Democracy in Nevada

LA Times:

The problem: two women were tied for second — each with 328 votes — and state law said the victor would be decided "by lot."

Card draws have determined a winner in at least five Nevada races, said Christopher Driggs, a state archivist, all in rural counties whose electorates could probably fit into North Las Vegas City Hall.

At least one election has been settled by flipping a coin, and a tie in a district attorney primary was broken by tossing a die. (The winner rolled a six to trump his rival's five, but his good fortune petered out in the general election, which he lost.)

One of the candidates drew a 5, the other drew a king.

Poker in the Old West

The History of Poker in the Old West:

 

Whether on a riverboat atop the Mighty Mississippi, or in the smoky dimness of a mining camp saloon, a lucky draw could turn a broken man into a winner. In the days of the frontier west, poker was king with the mustachioed likes of Wild Bill Hickok, Doc Holliday, "Canada” Bill Jones, Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, and hundreds of others.

In the old west towns of Deadwood, Dodge City, Tombstone, and Virginia City, gamblers played with their back to the wall and their guns at their sides, as dealers dealt games with names such as Chuck-A-Luck, Three Card Monte, High Dice, and Faro, by far the favorite in the wild west saloons.

The exact origin of poker is unknown but many have speculated that it originated from a 16^th century Persian card game called As Nas. Played with a 25 card deck containing five suits, the rules were similar to today’s Five Card Stud. Others are of the opinion that it was invented by the Chinese in 900 A.D. In all likelihood, the game derived from elements of various gambling diversions that have been around from the beginning of time.

Poker in the United States was first widely played in New Orleans by French settlers playing a card game that involved bluffing and betting called Poque in the early 1800's. This old poker game was similar to the "draw poker” game we play today. New Orleans evolved as America’s first gambling city as riverboat men, plantation owners and farmers avidly pursued the betting sport.

There is a lot more there.  It is interesting what the roots of gambling are.  I find games of chance interesting, because they often are an entertainment which is similar to the game of life.  When the cards fall right, a guy looks like a genius, when they don't, people think he's a damn fool.  It is always fun to watch the poker tournaments on TV, because almost every show you see a guy just once get dealt the one card he needs when the odds are 92% to 8% against him.

I was thinking about Amarillo Slim and Billy Walters.  Both grew up in the south and started out as pool hustlers.  Listening to Slim, when he wasn't playing poker, he tried to trick guys to get the odds in his favor.  Billy Walters is trying to take as much knowledge as possible to take advantage of arbitrage opportunities.  Neither trusts Wall Street, which is just another casino where the house has the odds in their favor. 

And yet none of those guys, not Slim, not Walters, nor the guys on Wall Street (when they aren't leveraged 30 times) takes as big of a blind risk as farmers do.  Sometimes I don't think farmers can actually understand the risks they are taking, but yet they manage to make a living, and one they love, doing it.  I think it is often like other small businessmen.  They willing take huge risks they don't understand very well, just so they can answer to nobody, and sometimes it just works out.  A lot of the time, it works out because bigger companies don't want to take on those same risks.  Life is funny like that.

Lucky People vs. Unlucky People

A very good article (also via The Big Picture) on life and chance, with Steve Jobs advice mixed in for good measure.  I liked this part a lot:

Recently I came upon a fascinating study by Richard Wiseman, a psychologist at the University of Hertfordshire. Wiseman surveyed a number of people and, through a series of questionnaires and interviews, determined which of them considered themselves lucky—or unlucky. He then performed an intriguing experiment: He gave both the “lucky” and the “unlucky” people a newspaper and asked them to look through it and tell him how many photographs were inside. He found that on average the unlucky people took two minutes to count all the photographs, whereas the lucky ones determined the number in a few seconds.
How could the “lucky” people do this? Because they found a message on the second page that read, “Stop counting. There are 43 photographs in this newspaper.” So why didn’t the unlucky people see it? Because they were so intent on counting all the photographs that they missed the message. Wiseman noted,

“Unlucky people miss chance opportunities because they are too focused on looking for something else. They go to parties intent on finding their perfect partner, and so miss opportunities to make good friends. They look through the newspaper determined to find certain job advertisements and, as a result, miss other types of jobs. Lucky people are more relaxed and open, and therefore see what is there, rather than just what they are looking for.”

This is something I can easily screw up.  The Steve Jobs stories are well-tied-in, read the whole thing.