In the world of gambling heroes there is one name which gets hardly any mention and that name is Charles K McNeil. Charles K McNeil is the man that invented the points system that most bettors especially those in the United states have all taken part in one way or another. It is the system that leads to derivatives trading so in some way Charles K McNeil fundamentally altered the way the world world. In fact you could say that his methods nearly brought down the global economic system on September 15th 2008 when Lehman Brothers went belly up.
The thing about the points system is that it takes gambling from reality to fantasy. You do not bet on pure scores you bet on ‘scenarios’. For example if there is a football game between Brazil and the USA, obviously Brazil will be favourites so to make it a more attractive betting proposition for the bookmakers they will give USA a + 1.5 goal start. This means that Brazil will have to win by at least 2 clear goals (IE Brazil 4 – USA 2 = Brazil 4 – USA 3.5) for you to win. Conversely if Brazil win only 1 – 0 then you would have lost the bet because USA would have the ‘0.5’ advantage (Brazil 1 – USA 1.5). The prices will reflect this fact, and, they are usually 10/11 either the team. The reason they are not even is that the bookie gets his cut because the underdogs – in this case the USA – get extra goals to even up the game.
Charles K McNeil method is used in all sorts of arenas anything from basketball to gold prices to bank rates. In fact you could use it for anything and that includes poker. The only thing about poker that would make it a bit problematic is that you are dealing with devious people and the best poker players have a reasonable mathematical understanding of odds. Just think you could create a spread about a player winning and losing but if that player could make more money on losing then they would probably do this. It is part of a poker player mentality to be a bit shady in what they say on the table – its called bluff.
If there was a spread book on poker players it would have to be without the players knowledge and stakes would have to be limited so that money pouring onto a player would not be sufficient to make it worth theirs or anyone’s time and effort to manipulate the situation and make more money off the table than on it!
As you may of guess I am leading up to something with this post, in fact it is two things, and, the first is this. Why not have a comprehensive price list of all the players in the final stages of all major poker competition? This could be done in the same way that stock and shares operate and on paper there are enough information on all poker players to make it open and transparent. There are markets already but if the last WSOP (2009) was anything to go by, it was fairly limited and was in fact pretty poor. Surely it is not beyond the wit of those operators in Las Vegas or London to run such an operation?
As i found out on one of the sites where I play some no mark had a go at me for being a fish. he found some figures about my pre-flop action and deduced that I was a fish. Well that got me going and consequently we had a row on the table. I know that in the past I railed against people typing messages as pathetic and juvenile, but I was bored and cantankerous and I thought why not. It didn’t work out for me as it clouded my judgement – which is pretty suspect at the best of time – and I egged the table bitch to take my bluff and it cost me…
So when I calmed down, I started to look at the various poker stats and decided it would make a great idea for some betting method all the year round in which punters such as me could speculate on other players and make or lose money. Just think if you know a player is running hot and the cards are smacking him/her in the face then you would buy. If that same player has hit a flat spot and has turned into a super fish then you sell! if a player has been fishing and their price has dropped to the bottom, it may be time to start buying that person.
Yes you will get your flash in the pan’s, as there are loads of players who were running hot and are now cold as the Arctic. But that would be the fun of it since it is all about the strength of mind and the ability to learn from their mistakes or the deepness of their pockets. This would be great for online poker players since the ability to gain a ‘tell’ is so much harder.
The second thing that would be a good idea is a film about Charles K McNeil. On paper it may sound dull as ditch water but Charles K McNeil started a new method of trading which is now so wide spread that even governments are doing it. Also he changed the way people bet and in doing so had to deal with organised criminals who wanted to own his brain. Apparently Charles K McNeil went from being a teacher to mathematic operator and he claimed to have been in profit 25 out of 27 years averaging $200,000 per week in bets – now thats what I call a gambler!