Primedice - play dice with bitcoin

So do you want to test a simple betting strategy in a real life environment without any programming ? Just head to Primedice and make a free account. Primedice is a "online casino" which only overs one game. Sounds like a game of dice but it's more of a coin flip where you can select the chance of winning and the casino will adjust the odds. There is always a house edge of 1%. Funny thing is that they offer automated betting. Which let's you play martingale for example. So double your bet after every loss and see how long you last until it wipes you out. Remember you can change the chance of winning to be more than 50% but the payoff will be adjusted too.

I thought I found a bug in there system when I discovered that the payout for a bet of 0.00000005 and 90% was still 0.00000001. But the problem was that the displayed value was already rounded while the internal system uses at least one more digit to calculate your actual winnings. So no easy money there...I'm still checking out various betting sizes and win chances to test for rounding errors which might lead to +EV situations.

But never the less you'll get some free bitcoins (well actually fractions of bitcoins) ever time your account runs dry. If you want to start and test your strategies with more the 500 satoshi (smallest fraction of BTC) that Primedice gives you you can also get free BTC from bitcoin faucets .


I'll use this post to keep track of my Primedice account level and faucet payouts:

Level 1 - faucet pays 500 - 539  - claim every 3 minutes
Level 2 - faucet pays 540 - 579    claim every 3 minutes
Level 3 - faucet pays 580 -
Level 4 - faucet pays 640 -
Level 5 - faucet pays 780 -
Level 6 - faucet pays 840 -
Level 7 - faucet pays 900 -
Level 8 - faucet pays 980 -

One year of MyVegas on facebook

It's now a little bit over one year that I started playing the MyVegas App on facebook. So what has happend in all that time. Well first of all rewards have gotten more "expensive" or in other words the free loyalty points (LP) aren't worth as much as in the beginning. I guess that's just natural when everyone wants to get more free stuff. The good news is that the site is still around and giving away free stuff for your next trip to Las Vegas.

After playing on and off for roughly one year (without any friends added - which would increase my daily coins) I am at level 98 and have a total of 221,390 LP. Those LPs would currently buy me:

• Two weekend nights at New York New York (101,500 LP each)
• or Two tickets to KA (208,000 LP)
• or 4 nights at the Mirage (52,500 LP per night)

Currently I just log in to collect all coins and LP from my strip each day (about 22k coins and 150 LP - without the daily spin) and only play if there's a promotion that gives away additional loyalty points. There is normally one every second week. So build up coins and only use them to play then.

Slotbot highscore at CashCrate

You already know that I love to play skill games online for change or free money. I also signed up with CashCrate some time again not to earn some cents for doing their surveys but to receive some money whenever I join and test a new browser game (which they also promote on CashCrate and give you money or points for).
I recently noticed that they also offer tourneys which can be played for those points (which is just a virtual currency that can be used to get vouchers and stuff). The games aren't as nice as on other skill game sites but that's alright. I figured I might have an edge playing those match-3 type of games as they are my bread and butter on other sites and I really love them. I played a couple of weekly tournaments (very few participants) and always gained some additional points. My highscore so far has been around 18.000 points and then the following game happend. Enjoy!

Already in the first level I hit a combo beating my previous highscore. So lot's of luck involved but I think I'll add this weekly tourney to my play list.

Edit: the video has currently been pulled by youtube...also I don't know why. Already complained about it as I don't see anything bad with it.

Analyzing bonus for MarketGlory

As mentioned in started playing MarketGlory recently.

Fight bonus

Let's start with the fight bonus which is paid for each of the ten daily referral fights you can do. It is based on the energy level you have. The amount you get paid for each fight you win is calculated as:

Bonus = Energy / 100 * Fight_Bonus

Because the energy can't sink below 1.0 the minimum you'll receive is 1/100 of the fight bonus of your country. Now let's check what price is still acceptable to pay for energy.
With each fight the energy level is decreased by 10% and because 10 fights will last at least 100 minutes there'll be one time when the energy because of the full hour.

So, the purchase of energy is a good investment if the sum of all fight boni (as a result of the bought energy) is bigger than the price for the energy.

The formula looks something like this:

Bonus (paid_energy) = (1 + 0.9 + 0.8 + 0.7 + 0.6 + 0.4 + 0.3 + 0.2 + 0.1) * added_energy/100 * Fight_Bonus

The multipliers are just approximations but are close enough for the accuracy needed. Remember that after 5 fights you lose some additional energy because of the hour change.

This adds up to : bonus = 5 * added_energy/100 * Fight_Bonus

Now just check if the bonus is bigger than the price for the energy...Let's do a little example:

Germany currently pays a fighting bonus of 10 DEM and a newspaper costs 0.14 DEM. Each newspaper adds 0.3 of energy. The bonus paid for buying energy would be:

5 * 0.3 / 100 * 10 = 1.5 / 10 =  0.15
So in this example it is more or less break even to buy a newspaper at 0.14 DEM.

Buying low quality milk costs 0.45 DEM and gains the player 1.0 energy:

5 * 1 / 100 * 10  = 5 / 10 = 0.5
This leads to a win of 0.05 DEM per paid liter of milk to receive the fighting bonus


Have fun and remember to check if it really makes sense to invest money for energy for your daily fights. If you have not signed up to market glory you can join here.

MarketGlory

I started playing MarketGlory which is a free browser game with a very complex economic system. All money can be converted back and forth between ingame money and real money. I have to analyze this in more detail and see what is best to generate some income there but right now at least the start is really slow unless you want to invest some real money (which I don't want to do until I have a deeper understanding of this game).

I'll keep you updated on this. Right now it's just get online once every day and "got to work" to generate the bonus payments.

One week of myVegas

After 7 days of playing the facebook app myVegas I collected a total of 15010 loyalty points. At the same time I reached a VIP level of 30, which unlocked some of the higher rewards. The virtual Las Vegas strip that is build along the way now inlcudes the Circus Circus, Monte Carlo, The Mirage, NY NY, Excalibur and the Bellagio. All of these give away coins and some even loyalty points every couple of hours. So I'm now able to generate points without playing games.

I was running the app in the background each day using the slot machine outspin and just checking for bonus games and other interaction every now and then. Here is the break down of how I progressed so far:

day 1 - level 14, loyalty points 1940
day 2 - level 19, loyalty points 4400
day 3 - level 21, loyalty points 5900
day 4 - level 23, loyalty points 6810
day 5 - level 24, loyalty points 8310
day 6 - level 28, loyalty points 12770
day 7 - level 30, loyalty points 15010

As you can see I generated about 2000 loyalty points each day depending on how much time I invested. I expect to have a higher return now that the more valuable casinos like the Excalibur and Bellagio are built which give away points directly.

My strategy is to continue to run the Studio City slot in the background as it requires the least interaction. I will keep my bet size small because the VIP level only increased by total coinage played (so it's the same if you bet small or big; you just have to play longer with the small bet) but you will get slightly more loyalty points.

My current VIP level and the 15000 loyalty points would already get me a comp room at the Circus Circus, Monte Carlo or The Mirage or a lot of different food options. I'm going to save my points until I reach at least 150k points which would get me two nights in a Spa Suite at NY NY. Should be done in 9 more weeks max ;-)

Facebook and myVegas for free Las Vegas rewards

I just created a Facebook page for this blog because there is a new App giving away real life rewards for virtual play. Yes, it's true you'll get rewards from Las Vegas casinos like Aria, Bellagio, MGM Grand, Mandalay Bay, Mirage, Monte Carlo, NY NY, Luxor, Excalibur and last but not least Circus Circus. The Prices you can get range from a pair of dice to show tickets and suites.
As I said all of this you can get by playing free playmoney games. You don't have to gamble a cent to earn it. Just like playing in Vegas you'll receive Loyalty Points for playing different casino games. Right now they offer different slots and Black Jack. All of these games are played for virtual coins. Don't worry once you run out of coins (it's still casino games so don't expect to win longterm) you either can buy new ones for real money, but you don't have to because you'll receive new coins every day. Actually you can receive new coins every couple of hours by collecting them from your virtual strip that you build will playing aswell.

I guess the actual value is pretty low but just like my play at gameduell.de
it's fun anyway and the free "money" is just the cherry on top.
If you are going to give the myVegas App a try I'd by happy to add my Facebook page to your list and maybe give it a Like, even if it's ugly as hell ;-)

winter is coming....

And it's still a long time until Game of Thrones continues :-(

But first it's christmas session and a lot of skill gaming and gambling sites are giving away bonusses and free plays. So make sure you check your inbox to not miss any opportunities. I'm going to check king.com again for the first time in 6 months to enjoy the free game each day of december.

On a related note, the wizard of odds currently runs a game on his forum at wizard of vegas with a total prize pool of $200 for free. It's 10 rounds of Golden Balls with a 20 players in total. I was lucky enough to be one of the players. Basically each one on one round is a kind of Prisoner's dilemma. Each player can choose to "share" or "steal" against his opponent. If both share each receive half of the money of this round. If both try to steal than the money goes back to the wizard. In the event that just one player selects to steal he'll receive the whole money for this round.
I'm going to reinvest all the money I win into a contest/game here. I'm not sure what it's going to be so feel free to make suggestions. Right now it's either a game of diplomacy online between the first people to comment. Or a guessing game about the number of comments.

If you have any other ideas for a good game to distribute the money feel free to leave a comment!

PS: I'll write a post about the Golden Balls game at wizard of vegas and my strategy after it's finished.

PPS: There is a new browser game that you might want to check out:

Free money from skill game sites

I already mentioned in a previous post that I like to play games for fun and money. Now it's time to compare two of the leading websites in terms of free money. Yes, they offer freerolls if you are a real money player there. I have accounts on three major sites:

* king.com
* gameduell.de
* worldwinner.com

I don't play on worldwinner anymore because I didn't like the fact that you can only play there when using Internet Explorer. Because it didn't offer any special games and take about the same fee as the other sites I stopped playing there. So I'll only compare the free money offers of king.com and gameduell.de.

king.com

Each day there are a couple of freerolls of the same game. All this tournemants start at a fixed time and are open for 2 hours. So you have to logon at the right time to take part in them. Usually the price pool is 50€ or 100€. On weekends there are three additional freerolls lasting from Friday to Sunday. Those also have bigger prices. The problem with all those offers is that you always have to compete against thousands of other players. You have to be really good at the specific game to win even cents (not even mentioning making the top ten and getting a few euros/dollars). Over the last two month I made exactly 3 cents from those free games while playing about 15 of them. *thumbs down*

gameduell.de

At this site it's a lot easier to win free money. Each day you can play against the 'Joker' to win 50 cents. Every day you have to play a different game but this opponent isn't so hard. I never practiced before my free game and won about 45% of them. The game is available all day so you can logon any time you want to. Of course there are no big wins possible but if you login anyway it's free money. And it's easy to get.
Over the last two month I made 16.50 € from those free games while playing about 45 of them. *thumbs up*

conclusion

No matter where you play free money is always nice...even if it's just cents. I wouldn't really bother to check into king.com everyday to check if they offer a game i'm good at. And I miss them way too often. Logging into gameduell once a day and playing a different game fits into my schedule :-)

Do you also play on any of this skill game sites or do you know another ?

Stealing on and offline

BLR technologies cheats at online craps

According to a post from the wizard of odds and other sources BLR technologies is cheating at their online craps game. The win rate over a sample of 328 rolls was only 24.7% (while it should be 49.29% for betting on the pass line). This expectation for such a event over this sample size is 1 in 3,940,183,270,432,190,000. So if you don't like losing (even more than you normally should expect to) don't play at online casinos using the BLR technologies software. This includes the following casinos:

• Legends Sports
• World Wide Wagering

And the second news is from the offline world but also features being robbed:

6000 copies of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 stolen

The demand for this new game seems to be quite high. On their way to retailers two different trucks with the game have been stopped and robbed of their delivery. The first delivery was crashed by a robbed car and as soon as the drivers wanted to check out the damage they were robbed be masked gangsters.
About one hour later a second truck was stopped by a parked car and armed robbers stole their load too. A total damage of about 800.000€. And lots and lots of unhappy gamers who now have to wait even longer until they receive their copy of their game.
But the bad guys should be pretty issue to spot when 6000 origin accounts send their data to the homebase ;-)

So if you what to be safe from online cheating, spyware and brutal force in real life make sure to buy Skyrim. The latest release of The elder scrolls series (aka the reason why I went to gamescom 2011).

Back from gamescom 2011

I am back from the gamescom 2011 in Cologne, Germany. The final numbers are not out yet but it seems that the gamescom had another record year. A total of 550 different companys and agencies had stands. I have to admit I didn't count them but it were a whole lot of them. Including the major distributors (Blizzard, EA, Activision, Bethesda, Ubisoft,...) and console creators (sony, nintendo, microsoft) showing off their latest products.
Especially Blizzard and EA had huge stands and stages which seem to occupy a third of one of the halls each. Too bad that they choose to hide there latest titels inside their stands which meant that you had to get in line to see anything. For a peek at Battlefield 3 (EA) there was a line so long you had to wait 6 hours to get inside.


A gimplse through the exit door revealed that the lucky guys got to play a bit but I'm not sure for how long. My personal guess....Not worth six hours waiting.
The same can be said about Modern Warfare3 (Activision) and Diablo 3 (Blizzard). And sadly my own private favorite that I wanted to see: The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim (Bethesda). All had hours of waiting which frankly I did not sacrifice. I'm not sure if this was clever marketing by the big guys. Sure you can only give a few people the opportunity to actually test a game but showing so little to the masses seems like a bad move to me.
Sony did a good job to use the current hype about minecraft to promote their new Xperia Play. They had youtube 'celebs' Lewis and Simon sign funny little block heads from minecraft.


Not sure if it really help Sony to advertise for their new mobile gaming plattform but it sure looked like fun and spread the word even further about minecraft (if that's even possible).
My personal highlight was playing Jagged Alliance - Online and talking to one of the developers. It's really amazing what can be done with browser games today. It looks great, all movements are smooth and controls are simple. If you put it into full screen you won't notice it's a browser game. The game itself is free to play and is financed by premium content so it's worth a try.
Next year I need to make sure to go to gamescom on a day which is not open to the public. Not seeing anything of the big games was really frustrating.

Oh, last but not least I've got a gift code for the first to grab it. It's for another online game called Wizard101 which is also free to play. With this code you get 5000 gold coins and a special pet/ride to use for 7 days. So however uses it have fun with it and please leave a comment so others know that the code is already taken.
And the code is: 7NP57-42CJ-9DLD-UMJO

Winning at roulette

I’m going to tell you a sure way to win at roulette…for free. All you have to do is double your bet every time you lose until you win. You properly heard this before. The only problem is that it is not working over a long time. It might fool you because you will win small amounts for some time but sooner or later you’ll lose it all back and then some. The only sure way to win long term is to be the casino.
So let’s take a closer look at this strategy. First of all it’s called Martingale and has been played properly as long as roulette itself. It has just a few very simple rules:
• Start with one betting unit (e.g. 10$)
• If you win => pocket the win and start over again
• If you lose => double your bet (going from 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32….)
That’s it ! This will win you one betting unit most of the time. And give you a false sense of security. Until you hit that one big losing streak which will erase all wins.


The above table shows all possible combinations after five rounds (without the fatal green zero(s)). Without the green zeros the chance to hit red or black is fifty percent each. Now analyze the possible outcomes if you bet on red every time following the rules above:


As you can see in the above tables you will bust once out of 32 times. When you do you will lose a total of 31 units. The other 31 times you will win one unit each. This results in an expected value (EV) of:
(31/32 * 1) + (1/32 * -31) = 0
So you are not making a profit…but you are also not losing like I said before. This is because, as already mentioned above, we neglected the zero(s) which is making the roulette unprofitable. But showing no profit if the rules are not as bad as in the casino should already demonstrate that the method is not working as advertised.
If we include the green zeros into the above tables the chance to win is getting smaller (lower than fifty percent). Hitting the correct color has a chance of 18/37 = ~48.6% (single zero) or 18/38 = ~47.4 (double zero). This results in a negative EV for this betting system which is called Martingale.

How to beat poker - the basics

I am not talking about basics like pot odds and winning percentages. There are some principles which are even more basic and fundamental to all forms of poker.

Table/Seatselection
Choose your opponents wisely. If you wanna win money make sure you are the best or at least one of the better players at the table. Playing against better opponents might improve your own game if you are willing to learn from them. But you should be aware that you don't get these lessons for free. Others like to match themself with the best players around. That is just stupid..Leave your ego away from the table. It will just cost you a lot of money. You should also try to be on the left of bad players. This gives you the chance to isolate these players preflop and play one on one against them.

Bankroll Management
Even if you are a winning player poker is still a game of chance. You can and will lose versus weaker players sometimes. And sometimes this might stretch over a long period of hands. Even solid winners of swings of 100 big bets every now and than. So make sure that you can handle these times. You should have at least 500 BB for the stakes you are playing. If you play professionally it should be even more. So you don't have to move down in the stakes you are playing. If you have less than 300 BB for your current limit you should move down to avoid going broke.

Don't tilt/Play your A game
This seems simple, right ? But i guess it is what turns themost players into losers. They know how to play. When to fold or raise but they don't do it at times. I am not only talking about the obvious signs of tilting like going full phil hellmuth and scream at everyone and everything. The more dangerous form of tilt is not when you are in full berserker mode. After a couple of suckouts or setups/coolers you start making bad calldowns or become a maniac. DON'T !
Don't let your feelings influence your game. If you notice that your style of play changes stop playing.

Good luck at the tables everyone!

Klondike Solitaire - is it beatable ?

I am one of those people who can play klondike (sometimes also just called solitaire) for hours and hours. And I was always looking for the best strategy to play. When searching on the internet I noticed that there is next to no websites on strategy and zero information on the expected value (EV) of this game.
One of the few pages with some insight on this topic is OddThinking but this is a slightly different game than the one I am interested in. I prefer the vegas style game where you can only move through the deck exactly once and any card that has been moved up has to stay up.
As stated before I could not find an analysis of this game online which is strange because this game can even be played in some online casinos for real money. So I build myself a simulator to play it automatically. Here are my first results:
My best strategy so far is able to move up about 9.3 cards in average. Which would result in a house edge of 7%. I am confident that it still can be improved.
A Monte Carlo run of 1000 plays per deck (meaning a certain deck or single game is played 1000 times with totally random moves) is able to score a average of 14.5 cards. Of course this value can never be reached by any "real" strategy it will only give a upper threshold.
A "real" strategy has to make a decision on the next move by the information which is currently available (we call this a information set). Since Klondike is a game of imperfect information (because some cards are still hidden) there might be different games which have the same information set. All visible cards are exactly the same but the hidden cards are distributed differently. Our strategy always has to make the same move which of course will result in different results on each unique game. Monte Carlo will choose different moves each time and will ignore the information set. That is the reason why a strategy will never beat the Monte Carlo approach (if the game has imperfect information).

More to follow.....

Miniconomy - economic browser game

Well the blog is also about pc games. So here is the latest browser game i am testing

An economic browser game. It doesn't have the nicest graghics around but it seems fairly complex. Every movement costs gas and everytime you search your land for resources the condition if it gets worse.
You can choose to dig for resources or create a more advanced product. You may even found your own bank or try to get elected as mayor. Even a life in crime is possible. It is totally up to you....Now see you in miniconomy....You can find my shop in Centropolis.

Professional Go player defeated by computer

Some time ago I wrote about checkers being completly solved. And i was happy to say that Go is still something everyone can win against a computer opponent. About 2 weeks ago I was proven wrong :-(
A supercomputer matched a professional Go player. Kim MyungWan, an 8 dan pro (9 is the maximum) was defeated by the program MoGo running on an IBM Power 575 Hydro-Cluster system. This supercomputer (located at Amsterdam, Netherlands) has a peak speed of 60 Teraflop per second. So it is save to say that the average player will not face such a opponent every other day but we all know how fast the computational speed is increasing.
Go still is one of the hardest games for a computer and it seems like only speed and mass (storage that is) enables such a system to beat a human player. It is still a long way to go for all working on artificial intelligence (AI) to make a computer "think".
On the other hand the human brain is nothing else.....and even if we are slow at math and things like that the human brain is working incredible fast because there is so much going on at the same time. And we a freaking good at guessing ;-)
Many of us would struggle to solve a quadratic equation. Still each and everyone is able to catch a ball or at least to teach it by predicting its flight curve. That is just the same and you even do it without pen and paper or even a calculator. Never correct but always close enough to survive. So keep making mistakes but enjoy your games and life.....

Improve your chess with Chess Tactics Server

Here is another way besides the personal chess trainer to improve your chess skills. The Chess Tactics Server offers 23803 different chess problems of different difficulty. And the number is growing.
You can choose to solve the puzzles as a guest or create a account. If you get a totally free account (you only need to choose a nick and enter a email address) you can trace your rating development. Also if you get a account you will always get problems that match your rating.
The problems are not always typical puzzles where you have to find a mate in X. There are also lots of exercises where you just have to realiz the best move is to take back a figure.
The only thing I don't like about the site is that each puzzle has to be solved with very little time. So it is a good way to improve your blitz chess. You should make sure to redo puzzles you didn't solve on the first attempt. Solving same on later tries will not affect your rating on the site but will help you to improve your chess skills. Remember most of the time chess is just detection patterns and move accourdingly. Chess Tactics Server will help you in doing so.
Now have fun solving problems and dream of chess patterns all day and night :-)

Duplicate Poker - Poker as a game of skill

There is a new pokersite called DuplicatePoker. But what is the difference between this site and all others already on the net ?
Poker on Duplicate is different to what you know. You don't compete against the other players on your table. There is always one other with the exact same deck of cards and one other player who gets the same cards as you. After a couple of hands your results are compared to this player. This way the element of chance is reduced because the way you play your hands is more important than the cards you get. Because the element of skill is increased DuplicatePoker claims to be not a gambling site therefor they are open to US players and everyone who is allowed to play games of skill for money.
If you sign up now they will give you a free $3 to start playing with. You can cash out this amount after a couple of hands (a couple of players from the 2+2 forums have already cashed out successfully). They are also offering a 200% up to $100 bonus if you cash in.
The only downside right now is that the games play really slow because each table has to wait for a other table to finish first. Now go give it a try at:

Skill games for fun --- or money

You can play a wide range of different games like from good old pinball, pool billard or backgammon to luxor. Play solitaire, freecell or sudoku sweep. Shooters or quiz shows and many many others. All for jewels (just to boost your ego and get nice avatar gadgets) or play for real money. 
It's really a lot of fun playing all these games against others around the world in big jackpot games. There is also a strange version of chess on a 5x7 board called chesster. You only got one of each 
light figure to play (one rook, one bishop, one knight). I really have to take a deeper look into this 
game. Also you just have a certain amount of time per move and if you run out of time it is your opponents turn.
Besides chesster i can mostly be found playing sudoku sweep, quiz queen and pinball. Oh, by the way site is called king.com.

PokerParadime - the long term in no time

PokerParadime is a new site to play texas hold'em. But it is not build to play for cash. It is totally web based so you do not have to download any software and install anything. You play against other players online or against bots. And here is the clue, bots are not only allowed to play it is what the site is build for. As soon as you have played a couple of hands you can turn yourself into a virtual player who will continue to play just like you did. So you can train your virtual self and then check how you would do with this style after thousands of hands. Because the bot also plays while you are not online.
There is no fee or anything else involved but you can not win any real money. But it is a really funny website and a good way to check your moves. My virtual me is currently in the top 20 of 354 registered players. How good is your bot ?