The World Poker Tour Walk of Fame is designed to honor those poker players who have played the game well at the highest levels as well as those who have promoted the spread of it through film, television, and literature. It was started in 2004.In February 2004, The World Poker Tour Walk of Fame inducted its first members at the Commerce Casino in a ceremony before top pros and celebrities in town for the World Poker Tour Invitational Poker Tournament. The induction ceremony was staged on the doorstep of Commerce Casino, the Los Angeles region’s most prestigious gaming establishment and full service entertainment/hotel complex. Poker room to the stars of Hollywood, Commerce Casino has a rich history of poker in Southern California dating back to 1983.
No new players have been inducted since 2004.
The inductees, along with the year they were inducted are as follows:
The Poker Hall of Fame is a group of poker players who have played poker well against top competition for high stakes over a long period of time. Originally established by the Horseshoe Casino, membership is now awarded by Harrah’s World Series of Poker.Members of the Poker Hall of Fame include (with year of induction):
Johnny Moss, 1979
“Nick the Greek” Dandolos, 1979
Felton “Corky” McCorquodale, 1979
Red Winn, 1979
Sid Wyman, 1979
“Wild Bill” Hickok, 1979
Edmond Hoyle, 1979
T. “Blondie” Forbes, 1980
Bill Boyd, 1981
Tom Abdo, 1982
Joe Bernstein, 1983
Murph Harrold, 1984
Red Hodges, 1985
Henry Green, 1986
Walter Clyde “Puggy” Pearson, 1987
Doyle Brunson, 1988
Jack “Treetop” Straus, 1988
Fred “Sarge” Ferris, 1989
Benny Binion, 1990
“Chip” Reese, 1991
“Amarillo Slim” Preston, 1992
Jack Keller, 1993
Little Man Popwell, 1996
Roger Moore, 1997
Stu Ungar, 2001
Lyle Berman, 2002
Johnny Chan, 2002
Bobby Baldwin, 2003
Berry Johnston, 2004
Jack Binion, 2005
Crandell Addington, 2005
T. J. Cloutier, 2006
Billy Baxter, 2006
Barbara Enright, 2007
Phil Hellmuth, 2007
The game of poker (or at least most of the variants) is considered to be computationally intractable. However, methods are being developed to at least approximate perfect strategy from the combinatorial game theory perspective in the heads-up (two player) game, and increasingly good systems are being created for the multi-player or ring game. Perfect strategy has multiple meanings in this context. From a game-theoretic optimal point of view, a perfect strategy is a minimax one that cannot expect to lose to any other player’s strategy; however, optimal strategy can vary in the presence of sub-optimal players who have weaknesses that can be exploited. In this case, a perfect strategy would be one that correctly or closely models those weaknesses and takes advantage of them to make a profit. Some of these systems are based on Bayes theorem, Nash equilibrium, Monte Carlo simulation and Neural networks. A large amount of the research is being done at the University of Alberta by the GAMES group led by Jonathan Schaeffer who developed Poki and PsOpt. The Poki engine has been licensed for the entertainment game STACKED featuring Canadian poker player Daniel Negreanu.One major aspect of poker is being a game of imperfect information. Some cards in play are concealed, so the players cannot deduce the exact state the game is in. This fundamentally differs from games like chess where all information about the game’s current state is public. A major part of the skill of live poker games, however, is guessing at the strength of a player’s hand by identifying tells made by other players, while concealing one’s own. As a computer would not make any physical tells, playing against a computer would necessitate reading tells only from the bets placed. Once the ‘mind’ of the computer is known it can exploited.
Although you cannot read a computer opponent, playing against computer opponents can still help you sharpen your skills by learning how to count outs and play the percentages. With the advancing technology of artificial intelligence, computer players can be created to incorporate bluffs and other human-like decisions.
Pokerbots are bots or computer programs that play online poker disguised as a human opponent. Online poker rooms prohibit the use of bots like WinHoldEm.
The MIT Blackjack Team, as the name suggests, was a group of students and ex-students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who attempted to beat casinos at blackjack worldwide. The team and its successors operated from 1979 through the beginning of the 21st century.
The plan and operation
Blackjack gives the house a low statistical advantage compared to other casino games. Beyond the basic strategy of when to hit and when to stand, individual players can use a combination of betting strategy, card tracking, and card counting to improve their odds. Accurate card counting is a fairly difficult skill, but since the early 1960s a large number of schemes have been published — and casinos have adjusted the rules of play to counter the most popular methods.
The chance to make large amounts of money card counting appealed to some mathematically minded students at MIT. The university had card playing clubs, but some students decided to develop their hobby. The group combined the individual player advantages with a team approach of counters and players to maximise any opportunities and disguise the betting patterns card counting produces. In a 2002 interview in Blackjack Forum magazine, MIT team manager Johnny Chang reported that, in addition to classic card counting and blackjack team techniques, the group at various times made use of advanced shuffle tracking and ace tracking techniques. While the card counting techniques used by the MIT team can give players an overall edge of up to about 2%, some of the MIT team’s methods have been established as gaining players an overall edge of up to about 4%. However, in his interview Chang reported that the MIT team had difficulty attaining such edges in actual play, and their overall results had been best with straight card counting.
The original team recruited students through flyers posted around campus. The team tested interested students to find out if they were suitable candidates, and if they were, the team thoroughly trained the new members. A corporate called Strategic Investments bankrolled the team. With the backing of the corporation, they were able to play with a bankroll of hundreds of thousands of dollars, far larger than would normally be available to college students. Eventually, with team morale suffering after a series of large losses, the corporation closed shop, and the original team disbanded, to be replaced by several new teams founded by alumni of the first group.
The team approach used by the MIT groups was originally developed by Al Francesco, elected by professional gamblers as one of the original 7 inductees into the Blackjack Hall of Fame. Blackjack team play was first written about by Ken Uston, an early member of Al Francesco’s teams. Uston’s book on blackjack team play, Million Dollar Blackjack, was published shortly before the founding of the first MIT team. The team methods devised by Al Francesco, and later used by the MIT team, at first made it more difficult for casinos to detect card counting at their tables. Unfortunately, Uston’s books alerted casinos to the methods of blackjack team play, and several MIT team members were identified and barred. These members were replaced by fresh MIT students, and play continued. Investigators hired by casinos eventually realized that many of those they had banned had addresses in or near Boston, and the connection with MIT became clear. The detectives obtained copies of recent MIT yearbooks and added photographs from it to their image database.
With most of the original team barred, most members retired, having made an amount variously reported as $1 million to $10 million. Some members have used reports of their successes to start public-speaking careers or businesses selling blackjack card counting systems or running blackjack seminars.
In the media
The story of the MIT Blackjack Team was told in the documentary Breaking Vegas, in the book Bringing Down the House, and on an episode of the Game Show Network documentary series, Anything to Win. The private investigation firm referred to as Plymouth in Bringing Down the House was Griffin Investigations.
* 1967—Tim Holland, United States
* 1968—Tim Holland, United States
* 1969— no championships held
* 1970— no championships held
* 1971—Tim Holland, United States
* 1972—Oswald Jacoby, United States
* 1973—Carol Crawford, United States (first female champion)
* 1974—Claude Beer, United States
* 1975—Billy Eisenberg, United States
* 1976—Baron Vernon Ball, United States
* 1977—Ken Goodman, United States
* 1978—Paul “X-22″ Magriel, United States
* 1979—Luigi Villa, Italy
* 1980—Walter Coratella, Mexico
* 1981—Lee Genud, United States
* 1982—Jacques Michel,Switzerland
* 1983—Bill Robertie, United States
* 1984—Mike Svobodny, United States
* 1985—Charles-Henri Sabet, Italy
* 1986—Clement Palacci, Italy
* 1987—Bill Robertie, United States
* 1988—Phillip Marmorstein, Germany
* 1989—Joe Russell, United States
* 1990—Hal Heinrich, Canada
* 1991—Michael Meyburg, Germany
* 1992—Ion Ressu, Romania
* 1993—Peter Jes Thomsen, Denmark
* 1994—Frank Frigo, United States
* 1995—David Ben-Zion, Israel
* 1996—David Nahmad, Israel
* 1997—Jerry Grandell, Sweden
* 1998—Michael Meyburg, Germany
* 1999—Jörgen Granstedt, Sweden
* 2000—Katie Scalamandre, United States
* 2001—Jörgen Granstedt, Sweden
* 2002—Mads Andersen, Denmark
* 2003—Jon Kristian Røyset, Norway
* 2004—Peter Hallberg, Denmark
* 2005—Dennis Carlston, United States
* 2006—Philip Vischjager, Netherlands
* 2007—Jorge Pan, Argentina
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