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Mathematical Magic: Tricks to Stump Your Friends

Gaming

Mathematical Magic: 3 Tricks to Stump Your Friends

April 17, 2019 by Todd

Much of the content of this blog has focused on games and gambling, and an underlying theme in many of the posts has been the mathematics that underlie decisions or approaches to play. There is another area where mathematics comes up in clever but unexpected ways: magic. (And no, this...

Gaming

Balanced Play in Social Deduction Board Games

April 6, 2018 by Rob

You’ve been carefully observing the actions of the players around you, knowing full-well that they might not be who they claim. No, you’re not a character in John Carpenter’s “The Thing,” or stuck at a speed-dating event. You are playing “The Resistance: Avalon,” a social deduction board game. Players in...

Gaming

Scrabble Strategy: Board Position, Leaves, and Bingos

August 8, 2017 by Tim

Scrabble was my greatest passion for many years. I played in many national and international tournaments during Middle School and High School. Throughout this time, I was immersed in an intriguing and vibrant community of Scrabble players, where I witnessed the game and its various strategies. What I found most...

Gaming

The Detective and the Starcraft 2 Player: How Experts Observe and Think

March 20, 2017 by Jack & Rob

How does the experienced detective, strategy game player, or trader think about and observe situations differently from a beginner? One important difference is how experts use their experience to gain an edge when making decisions based on imperfect information. In the book, “Sources of Power,” the author, Dr. Gary Klein,...

Gaming

World Chess Championship 2016 Through the Eyes of a Chess Fan

February 6, 2017 by Bill

The position seen below is from the last tiebreak game of the 2016 World Chess Championship match in New York City. The defending World Champion, Magnus Carlsen, holding White, simply had to find a draw to retain his title against the Challenger Sergey Karjakin. Instead, he sealed the victory with...

Gaming

On Trading Games

January 13, 2017 by Joey

We talk a lot on this site about how various games are related to trading. Poker is our favorite example, but we’ve also mentioned Agricola, Magic: The Gathering, fantasy drafting, and even video games. One may notice, however, that we’ve never mentioned a board game that involves trading. Why is...

Gaming

Why Crossword Construction is Still Driven by Humans

October 3, 2016 by Sam

This is an original crossword I wrote which hasn’t appeared anywhere else. It gets spoiled within the post, so try solving before reading on! So why do you need humans at all? In our technology-driven world where computers are doing more and more of the tedious tasks once relegated to...

Gaming

Why Margaery Tyrell Would Make a Better Poker Player than The High Sparrow

June 30, 2016 by Rob

WARNING: SPOILERS ARE COMING In Game of Thrones Season 6 Episode 10, the Sparrows are holding a trial for Cersei Lannister, which they expect her to attend. It is clear that the Sparrows have more military strength than Cersei. They have the Faith Militant, as well as the King’s army....

Gaming

If You’re Reading This, You Probably Didn’t Win the Powerball

February 8, 2016 by Todd

The buzz may be over, but let's take a look at what your odds were of winning the largest Powerball prize drawing to date anyway. The estimated jackpot was $1.5 Billion, which is more than the GDP of Djibouti (and 25 other countries). The problem with playing in a lottery...

Gaming

Fighting Games & Trading: The Game within the Game

November 23, 2015 by Chris

At SIG, we most often compare trading to games of imperfect information, such as poker, where players possess different sets of information. This is in contrast to games of perfect information, such as chess, where players know everything about an opponent’s position and can respond sequentially to each of the...