Casino-Twist

David Sklansky has been given detention for calling his sixth grade teacher a “moron”.  As he’s walking down the hall that night (after taking a face from the ancient gallery), he notices there’s 100 closed but unlocked lockers along one wall. On his first trip down the hall he opens all 100 lockers.  He then goes back to the beginning and closes every second locker. On his third time down the hall, he stops at every third locker and opens it if it’s closed, and closes it if it’s open(call this ‘toggling’). He continues this, toggling every Nth locker on his Nth trip, until on his 100th time down the hall he toggles only the last locker(and no, he doesn’t take anything from the lockers; they’re all empty).

a.)  At this point, how many lockers are open?

b.)  Starting from the first trip, how many toggles are done?

c.)  Which locker gets toggled the most times?

Answer 1:

To be open, a locker must have been toggled an odd number of times.  The number of times locker number N is toggled equals the number of positive integer factors of N.  Since the only natural numbers that have an odd number of factors are the perfect squares, then lockers 1, 4, 9, 16, 25, …. 100 (a total of 10 lockers) are open. Add the total number of factors of the numbers 1 through 100.  My computer gives 482. A tie between lockers 60, 72, 84, 90, and 96.  Each of these got toggled 12 times.  (If we assume that the each trip along the lockers is in a direction opposite to the previous, then locker number N on the first pass would be number M on the return trip, where N+M=101.  A locker would be toggled once for every ODD factor of N and once for every EVEN factor of M.  For example, locker number 5 (N=5, M=96) would get toggled during trips 1 and 5, and during return trips 2, 4, 6, 8, 12, 16, 24, 32, 48, and 96.  Locker numbers 21 and 45 tie with number 5 for the most number of toggles: 12.  There would be a total of 482 toggles. The number of lockers open would be 24.)

Answer 2:

David makes 100 trips down a hall way opening and closing locker doors, but the sixth grade teacher is the moron?

Answer 3:

I’m no great mathematician it’s been years but here goes, if I’m way off base please let me know.
a:10 doors open Depending upon my understanding of what a toggle being correct
b: 482 toggles
c: five lockers are toggled 11 times 60,72,84,90,96

I played in a $4/$8 HE game (highest limit in the room at the time) and watched a guy lose more than $1,100.00  He wasn’t drunk or stoned – and he wasn’t rich. In fact, he was really pissed about losing so much money.  He also was not taking more than the usual number of bad beats.  He was just a loose, and horrible, player.  The rest of the line-up was weak to average.  I had so many chips the guys running the game asked me to sell some of them back. This guy blamed the dealer – but he lost with every dealer who got in the box. He blamed the players (especially me) for ‘sucking out” yet on most of the hands he was never in the lead.  I asked around and the other players said, “That’s the way he always plays”. This is nothing new – we have all been in games like this and seen players like this.  Usually I don’t give them a thought – I just try to get my share of the money they are throwing away.  But last night I started asking myself, “What can this guy be thinking?”  What keeps a guy like this coming back week after week when he always goes home a huge loser?  How do they convince themselves that they lose because of bad luck or bad dealers or that the other players just got lucky?  I don’t know – maybe it takes a shrink to understand this kind of thing.

Answer 1:

I have a little theory about players like this, based partly on my experience of my father’s attitude about golf.  See, my father never breaks 90 on 18 holes, yet he considers himself a good golfer, and is constantly “working” on his game.  He goes from being a pretty solid guy to being an absolute baby emotionally on the golf course- ranting, raving, throwing clubs, cursing, steaming, etc.  Yet he goes back again and again, always with the insane hope that “this time it will be different.” I’ve reached the conclusion that it is somehow *emotionally satisfying* for him to be a loser and a victim.  Poker seems to attract a few people with this same profile.  They self-sabotage, think they are good at the games, get stuck and steamed in a heartbeat, and piss money away in the silliest of ways.  And they keep coming back.  They are trapped by the gloomy glamor of being losers and victims.  I find it *very* unpleasant to be seated with them.

Answer 2:

I think some gamblers are afraid to win. For whatever reasons, they cannot conceive of themselves as winners. In many cases, I think the problem is that if they accept responsibility for how things turn out at the poker table, they will also have to accept responsibility for how other things turn out in their life. It wouldn’t surprise me if this guy has other problems he blames on his wife, employer, neighbors, etc.

Answer 3:

You make a good point. They lose on purpose.  They can’t stand to win; it would be contrary to how they feel about themselves. I see these born losers miss a hand and do bodily harm to themselves. Seen a guy bite himself until he bled.  Watched a guy rub 5 or 6 diamond tip stick matches with his fist on the table until they ignited and stuck to his fist.  All part of the disease.

Anyone know if the beginner’s pot limit $5 buy in tournament at the Ladbrokes regency in London is worth playing? Is the buy in too low to get good action.

Depends entirely on whether you are new to the game or not.  If you are it’s definitely worth playing in.  You get a great mixture of decent, experienced players (chancing their arm before the cash games), bad but habitual players and total beginners.  Top prize usually comes out at around the £300 mark which isn’t bad but, for a beginner, just the experience of playing in a casino, often at a self deal table, is worth the buy in alone.  Be warned, during the re-buy period (1st 50 minutes) everything you’ve read about poker goes out of the window.  It’s mayhem.  People go all in with mediocre hands all the time, so you never know what you’re up against.  I even saw one guy CALL all in with an only a little under the buy in amount, and he held 3 5 off-suit.  All you can do during the re-buys is hang in there and hope to catch some cards.  If you do you can soak up a serious amount of chips because, at £5, people don’t care how many times they buy in.  After the re-buys are over things tighten up considerably and the tournament settles down.  It’s a great laugh, the people are friendly and the staffs are great. I doubt you’d regret giving it a try.

Answer 2:

Something where the players will give you respect for a good hand rather than seeing it doggedly to the river with a pile of crap because it’s so cheap.

Answer 3:

There are other, neighborhood poker clubs in Paris — I’ve played in
the Marais near the Place des Vosges and in Montmartre. Though you’d better speak a bit of French if you want to play in them.