MIT offers everyone a free lesson in poker theory

The first video of the course, the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology posted a free course of lectures on the topic "Theory and Analytics of Poker" (in English). Video lectures , summaries and special notes on the course are available. This event is part of the OpenCourseWare program, which is dedicated to organizing free access to selected institute lectures for everyone, even those who do not study in it.

Remember how many people at school say: “Well, why do we teach this, it will not be useful to us!”?



So, lectures on poker - perhaps, may turn out to be not only interesting, but also very useful from a practical point of view.

Lectures are conducted by the undergraduate of the institute Kevin Desmond, who received a bachelor's degree in finance. And, logically, his lectures are about the analysis and planning technologies designed to maximize the benefits of playing for money.

The course discusses the basics of the game, the best strategies, and those important details that self-taught usually miss. The analysis of the players' behavior, game manners and forecasts of their future actions depending on previous distributions is considered.

Desmond taught the class last winter and helped to make it open to all comers. And analysis of the game, risks and strategies in the future may come in handy andnot only in this form of gambling .

MIT is not the first to organize courses related to gambling. In the 80-90s of the last century, a small group of students of the institute became interested in the issue of counting cards in the twenty-one game, and tried their hand at various casinos. By chance, they met a professional player, and under his leadership they went pretty well at the Las Vegas casino, winning a total of hundreds of thousands of dollars.


Documentary about the team

In one form or another, the team known as the MIT Blackjack Team has been operating for 15 years. They became so famous that they wrote several books about them, and made several films based on events, including the film " 21 " in 2008 with the Oscar-winning Kevin Spacey in the title role.


The real leader of the MIT Blackjack Team, Bill Kaplan