cul-de-sac??

After the colossal defeat of the "men in blue" following the collapse of its celebrated batting lineup against a so-called minnow, Bangladesh, one cannot but wonder if it is the end of the world cup 2007 dreams for Team India.

Prior to the beginning of the world cup there was an interesting article in The Hindu. It was as though the author foresaw what was impending the eleven players who were carrying the hopes of a hundred billion Indians on their shoulders. Or maybe he was just targetting the overly passionate following for cricket in India.

In this "neck of the woods", as Tony Greg would put it, there is only a thin line between passion and madness when it comes to cricket. As long as the Indian team wins or atleast puts up a decent fight, the players are followed like deities. For uninspired losses like this one against Bangladesh, the response is often burning effigies and staging violent protests.

Coming back to the current world cup scenario, even to sustain hopes of moving to the super 8's India needs to win the next two games, and win big. I do see a slice of light in all this gloom and darkness. Are the big guns going to fire or is it the end of the road for India? While we pray for the best, I'm signing off to prepare myself in the event of an Indian world cup calamity. ;-)

Beating the House!!!

For someone who was forbidden to play memory using cards, I have come a long way in discovering and understanding the nuances of poker and blackjack. I should admit however that roulette is the first "casino" game (probably the simplest too!) that caught my attention when a friend of mine narrated his experience at a casino (fortunately, he found providence).

I hadn't seen a roulette wheel until then. So he explained it from scratch. I understood that it is a game of betting and each bet has a fixed probability of winning. And more the risk, more they pay. My rather naive mind began to wonder why people didn't play roulette full-time to make money, but quickly realized how big an advantage the house enjoys in roulette.

Inspite of that I must have spent a couple of evenings researching "how to beat the house" from various online sources. Many mathematical system from greats like fibonacci fail to conquer roulette. These systems are based on certain assumptions that are forbidden in modern casinos, ergo invalid. I tried to create my own method of betting that would be effective, but soon figured out that all systems spiralled to the inevitable truth - the house is always 2 steps ahead of everyone (0 & 00).

Incidentally I came across an amazing book titled "the eudaemonic pie" which is a true story of how a few engineers and scientists (in their quest to make millions) device a method to predict the number on which the ball would land in the spinning roulette wheel, all in real time using microcomputers programmed into their shoes.!! The predicting equation similar to what NASA used to find out where a spaceship orbitting the moon would land. Pretty cool eh??!! (and all this more than 2 decades ago???)

Einstien said "the only way to beat the house at the roulette table is to steal money when the dealer is not watching". According to me, the only way not to lose to the house is by not playing it.

-Vijayasarathy-

Mind Over Body

[say... 2 decades ago]
Growing up as a kid, I once heard a little story about my great grandfather. He had achieved such perfect control of his mind (through meditation), that he could rise up a feet from the ground (in a sitting posture). The man could float in air!!!. (If I remember right they have a picture of him, defying gravity, in my mom's ancestral home!!) I should admit that it didn't mean much to me then. I never gave it so much of a thought.

[Jan 2007]
I was running in the gym nearing completion of the third mile. I wasn't tired (for not being much of a runner), and the breathing was just perfect. Could have easily added a couple of miles to the count.... For some reason I stopped at the end of lap 24. Not a step after that. Why? I was definitely not physically exhausted, but the mind was revolting as though the limit had been reached and shut down on me like some major security breach had taken place.

[Reverberating in time]
I believe the story about my great grandfather that I was told as a small boy, though Newton might not be particularly pleased. With only 1% of that kind of control, I'd probably run 30 marathons a month without breaking a sweat!! The inevitability and importance of the mind's control and understanding of the body in achieving one's goals cannot be over-stressed.

-Vijayasarathy-