Sunday, February 27, 2011

The Planet of the Apes Meets Online Poker

By Thomas Kearns


I am fairly certain that most of you at one time or another have encountered one or more of those whimsically humorous paintings from the fine series of poker playing dogs from the anthropomorphic imagination of Cassius Coolidge. These paintings feature a comfortably middle-class group of canines, dressed appropriately for the occasion in a dark poker den enjoying a rousing game of poker. Turns out they may not be so whimsical, but the poker players of whimsy are not our canine friends, they are poker playing primates. That ape icon of a player on your online poker site might be - an ape. Technological advancements of today include the IT company, Primate Programming Inc. Yes, they have taught primates how to play poker and win. Primates not only wield tools to improve their lives they wield cards.

Primate Programming Inc. has confirmed that the great apes (who share 97% of their DNA with us) make superbly efficient IT practitioners. The individuals (yes, apes) working for PPI are trained to offer their services to PPI clients. These employees were later discovered to be capable of learning to play online poker in their leisure time, displaying a particular penchant for no-limit Texas Hold'em.

They favor no-limit poker, PPI informs us, because of their proclivity for playful (or half-playful) displays of aggression. In other words, the apes are naturally great at aggressive bluffing. In no-limit games, a player has the possibility to bet all they have at any time - this requires risky, aggressive play and the ability to bluff.

Since online poker games are anonymous, this helps our poker playing primates. You cannot determine who is of the human persuasion versus the ape persuasion. The human types have actually lost thousands of dollars to a player who played the early rounds with betting very little money and showed lame cards on a regular basis then out of the blue bet big time, of course, everyone in the game called, and the big time better revealed aces. Our winner was undoubtedly jumping up and down and pounding his chest in glee.

Apparently, and not coincidentally, the primate poker players early employment as computer programmers led them to independently, according to PPI, create programs to aid and abet their poker game. PPI is not talking about the specific contents of these programs. These apes could have a professional online poker career, but that is not their nature. Once outside the office, they will probably neglect their training and revert to being the real primates they are, propelling themselves with their arms from branch to branch and climbing fences. In any case as long as they are paid, fed and have their girlfriends and boyfriends nearby, they will continue with their poker games. Authors of no-limit poker books should take note. They may have to come up with some rewrites.

Norm McAuliffe, a Yale Phd who is the scientist who lead the discovery of the apes-who-program study for the past few years, has been putting his money and efforts into PPI, employing his money-making primate players who play in shifts, 24 hours a day. They play for money of course. Dr. McAuliffe is justifiably proud of his business model and thoroughly committed to it.




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