Gaming Concepts: Why Basic Math Skills Will Make You A Better Gamer

Possible "focus on" for GF... hope  you enjoy.

Fable Pub Games remind me so much of my trips to Las Vegas. You take cash, play some games and end up broke. Or with more money, and a huge hangover.

Back in on-topic land, while in Las Vegas, perusing the $4.99 buffet, there were live updates for the Keno. Keno is a gambling game, almost exactly like a lottery. You choose numbers between 1-80 and the house draws 20 numbers: match some of the numbers and you win. What struck me was that there were signs saying “these numbers haven’t been picked in a while, they are “due” to be picked” right beside a sign saying “these numbers have been picked a lot lately, they are “hot”.”

Now, if you are reading this and thinking to yourself “hey, these statements don’t make sense.” congratulations, but Las Vegas was not made on winners and if it’s one thing that a casino manager knows is how to make some coin off suckers like us. Video Games also use basic statistics all of the time, so understanding a bit more about the concept will make you better.

I will make this as painless as possible. This is a hard concept, once that many people don’t really get, if they are honest with themselves. There is no such thing as luck. I repeat, threes are not your lucky number, you don’t do better in cards because you are wearing your special underwear, in bejewelled or puzzle quest, your opponent is getting as many lucky streaks as you do.

Flipping a coin has even odds: 50% of the time I flip heads, 50% of the time I flip tails. If I flip a coin twice, there is a 25% chance that I will get two heads, 25% chance for two tails and a 50% chance that I will get a head and a tail. The coin has no memory; if I flip a heads, the coin is not more predisposed to a tail. Every time I flip the coin it’s like I flipped it for the first time; and I have a 50% chance of getting either heads or tails. What we see as “lucky streaks” is when the coin, through chance, hits heads (or tails) a bunch of times in a row. Nothing divine here, move along.

But games don’t actually sit there and flip coins, they use complex equations to determine an outcome. Now these are wickedly complicated and my pathetic D+ in University calculus tells me that I am just not smart enough to explain the whole thing well enough. What I do know is this: computers are great at the wickedly complex equations that go into making the next random number, but needs to start with a random number, and can’t pick one out of the air. For instance in Las Vegas, the first random number that gets the ball rolling is the temperature of the computer to the 100th of a degree. That is as random as we can get.

Okay: I said that flipping a coin is a 50/50 proposition. What if I flipped a coin 100,000 times and it came up heads every time? You would be an idiot not to bet on heads. A-HA! But it’s 50/50. You said that the coin has no memory, so that the bet should be even. True. But, in this case, since we have something so out of this world going on, it is much more likely that either there is something wrong with my coin, or there are forces at work that I have no knowledge of. Just something to keep in mind.

So, we have a system that is terrifically complex, that needs some crazy math and just has trouble getting off the road. The result? Well, already there are “cheats” that have mastered the Fable Pub Games in the player’s favour. Keep your eyes out for this one, especially in RPGs and games that rely on chance. Keep your head straight and remember simple truths and you will wind up ahead of the game.