• printer friendly
• mail this article
• iPod format
• digg

Back in the 1990s, members of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology blackjack team jetted off to Las Vegas and hustled casinos out of millions of dollars using borderline illegal card-counting techniques.

The team’s story is documented in The New York Times Best-Seller “Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions.”

Those MIT students did what everyone who loses in Vegas wishes they could do. But blackjack is admittedly beatable through the application of statistics knowledge. Poker – a hybrid of math and psychology -- now that’s a real challenge. Chris Ferguson, a UCLA alumnus and winner of the 2000 World Series of Poker in the No-Limit Texas Hold ’em main event, is notorious for his application of mathematics in winning poker championships.

Ferguson graduated from UCLA with a doctorate in computer science (specializing in artificial intelligence) and has co-written academic papers on poker with his father, statistics Professor Emeritus Thomas Ferguson.

“In poker, Chris is much beyond me. He helps me, you might say,” the elder Ferguson conceded.

At 2 a.m., after a long day competing in this year’s World Series of Poker in Las Vegas, Chris divulged how mathematics have improved his game. “The top players innately know a lot of the (strategies I know from mathematics) from playing for years and years. Mathematics has enabled me to understand how to play very quickly, from a logical standpoint, as opposed to just sitting down and trying to wing it and trying to learn from experience and mistakes.”

Though elaborate, Professor Ferguson explained that mathematical equations can never simulate real game play. “Poker is a rather complex game, and to make mathematical sense of it, you have to make a lot of assumptions (and take away) a lot of the details of the game that really make it a more interesting game,” Ferguson said.

His son pointed out that since mathematical strategies can only give solutions to simple situations, it’s up to the player to apply solutions to more complicated situations. When math fails, Chris uses his computer science background to find a solution.

“(Writing software) basically teaches me how to play poker. It’s an extension of the mathematical analysis. Some problems you can’t even solve mathematically, so then I go to computer simulations and solve these problems, and then I’ll apply them out in the real world,” Chris said.

If the mathematical aspect were the only factor in poker, then the final table at the World Series of Poker wouldn’t be filled with trash-talkers in sunglasses. Luck and the unpredictable psychological aspect of reading the opponent are the elements that make the game exciting.

Nicknamed “Jesus” in the poker world, Chris utilizes his signature long, wavy hair, scraggly beard, and cowboy hat as a form of misdirection. Underneath that façade is a computer-programming ballroom swing dancer (he discovered this passion at UCLA and subsequently became the president of the Ballroom Dance Club during his graduate days), who can cut a banana in half by throwing a playing card like a ninja star at 70 mph.

As evidenced by Chris’ diversity of interests, poker players come from all walks of life. Mathematics Professor James White, whose research focuses on geometry and molecular biology, doesn’t apply any advanced statistics or probability knowledge when he plays poker recreationally. He laughs at the thought of consciously figuring out the mathematics behind the game; to him, it simply wouldn’t be as fun.

But in poker, after the odds have been calculated, a little luck can never hurt.

Chris recounted his winning hand at the tournament in 2000 as he went head-to-head against the legendary T.J. Cloutier. “I still had a 30 percent chance of winning, a very close call. … Normally, I’m not willing to gamble against a lot of poker players. I’m going to try and outplay them. But T.J. Cloutier is a very strong player. I was willing to take a gamble.”