Raise Your Game

Sports

Strategy in Baseball – A Look at Pitch Count

August 23, 2018 by Alex M.

One of the simplest applications of game theory and strategy to sports is pitch selection in baseball. On every single play, the pitcher has dozens of possibilities in his arsenal. For example, Arizona Diamondbacks’ star Zack Greinke has five main pitches: two types of fastballs (four seam and two seam),...

Sports

NHL Draft Pick Probability

June 4, 2018 by Ned

Getting the top pick in the NHL draft is a big deal for NHL teams and fans. Each year the league holds a lottery to determine the order teams receive draft picks. To discourage teams from purposely losing to guarantee the top pick, all 15 teams that didn’t make the...

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...

Sports

Soccer Formations and Matchups – A Strategic Look at the World’s Favorite Sport

March 8, 2018 by Sarah

For most people, soccer was introduced by their parents as a way to exhaust their kids and make some friends in the process. For me, soccer has been a part of my life since I was four years old (and yes my parents put me in the sport for the...

Sports

Olympic Curling – A Turn-Based Strategy Game

February 22, 2018 by Todd

I regularly go 47 months in a row without thinking about curling even once, and then I spend a month fascinated by the sport. I don’t think I am alone in this. The Winter Olympics provides the only venue for me to watch curling (I think; I really haven’t looked),...

Sports

Sports Science and Data Analytics Presentation by Dr. Sam Robertson

January 31, 2018 by Rob

Thanks to increased computational power and improvements in data collection technologies, sports analytics researchers are now able to ask questions (and get answers) they were not able to in the past. The beneficiaries of these new technologies will be teams and individuals who are intellectually curious enough to ask these...

Poker

Poker Quiz #2: Base Rates and Combinations

November 30, 2017 by Alex

The use of base rates comes up often in poker, and can be useful when making decisions to fold, call, or raise. Most poker games involve hidden cards, but this does not mean we have to blindly guess what these cards might be. By using knowledge of the distribution of...

Sports

Rooting for the Favorite

November 8, 2017 by Doug

Imagine this hypothetical scenario: The Patriots have advanced to the AFC Championship game against the Chiefs and are waiting to see who will play the Falcons in the NFC Championship game. The Eagles are playing the Packers in the divisional round for the right to play the Falcons in the...

Sports

Insuring the Indians’ Win Streak

September 22, 2017 by Todd

ESPN recently ran an article about an Ohio-based window company that guaranteed any of its customers who installed windows (the kind that makes walls transparent, not the PC operating system), siding, or doors in the month of July would have their money returned if the Cleveland Indians had a 15-game...

Poker

Q+A with High-Stakes Poker Player and SIG Trading Intern, Jens Kyllönen

August 24, 2017 by Jens

Jens Kyllönen is known online as “Jeans89” and is widely regarded as one of the top Pot-limit Omaha players in the world. Jens joined SIG this summer as a Trading Intern in our Bala Cynwyd office. He was nice enough to answer a few questions and provide insights into one...