Raise Your Game

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...

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...

Poker

Poker Quiz #1: Expected Value

July 19, 2017 by Rob

The idea of expected value is one that comes up often in poker and trading discussions. Expected value is the sum of the probability of each possible event times that event’s payoff. For example, if you were to flip a fair coin where you got paid $2 for heads and lost...

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,...

SIG Tournaments

I’ll Be Back

March 17, 2017 by David

I’ve been working as a technologist at SIG for over 20 years and currently manage four teams of 33 brilliant and hardworking technologists. I began my poker journey during my early days at SIG, finding a conservative playing style, and that I much prefer tournament play to cash game play....

SIG Tournaments

No Risk, No Reward

March 16, 2017 by Mark

I’m a “newbie” to both the SIG and poker worlds, having joined our Dublin office’s Campus Recruiting team a few months ago, and subsequently playing in my first SIG poker tournament a short time later. While I aspire to be an aggressive player, in reality, I’m terribly defensive. I’ve had...

SIG Tournaments

When Push Comes to Shove

March 15, 2017 by Shannon

I learned how to play 5-card from my Grandma when I was in kindergarten. I probably logged a thousand hands on my grandma’s handheld poker game by the age of 6! This is my second SIG tournament, and my favorite part about playing is the table talk. Chatting and making...