> It was February 8, 1998, and Carmack was about to put his brain to the test: counting cards in blackjack. This had become something of a new fascination of his. “Having a reasonable grounding in statistics and probability and no belief in luck, fate, karma, or god(s), the only casino game that interests me is blackjack,” he wrote in a .plan file. “Playing blackjack properly is a test of personal discipline. It takes a small amount of skill to know the right plays and count the cards, but the hard part is making yourself consistantly [sic] behave like a robot, rather than succumbing to your ‘gut instincts.’ ” To refine his skills before the trip, Carmack applied his usual learning approach: consuming a few books on the subject and composing a computer program, in this case one that simulated the statistics of blackjack dealt cards.
> His research proved successful, netting him twenty thousand dollars, which he donated to the Free Software Foundation, an organization of like-minded believers in the Hacker Ethic.
> His research proved successful, netting him twenty thousand dollars, which he donated to the Free Software Foundation, an organization of like-minded believers in the Hacker Ethic. “Its [sic] not like I’m trying to make a living at [blackjack],” Carmack wrote online after his trip, “so the chance of getting kicked out doesn’t bother me too much.” It didn’t take long for him to find out just how he’d feel. On the next trip, Carmack was approached by three men in dark suits who said, “We’d appreciate if you’d play any other game than blackjack.”
> The others at the table watched in disbelief. “Why are they doing this to you?” a woman asked.
> “They think that I’m counting cards,” Carmack said.
> “They think you can remember all those different cards?”
> “Yeah,” Carmack replied, “something like that.”
> “Well, what do you do?”
> “I’m a computer programmer,” he said, as he was escorted out the door.
You usually have a few smaller players just playing fixed bets who call over some higher roller that will do the big betting when the count is high, and then just leave when the count gets low.
Rumor has it that the security cameras now have software that will tally the count automatically, and flag people that play when the count is up. Coupled with player identification (facial recognition/player rewards cards) and correlating player times, casinos are starting to automate this. All rumor, of course, but sounds plausible if you're willing to throw a few million at the problem.
Back in 2005 I was approached by one of the casino groups that was looking for a director of technology to manage the team that did "camera analytics". Seemed like a pretty neat job technically.
So I looked up the privacy policy of Holland Casinos and there is no mention of facial recognition, only mention of CCTV for security purposes (under which I wouldn't expect prevention of adverse losses to fall) and a seven day storage period of camera footage. They are not explicit but suggest they do not use camera data for profiling purposes.
If I remember correctly, then that is true in Nevada, but not in Atlantic City. There they have to let you play even if they suspect you of counting cards.
Of course that just means they will employ other means to prevent you from counting cards (larger shoes, continuous shuffling, etc).
I've always assumed that the two are really the same thing. If you get good at the game then that implies you're using an intuition for the probabilities of certain events based on the history of the cards.
I suppose the casinos don't have to justify this, or have any moral quandaries about it.
I'd recommend Fabien Sanglards's Wolfenstein and Doom books (https://fabiensanglard.net/gebbwolf3d/). These go into WAY TOO MUCH technical info (in a great way!), but don't cover any of the hilarious rock-star antics.
My secret wish is someone would re-write Masters Of Doom to be 25% more Game Engine Black Book, and fix up some of the prose!
The Doom book does mention Romero getting locked into his office one day and Carmack cutting down the door with a battleaxe, but I didn't mind knowing that detail. (There's a picture too)
The doom book is pretty forgettable and so is Linus's... I'll go take my cyanide pill now.
I obviously can't guarantee getting that feeling back in full, but I've been able to experience remnants of it by just poking around with completely unfamiliar tools/languages/servers/systems that have little to no use in business. Maybe even obsolete.
Basically, look for anything that you wouldn't be tempted to turn into a job or use to make any real money. Just enjoy it for what it is. Write hacky code. Press all the wrong buttons. Make it do things it was never meant to do. Do stupid things with it just for the sake of doing stupid things. Have fun just for the sake of it being fun.
It's a great book, mostly about John Carmack and the guys at ID!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masters_of_Doom