play, which would involve a hefty dose of psychology.

I reckon analysing one of the counting cards methods would be good. I don't know if this applies for mathematics EE's, but most EE's also require you to do some original research/data gathering. Perhaps you survey whether someone counting cards wins more money than someone who doesn't, and by how much.

Reply 7

daMuffinMan

Just to add to that lots of people play irregularly or follow their intuition / gut feeling even if the mathematical odds are against them in hold'em, so it's really hard to account for that. Sure you may be able to do a complete mathematical analysis for poker but taking the behaviourial side in to account is really difficult.

Reply 8

cooca8

Original post by daMuffinMan

I did a similar topic - but I did my EE in Computer Science instead of mathematics.

You should consider reading the book "Beat the Dealer" by Edward Thorpe, it's the definitive guide for mathematics behind Blackjack...

IMHO, poker is rather difficult as there are so many different variations as opposed to Blackjack, which follows the same rules in virtually all casinos.

Hi, Im thinking about doing my ee on counting cards in blackjack and have already bought the book you are mentioning. Are there any other books I should read or is it fine for me to use this book as my only reference. I would also want to see a similar sample essay so I can have a better idea of how to conduct my research. Can you also give any advince on anything else you feel is important! :colone:

Thanks

(edited 13 years ago)

Reply 9

blindpet

I think your idea is really cool. Check out some past math EEs here to get an idea of what a good EE looks like.

Maths Extended Essay - Probabilty in Gambling (BlackJack or Poker)

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