8/19 ~ 8/20 Zion National Park (1)

Into the unknown

Around 4PM on 8/19, I ended my stay at Vegas and started heading North. I waived goodbye with my friends with whom I spent four days of a nice vacation at Vegas, and headed into the unknown. For them the vacation was over and they would head back to LA to prepare for the new semester, but for me, the big trip was just about to start. This was only the first stop. Las Vegas was the furthest I had visited by surface travel in the past three years. Beyond this point, it was the great unknown and a 2,500-mile adventure ahead, and it was I alone to face it in the upcoming days. With a bit of nervous and excitement, I set off again after a brief moment of feeling lonely.


I sped my way on I-5 heading North as I left a bit later than I planned. It was again the endless desert after I crossed the city boundary of Vegas. It is really amazing that capitalism alone has created such a gleamy town here. There was not much to see on the road, as the picture above indicated, so I drove all the way to the state boundary without a break, passed by Arizona for a short duration, and entered Utah.


I stopped by the welcome center of Utah for the hotel coupons. They were just closing when I arrived, noticing that one hour should be added to my watch. Then sun was going down and I tried to keep my pace toward my first destination in Utah, Zion National Park. I had a hotel booked before leaving home at Springdale, UT, just at the gate of Zion NP. The plan was to arrive there early, take a good sleep, and start the trip early tomorrow morning. Pretty much everything was according to the plan, besides that I found nothing to eat (I was too lazy to drive out from the hotel) when I arrived at Terrace Brook Lodge at Springdale, so I felt a bit of hunger before going to bed.

Dawn at Zion

The next day I woke up early while it was still a bit cold considering this is August. I took a picture of the lodge in the morning sunlight and left for Zion National Park with no further delay.

I arrived at the Zion National Park in very short time, even before the car engine was completely warmed up. In Zion, the tourists are required to park the cars at the visitor center and take park shuttle into the canyon, in order to keep the traffic in the canyon under control. Zion is the most visited national park among those in south Utah, due to is location. It is easier to access than other Utah national parks I visited during this trip. The crowds have brought good and bad things to the park, as I will mention later in this article.

I was a bit worried that the mandatory shuttle will practically limit my mobility in the park so I cannot see most of the place during one day. But soon I found my worry is totally unnecessary. Due to the large number of visitors each year, especially in the summer, the park is well-prepared with a big fleet of shuttle buses. In addition to the availability, the bus drivers are also well-prepared with information for the visitors. The major attractions at the stops and along the road are well introduced on the bus, so people can get a good idea about where they are heading to. During my stay, I hardly waited long for the shuttle. On the schedule it says there is a bus every 7 minutes. The time I spent on the ride was also very enjoyable, listening to all the facts and stories about the park. As for my trip, it turned out that my energy, not the transportation, is the limiting factor of how much I can see in the national park. Overall the shuttle program is an excellent one and it truly makes the park more enjoyable for everyone. I wondered bit why this is not widely adopted in other national parks. And the answer I came up with was pretty simple: You need a reasonably small park and large visitor base to make such program economically feasible. Zion has the perfect condition for it.


Road to the Angels Landing

The first stop I planned to go to was the Angels Landing. A friend of mine highly recommended the hike to the Angels Landing to me when she heard about my plan of visiting Zion. Since this is a long hike, I decided to do this the first thing in the morning, and I was really lucky to choose it this way.

I got of the shuttle at the Grotto stop. The trail head was easy to find, and I soon set of knowing little about what is before me. The trail started easy, following the bank of the Virgin River and slowly picked up a moderate up-hill climb. As described in my travel book, I can enjoy views of the canyon from various angles along the hike. This is a really good reminder, as the view was usually behind me and I could forget to look back if not so reminded.

The hike started from down in the canyon, so I had to look up to the mountains at the beginning.

But as the road wanders up along the cliff, the view into the canyon changes to a downward angle and I could see further from the heights.

After hiking uphill along the cliff for about 40 minutes, the road took a turn into the cliff and soon the canyon was out of sight temporarily. It was a good morning exercise up to this point, and I enjoyed the nice shape provided by the cliff next to me. I followed the road further down and stood in front of me was the famous Walter's Wiggles.


It is a very steep zig-zag switchback. Looking up to it, I felt a bit annoyed why my friend talked me into the hard work. But I thought since I had come this far I should carry on. There were plenty other visitors on the same hike, so it is supposed to be a good one.


Scout Lookout awaits for the visitors after the strenuous climb of the Walter's Wiggles. It provides another look into the Zion canyon after a short parting, but this time we can look down into the canyon. The view from Scout Lookout is already cool, and the shuttles are no larger than a pack of spaghetti from here. But still, there is more to climb. From the Scott Lookout there is a trail which leads us to the Angels Landing, the final destination of the hike.

I really pondered a bit whether I should carry on after I saw the "trial" to the Angels Landing. It it basically a walk on exposed rock with chains showing the route. But I thought, since I had spent 1.5 hour to reach here, I might as well go all the way to the top. So I moved on after a short break at the Scout Lookout.

The hike was not easy from this point on. It was especially difficult for me on that day because I was not prepared. I took 2 cameras with me in separate small bags and another handbag for water bottles and my travel guide book. Walking with those was fine, but when I had to keep one hand close to the chains those things became a real burden. I should have used a backpack, I complained to myself. Occasional sharing of the narrow route by two-way traffic made it a bit more challenging. At several points, I was close to the cliff on the side, and there was really nothing in between so I could easily see the thousands of feet drop to the canyon below directly. No wonder they put up a sign to persuade people with aerophobia to turn back.

Finally I was there up at the Angels Landing. The view up there is simply magnificent, and once I was there I felt it is worth all the effort. No wonder my friend highly recommended this. No wonder everyone coming down told me to keep up and go for the top. Up here I got to see the panorama with no obstacle, and the Zion canyon is just underneath me. It made me feel that I was at the top of the world.

View of Zion Canyon from Angels Landing, notice that the Zion Lodge (the hotel in Zion NP) is in the middle of the picture.A different view.Yet another different angle.My picture at the top of Angels Landing.

After a good break to enjoy the view atop the Angels Landing, it was time to go back. Coming back along the same route had become more difficult than I previously thought. For the first part, I had to move carefully along the chains with three bags dangling on my arms. They had become such an annoyance that I wished I could throw them into the canyon. When I reached Scout Lookout again, the sun was in the middle of sky and all the shades receded. The down-hill walk became a grilling one under the direct exposure to sunlight. I also ran out of drinking water at the same time. I was really happy that I started early so at least I stayed in the shade when I walked up-hill, otherwise I may not make it to the top. When I finally labored my way down to the shuttle stop, I was completely exhausted. I immediately hopped onto the shuttle and headed to the Zion Lodge for some refreshments.

The overall experience at the Angels Landing was so good that I could not resist the urge to buy this poster when I saw it at the bookstore. It is posted next to where I sit typing this article now, reminding me about one of the best hiking experience I had.

This poster says it all: from the Walter's Wiggles, to Scout Lookout (in the middle of the poster with a lot of trees), and the walk on the ridge to reach Angels Landing (the top).

Hung-chih Kuo - The lone brave on the mound

I have mentioned that I decided to leave earlier than I previously planned one week before the trip. It caused be some hassle to speed up the packing process, and cost me some money due to the extended stay in Vegas. I did all this for one person: Hung-chih Kuo, a pitcher from Taiwan. Well, don't get me wrong, I am not a close friend of him. I don't even know him personally. I am just a fan of him and I think what he has achieved so far deserves more respect from the general public.

So let me write one full article about the player whom I admire the most at this point.

Interestingly, being a die-hard baseball fan for many years, I don't really have many favorite players, and I don't root exclusively for a particular team (I am an Anaheim Angels fan, but I like many other teams, too). Perhaps I have gone beyond the level of supporting a specific person/team in baseball and fallen in love with just the game itself. Before Hung-chih Kuo, my last favorite player dated back to C. M. Li, the former popular Taiwanese player known as Mr. Baseball in Taiwan, who is already retired for more than five years. To me, it is a bit surprising that I have found another favorite player now.

The story about Kuo is not a happy story at all. He has overcome a painful process to arrive at his current position. The story is an encouraging and moving one for me and many other Taiwanese international students. As we work in US, away from the home country, we appreciate his efforts and sufferings more than viewing it overseas.

The signing

A little bit of review for the historical background:

Kuo was signed by the Dodger system back in 2000. If I remember it correctly, he is the third Taiwanese player to appear in the minor league, after S.M. Tang and C.F. Chen. The signing was a major sports news back then but most reporters wrote about it negatively. Signing Taiwanese players was not common back then, so the signing was done in an ad hoc fashion. Kuo was 18 at the time and he was in the training camp for the national youth team. His agent arranged the signing, and shortly after it Kuo flew to US, leaving the national team and the mandatory military service in Taiwan behind.

The particular action was perceived badly by the media. They reported this as betrayal to the national team, and blamed Kuo himself for that in the papers. So before even pitching the first game in US, Kuo's signing was widely known to the public - in a bad way - and he got a very bad fame for ignoring the mandatory military service in Taiwan, which is illegal. However, I think the fact is, his agent was the one to be blamed. There was no high school graduates who signed directly with a US team before, so there were a lot of issues in grey area with no set examples to follow. Most athletes hire agents to handle this type of issues, and his agent simply did the job poorly.

When Kuo headed to US, sadly, at least half of his fellow countrymen did not wish him success at the time due to the bad news made of him.

The legendary start

With all the noises left behind, Kuo started his first minor league game in 2001. This game has become a legend in the Dodger's minor league system: In the only three innings he pitched on the day, he struck out seven, walked only one with no hit allowed, and the most solid contact the other team ever made was a foul fly ball. That was a total dominance in the three innings. Someone who saw this game even claimed that he was ready for the Majors on that day. Well I do not believe one can spot a Major Leaguer from many talented young players based on the performance of one game, the real message behind the claim is that Kuo was totally outstanding in that game.

Usually with this kind of a good start, you can expect at least a solid year in the minor system. But that did not happen. Those three innings were the only three he pitched in the year. Kuo torn his left-arm tendon in the third inning before throwing the last strike to finish up the inning, and that started his long misfortune for three years.

Long way of coming back

For the next three years the story about Kuo was a scary one. He had totally three surgeries on his left arm, two of them being the Tommy John surgery (replacing the tendon on the throwing arm with the tendon on the other arm, or a leg). After each surgery, there was a long, hard process of rehabilitation program. I haven't been through one so I am not able to tell how difficult that is, but I can certainly relate to the mental suffering he had through these years.

Being an international student in the US, I understand it well that sometimes life in a new country could become difficult. However, we are lucky that we can still focus on the study, which is the purpose of coming to the country. Now, Kuo came to the country to participate in professional baseball, and all of a sudden he was out of the game. It was even unsure whether he would be able to pitch again. All he could do was focus on the rehab and hope that he will recover. What made the situation worse was that because of his leaving without properly taken care of the military service, he could not visit home any more. I try to think about it, and figure that the pressure can be unsustainably huge. If I were not able to continue my study due to some kind of illness and I were not able to visit home, and all I could do is to put hope on a rehab program which I don't know if it will eventually work out, not only once, but three times. Can I take it? Well I really don't know.

But Kuo tried his best on it. He was very determined in coming back to the game, and regardless of how things appeared hopeless he did not give up. I started to really root for him from year 2003 when I started my graduate study in US and got a real sense how it feels like to work in US, with the families, friends, and most of the things you were familiar with far away. At the mean time, the media in Taiwan seemed to forget about this player. There were few reports about him, and whenever a short report did appear, it was usually a bad one, reminding people how he "sneaked away" from the national team and ignored the military service, or making up trash stories like he was lazy about basic trainings so becomes injury-prone, etc. I did not know what's wrong with these reporters to write such things about a young man who tries his very best to hang on to his dream. The media is just sometimes hard to understand.

Kuo's activity in baseball was limited by the injury to a very minimal extent from 2001 to 2004, pitching only 42.1 innings in four years. This is about the workload of a decent starter in about one month. Finally, in year 2005 there was a promising sign. He was finally able to pitch regularly, showing some good sign of recovering from the long, horrible history of injuries. With his excellent strike-out rate(42K in 26 innings in A+, 44K in 28.1 innings in AA), he was also called up to the Major League in Spetember 2005, playing for the Dodgers as a reliever. The highlights during his short stay included contributing a homerun to Barry Bonds in one game, and striking out 5 Arizona Diamondbacks in 2 innings.

What about now?

In 2006 Kuo did very well in the spring training, and earned himself a spot in the 25-men roster by the beginning of the regular season, serving as a reliever. He did particularly well in one game, sriking out 4 Phillies in 2 innings. But most of the time he had problems in commending the pitches and gave too many free passes to the opponents. He was moved back and forth between the Majors and AAA mainly due to the control problem.

I went to Dodgers stadium on June 25 but he did not pitch that day. Being a reliever, it was almost impossible to predict when he will pitch. Before leaving LA, one thing I really wanted to do was seeing him pitch on the mound of the Majors, where I believe he truly belongs.

While I was preparing for the driving trip, Kuo was sent back to Las Vegas 51s (Dodger's AAA team), due to the commend problems again. His control has been on and off, leaving a poor BB/9 of 5.65 in the stint at the Dodgers during June and July. In order to have a regular amount of work to fix his commend, they started trying to put him in a starter role in Vegas. With that, it became easier to predict when he will play, and I started to think about fitting a baseball game in Vegas into my travel plan.

The game at Vegas

I checked out the game schedule for the 51s, and surprisingly there are only four games scheduled at home during the whole August. But it makes perfect sense. Summer is very hot in Vegas, and it is not good to play baseball in such condition. I tried to predict the starting rotation for the 51s and found that Kuo should be the starter for the second or third game of their homestand, therefore I went to Vegas early and kept an eye on who starts which game. Finally, Kuo was announced as the starter for August 17, and of course I wouldn't miss that game. This was a game I had been waiting for years.

I went to the game with two other friends who came to Vegas for a trip at the time. We drove north bound on the Las Vegas Blvd. and arrived at the Cashman Field shortly after we passed downtown. Las Vegas 51s is perhaps the most well-known minor league team among Taiwanese fans, thanks to Chin-feng Chen, the first Taiwanese fielder who played baseball in the Majors. It was a bit sad to me that Chen did not make himself a long time Major Leaguer and had gone back to Taiwan on 2006, otherwise I could see him playing in person too.

Cashman Field is a beautiful mid-sized ballpark. Of course it is not comparable to the Major League ballparks in terms of capacity, but it is also well-maintained. I noticed two interesting things in the ballpark: (1) When you come to the stand, someone working at the ballpark will check your ticket and wipe up your seat for you. Remember that Vegas is in the middle of the desert, and the seats can get very dirty. I think it is a very nice service. I felt welcomed at the ballpark. (2) There are pipes spraying water above the stands and maintaining a barely tolerable temperature.

Even with the water sprayed over the stand, the heat is just barely tolerable. It is why they have to arrange only few games during August.

I and my friend Wei-cherng.

Cashman Field is a beautiful ballpark

We arrived about 1 hour before the game but the players were still not on the field. The weather was so hot that no extensive warming-up was needed. Finally we saw Hung-chih Kuo warming up at the outfield. We tried to shout some Chinese to him but not sure if he heard that.

The game was pretty good on that day. Kuo pitched well. Whenever he had got 2 strikes, we shouted, "Hung-chih Kuo, Hung-chih Kuo~~ Strike him out!! Strike him out!!" at the stand. Usually it ended up the way we wanted, but it took a couple more pitches. He had some difficulties commending the breaking balls that night, and the pitch count went high quickly. However, his fastball was dominating at this level. He could just blow that by the hitters and they could not do much. I always think there is something special about his fastball. Yes, it is fast, around mid-90s from a lefty. However, it is not that rare in the Majors, yet most hitters can not hit it. Even in the Majors, you see a lot of swing-and-misses to his fastballs. It is hard to explain, but I do think there is something special in his fastball.

We saw a couple of fastballs at 96 MPH that night. He threw hard in a beautiful mid-August night, and all the injuries, bad news and doubts seem to be far apart from the pitcher on the mound. I just hoped he can throw like this for years to come, and show people that he's got the truly outstanding talent and made unimaginable effort to come through all the setbacks, and people can forget about the nonsense the Taiwanese reporters wrote about him.

He pitched 4.2 innings in the game and left early due to the high pitch count while the team was leading. This is one thing I like about the way baseball is played in US. In most of the teams they try to protect the pitcher from over-working. Even if he was one out away from being the winning pitcher of the day, it was not important at all compared to the health of the player. I thought this is a good decision, especially for a player who had been injury-plagued for years. He struck out 9, walked 1 and allowed 4 hits. I thought he is faring much better in the starter role. Perhaps he should be a full-time starter in the future. This is what he would have been if the injuries did not set him back at the first place.

Pictures of Kuo pitching and hitting.

Aside from Kuo, it was an interesting game. It was my first time watching a minor league baseball game. It was noticeable that many spectators came to the game prepared. They are fans who know the game well, coming with the special-purpose papers to keep the log of the game, or making comments that make good sense to me. They were also more attentive than typical Major League audiences. Perhaps people come to minor league games when they become serious fans of the sport, not just for some entertainment.

Also I could feel the players can be split into two batches. Some of them are prospects that hopefully will move up to the Majors, and the rest are roster-fillers who are kept to make the team functional. They play mostly in the AAA and go up to the Majors only to fit in the short-term needs of the team. From the plays and the ages of the players, I could somewhat get some sense of who is in which role. Well it is the harsh truth: the spots in the Majors belong to the top 750 guys in baseball, and many, many, many players vie for those spots. This is how they maintain the superb standard of Major League baseball. Coming to a minor league game had made me appreciate the story behind the scene.

Also the team has to work hard to involve the fans with various activities. Since most of the players in the minor leagues come and go, they cannot rely on the star players to attract the fans - They will be in the Majors soon and leave the team for good. Minor league teams work extra-hard in other aspects, such as on-field small games with the fans, to make people feel like coming back again. Overall I enjoyed watching the game at Vegas, and perhaps I will go to some more minor league games in the future.

Cosmos, the alien mascot of the Las Vegas 51s, played with kids on the stand.

Finally the game was over and the home team won. Now it was the most important moment for us. We wanted to get the autograph from Kuo. The cashier at the gift shop told us there are three good timing to get the autographs of players: (1) When they are warming up before the game (not applicable to the starting pitcher, though), (2) Right after the game, when they all come out to the field, and (3) Wait for the players at the parking lot after the game. We were able to stop Kuo before he headed back to the dugout, got our baseballs signed, and wished him the best for the September (at the time, there was almost no doubt that he will be called up to the Majors again in September). This was my first autographed baseball in 20+ years of being a baseball fan.

And we did not stop at that. We waited for Kuo at the parking lot, and wished to take a photo with him. While we were waiting I was truly amazed by how knowledgeable the fans are. Almost for every player leaving the ballpark, a couple of fans recognize him as he stepped out of the gate and brought up something for him to sign, or even more surprisingly, just chatted with the player as if they knew each other for long time. We waited for long time but Kuo did not show up. Later, someone told us that we waited at the wrong gate - It is the place where the visiting team's players leave. Seeing that we were disappointed, the knowledgeable fan who talked with us took out a 2-inch pile of player cards, and gave us a autographed rookie card of Hung-chih Kuo from the deck. This was totally unexpected and I was really happy about it. I kept wondering who else are in that pile... Might there be autographed cards of some current/past Major League stars, such as Mike Piazza, when they played here?

The Future for Kuo

As of this is writing, Kuo was called up to the Majors as a starter in September. He pitched well in the new role: In 5 starts, he posted 1-1 record, pitched 29.1 innings in total, with 35 strike outs and 7 walks, 28 hits allowed and 10 earned runs (3.07 ERA as a starter). He also started game 2 of the NLDS against the Mets and veteran Tom Glavine. Although he lost the game, he did OK in his first post-season appearance.

I sincerely hope that Kuo can stay healthy and pitch long in the Majors. Given that he is only 25 this year, if he stays healthy, we have many years to expect exciting performance from him. Sometimes I cannot help but think if he was not injured, with his high-90 fastball (before injured) would we see a true pitching legend born in Taiwan? With all the injuries, the future was once uncertain, or even doomed for him. After four years of tremendous effort, both mentally and physically, he was able to fought back from the bottom of hell. I admire him a lot for being able to sustain what seems to be almost unbearable, overcome the hurdles and keep himself on the right track. It definitely require strong motive and true love of what he is doing. Now finally he is one step away from success after these long years. I would really like to see him establish himself as a Major Leaguer and everyone would be made aware of the extra-ordinary story about him. Even if he eventually does not make it, I will also remember once there was a great player who fought lonely with injuries and lack of support from his countrymen for his dreams.

To the true brave on the mound, Hung-chih Kuo.

Thoughts on gambling in Vegas

Some people believe that one cannot have a complete Vegas experience without gambling. Others believe in order to have the best deal available from Vegas, one should stay away from gambling as much as possible. Whichever of the above you agree with, there is no denying that gambling is one of the distinguishing factor of the city. It is just impossible to walk about the city without noticing it.

When it comes to gambling I am more of a theorist than a practitioner. I like to read and think about gambling. I read related websites and books when I have some leisure time. I do this partly because gambling is closely related to probability, my favorite mathematical subject, and partly because it is very enjoyable to read about the war between gamblers and casinos. It is absolutely thrilling to read about how a group of smart people trying to hack and gain the slight edge against the well-designed rules of games through careful calculations, and how the vulnerabilities in the rules get patched by another group of smart people, without making the game too complex to lose the public interest. The intellectual competition between the professional gamblers and the casinos is really fascinating to read. However, I did not try out the techniques used in these books and websites extensively myself, mainly due to the lack of time to practice and carry them out in the field.

But I do have some thoughts and observations about gambling. If you do not like long articles, you can fast forward to the conclusion and see what I need to tell you before you fall victim to the well-prepared casinos.

Gamble seriously

It is the best to open my article with a quote from a book I read:

"There is an extraordinary and interesting dichotomy in the ways gambling is perceived. To the tourist and the gambler, gambling is all about luck. To those in the business, gambling is about mathematics. To the visitors, gambling is a few hours a day, while to the casinos, gambling is 24 hours a day, every day. The gambler hopes to walk away with a fortune, but the casinos know that in the long run that fortune will belong to the house. To visitors, gambling is recreation combined with risk and chance. To the casinos, gambling is business combined with near certainty." -- From the Unofficial Guide to Las Vegas 2006, by Bob Sehlinger, page 270.

Well, sound a bit too serious, is it? It is easy to be tricked by the amusing and relaxing atmosphere in the casinos, with all the lights blinking, sounds beeping, and people cheering. It is easy to lose sight that you are dealing with very well-prepared people who have successfully built a huge revenue to support the whole business which in turn supports the growth of the capital of gambling. The fact is, if you take gambling lightly, the casinos will be more than happy to remove the hard-earned money from your pocket and secure it safely in their vaults. Although I have never seen it myself, I am pretty confident that they have enough space in the vaults for as much as you are willing to wage. So my first suggestion, and the most important one, to you is that you have to take gambling seriously. You need to know exactly what you are doing when you gamble. Don't gamble randomly because it seems fun. You are unlikely to get anything out of it without doing the homework first.

If I have convinced you, let's get serious about gambling now. I will briefly show you how you should plan for your gambling activities to avoid some common pitfalls. It is not very deep mathematics, and if you have learned some probability probably you already know all these. However I think it deserves some space on the blog.

Worst sin in gambling

Let me first tell you what is the worst sin in gambling you should definitely avoid. Well, if you are against gambling, you may think it is a sin in itself. I am not going into that here. Assuming that you gamble, what is the worst way to do it?

Of course the rule of thumb is one should never gamble with the money one cannot afford to lose. Before you go to the casino, set up a number that you can afford to lose, while you are still rational. No matter what happens, don't go beyond this limit. In particular, don't try to win your lost money back by putting more than you can afford to lose into the game. DON'T GO BEYOND THE LIMIT YOU SET. Period. If you think you cannot do this, don't gamble. This is not the game for you.

But it does not mean if you have some spare money to put at stake to try your luck, you can gamble with the money in any way you like. It makes a huge difference how you play with it.

During my two short stays at Vegas, I have seen many people made the same mistake. From time to time, I see people sit down at the table, exchange a 20-dollar bill into chips, and start putting down 5-dollar bids. "NO!!" I almost couldn't hold back my voice when I saw it for the first time, "You are GIVING THAT MONEY AWAY!!" But I become numb about that after I sit there for one hour or two. Most of the time, those people lose the chips and walk away with a oh-gash-I-have-lost-20-dollars-in-5-minutes-grrrrr-this-game-sucks look on their faces, even before I can tell whether they play smartly or poorly. The mistake here is, if you don't budget your money carefully, you lose it easily.

This is related to a classical probability exercise problem known as "gambler's ruin". The set up of the problem is as follows: A gambler starts with a budget of K dollars in the pocket. In each game, he gambles with one dollar and either wins (with probability p) or loses (with probability 1-p). The budget either increases or decreases by one dollar per game. The gambler stops only when he goes broke (loses all the money) or reaches a goal (N dollars, N>K). In the probability textbooks, usually they ask you what is the probability for the gambler to achieve his goal.

I am not going to talk about how to solve the problem in detail (if you are interested you can check out some probability textbooks), but hopefully you have already observed what is the mistake in the scenario I mentioned earlier: With a 20-dollar budget, 5-dollar bid is way to large. It takes only four straight loses to lead you to broke. Even if you are talking about a fair game, in which you win half of the time and should never be offered if the casino wants to stay in business, the losing streak that wipes you out of the game happens with one sixteenth probability. With a slight misfortune, you are done and gone. If it is your money at stake, I hope you would think twice before putting down your bids. You should not lend you at a starting point that close to broke from the first place. You have perfect freedom to pick the budget size and the bid size, so why do you put yourself in a danger position while the casino already has almost all the advantages they can think of well-placed in the rule book? Give yourself a break by allowing enough buffer from the broke point so the short-term misfortune cannot jumps and bites you. The general guideline is you should allow at least twenty times the bid size as your budget. If you have 20 dollars to work with, you should not bid more than 1 dollar each time. If you want to play with 5-dollar bids, you should be prepared with 100 dollars in your pocket. This buffer space will hopefully prevent you from falling victim of the worst sin in gambling, under-budget, and make you stay in the game long enough to at least have some feeling of playing the game instead of being quickly robbed and regretting about the lost money you cannot (and SHOULD NOT! DON'T GO TO YOUR POCKET FOR THE MONEY YOU DID NOT PLAN TO PUT INTO PLAY!) do anything about it now.

There are many ways to enforce the budget limit, and the easiest way I recommend is to exchange for the exactly same amount of chips or tokens when you start, and never lay your hand on the wallet until you finish for the day. Some people prefer to exchange for small amount of chips at the beginning, and get more when needed. The bad thing about this is it builds up the tendency of reaching into the pocket every now and then. It is very likely to lose count of how much you wage while you concentrate on playing, and it takes extreme self-discipline to avoid going over the boundary when taking money out of the pocket becomes a natural move. By exchange once for all you eliminate such possibility.

Of course, with a large budget you still risk losing all of it. Keep that in mind, it is gambling we are talking about, isn't it?


Setting up a Goal

Setting the budget size and the bid size is only half of the story. What is equally important is to set up a reasonable goal to stop gambling. Most casual gamblers come to the casino with some money they are willing to spend on gambling WITHOUT even thinking about the goal. They just keep gambling until they reach the goal casinos set up for them: Losing all the money they put into play. The mathematical explanation behind it is, if you solve gambler's ruin problem with the goal N set as infinite (That is, you don't have a specific goal so you will keep gambling no matter how much you win), you WILL end up losing all your money, regardless of what budget or bet size you use, and what the winning probability of each game is. The casino have as many chips as you can win - If they run out of it at the table they have plenty more in the vault - so even if you are lucky enough to keep winning, you don't have a stop point to cash out your chips unless you set up one for yourself. If you don't stop properly, eventually the wind changes direction and you lose the chips the casino lend you temporarily back to them. You gotta set up a goal for yourself and cash out when you reach the goal, otherwise you NEVER win.

This is easy to say but very hard to do. Who will quit when he is still winning? Actually, this is the very concept that casinos rely on to make a good fortune: Those who are under-budgeted fall to short-term misfortune. Among the well equipped, some of them are lucky enough to win but cannot stop while they are winning, hence eventually few keep the money they temporarily have at hands. Further more, they design the rules carefully so in the long run they are the winning side. Perhaps the following concept can help you a little bit: When you win gambling, the tokens at your hand symbolize YOUR money. They are equally valuable in any sense as your hard-earned money from your work, whatever it is. Don't think it as the "extra money" you can again gamble with. This is exactly the mind set with which you cannot win.

Having said that, I also have to admit I was not able to do it myself, therefore I ended up break even during my both stays at Vegas. I did win something but later lose the winning by not quitting. Ideally, the goal should be set up depending on how much risk you wish to take. For example, in a fair game (it does not exist in the casino, I can assure you again), if you start with K dollars and set the goal at 2K dollars, you end up reaching it or going broke equal-likely. The closer you set the goal to the initial budget, the more likely you can reach it. Check out the book "How to gamble at the casinos without getting plucked like a chicken" by James Harrison Ford to know more examples on setting up the budget.

And you should be aware of the following dilemma: You cannot maximize the play time and the likelihood of reaching your goal at the same time, given that the expectation is against you. In negative expectation games, if you want to stay in the game longer rather than get eliminated by the short-term misfortune, you should use a small bet size relative to your budget as I discussed previously. However, if you want the best shot to reach your goal of earning, you should use the largest bet size possible to reach that goal - Either you lose or win, you are done in one bet. The longer you linger in a negative expectation game, you fall victim to the Law of Large Number, which eliminates the possibility of short-term noise and converges your outcome to the long-term trend - Giving the money to the house - by the design of the rules. You have to choose which one you like better: the entertainment, or the money? If you consider gambling entertaining, then expect to pay some fees for that just like you do in any other entertainment, and by careful planning you can avoid paying unnecessary high fees. If you just want to try out your luck for the potential of increasing your pocket money, put everything you have in one shot. You are hurting yourself if you do anything else.

Choosing the right game

Now if you think you are disciplined enough to set up the budget and follow the plan, you can try gambling. However, there is another important decision to make: Which game should I play? Each game in the casino has different characteristics and you may prefer one over the others. However there is one commonality among the seemingly very different games: They are all carefully adjusted so the house has the edge over you, otherwise the game would not be there. That means, whatever you play in the long run you expect to lose.

However choosing a good game as opposed to a bad one still makes a huge difference. There are games in which the house edge is minimal, even less than 1%. With some luck it is possible to obtain some short-term winning, and hopefully you know when to stop and keep the money as your own. My general guideline for this one is: Play some game that requires you to use a strategy. The reasons are: (1) For these games the casinos can rely on those who are not playing the best strategy to make the money, so the rules are not as bad as those of games that do not require a strategy. (2) For the games that require a strategy there is fun involved in learning the best strategy and thinking about why the strategy is good. You can find yourself playing better as you become more experienced. For the games that depend solely on luck, such as roulette, you do as well as the novice even if you play the game for 30 years. That is time well-wasted for me. If you have the same geek background as I do (I am referring to you, EE/CS majors!) and want to play a game that solely depends on luck, just code up a random number generator with fancy graphic interface and play with it at home. It will save you money, believe me.

I mostly play Blackjack when I gamble. Of course, partly because I have heard about the legend how a group of MIT students won a huge money over the casinos, and also because Blackjack is a well-researched game so a lot of information is available on the Internet (check out the references). In Blackjack there is something called basic strategy - a set of proper responses in various situations. It is generally believed that if one plays proper basic strategy, the house edge is less than 1% - for every 100 hand of cards played, you expect to lose the bid size of one hand - which is good enough if you want to experience gambling and willing to lose a bit of money as the fee for the entertainment.

There is some trick called card counting in Blackjack. The basic idea is that when the game is played, the cards are continuously removed from the deck and the composition of the remaining cards changes, and this posts influences on the odds in the subsequent games using the same deck. If one keeps track of the composition of the remaining deck and plays according to the odds, it is claimed by many professional gamblers that it is possible to turn the edge around. There are many variants of the ways you can count the card and plenty of references are available. For myself, I never mastered card counting, mainly because I would not spend time on training myself with a technique I rarely need.

You may doubt whether the fairy tales of people winning big money from the casinos with card counting are true. Well I tend to believe it as I have heard people I know personally doing it. I have a friend (Hereafter referred as Friend to maintain anonymity) who is an amateur card counter. The Friend has been to Vegas for more than ten times in recent years, and among these trips, Friend never paid anything from the pocket. All the spending, including flight tickets, hotels, shows, meals, are paid by the money Friend made from playing Blackjack. Sure, this is much less than the millions in the legendary book "Bringing down the house", but I think this is good enough for we amateurs. A free vacation at Vegas sounds good enough, so there is indeed some advantage of learning the trick. Of course, keep in mind there is nothing absolute in gambling. Even the professionals lose, so certainly you should not expect to win even if you learn the perfect techniques.

However, there is a problem. I would refer to the problem as the curse of the Information era. If you do a bit of study on the history of card counting, you will find out it has been around for some time. The root of the trick dated back to the 60s, but for a long time the secret is only known by some small group of people. Since the dark art is only performed by a few people, the casinos can live with the vulnerability in the rules and try to keep an eye on people who are aware of it, and evict them from the table promptly to control the loss. Rumors even say that there is a black-list of people who are forbid to play Blackjack in the casinos, compiled by the casinos. Of course, from time to time the casinos can fail to discover the card counters and remove them, and that's how the MIT people get famous. But not any more! Now with the convenience of world-wide-web and the search engine that brings any information you wish to know to your computer screen in seconds, card counting becomes known. The MIT story and the claims on these websites make people interested in learning card counting. Today any random person can be a card counter, and this has become a real problem from the casinos.

Old wisdom says, "If something sounds too good to be true, it ain't true." Or at least, something has or must be done to change it, otherwise some people will suffer dearly. This is what happening to Blackjack. With so many potential card counters, the casinos have to change the rules so the counters no longer get the edge so easily. That means inferior conditions for the players. It is no longer that easy to get the advantage by simple counting skills under current rules. The Friend also had the winning streak snapped recently, saying the rules are no longer in favor of the players anymore. This is especially bad for novice players. With the casinos gearing up by assuming more competent regular players, those who do not prepare themselves enough are really at stake. It is like going to war with a spear at hands, while automatic weapons are the standard equipments of both sides. This is why I say one should be serious about gambling, otherwise it is better not doing it at all.

During my last visit to Vegas, I also noticed something called continuous shuffling machine in some casinos. The used cards in every play are immediately shuffled back to the deck, so it is like starting from a fresh deck every game. If these machines are deployed in a large scale, virtually (if it is really random) it would symbolize the end of card counting era. I am not really happy about the direction toward which the story is developing. However, the casinos must be the only long-term winner in the gambling business, otherwise it would not exist in the future.

Conclusion

So here are the key points of this long article:

(1). Don't take gambling lightly. You need to have a good idea about what you are doing before you start gambling. Study the games, set a reasonable budget, bet size, and winning goal. No matter what happens stay with your plan. If you can't do it go to the buffets instead of casinos at Vegas.

(2). Pick the game you play wisely. Don't pick a game that depends solely on luck. A game requiring some strategy usually has less house advantage, and it is more fun to play with these games.

(3). Do not gamble when you are tired or drunk. You need to concentrate on it.

(4). In the short-run anything could happen, so you may benefit from smart playing and luck, and hopefully you can walk away with some earnings. However, in the long-run the casinos will make every effort to ensure they are the eventual winner.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Friend for anonymously reviewed the article and gave some nice suggestions to me. :-)

References

[1] "How to gamble at the casinos without getting plucked like a chicken" by James Harrison Ford - A good source for examples of the gambler ruins problem applied to real gambling.

[2] "Introduction to Probability Models" by Sheldon Ross - A real probability textbook if you want a formal solution of the gambler's ruin problem.

[3] "Bringing Down the House" by Ben Mezrich - A novel about MIT students winning big money from the casinos by playing Blackjack. The author claims that it is based on a true story.

[4] http://www.blackjackinfo.com/ - A website for Blackjack rules, basic strategy, and a free game

[5] http://www.bj21.com/ - A webpage with classes on card counting

August 16 - Farewell, City of the Angels

After some back-and-forth twicking of my travel schedule, I finally set the leaving date at 8/16. It was one day earlier than my second-to-final-version of plan, and I added this day to allow one more day in Las Vegas, for a baseball game (More about this in a separate article about the real-life miracle, Taiwaness pitcher Hung-chih Kuo).

I settled on this schedule the week before leaving, and expediated selling, storing, giving away, or packing and shipping my belongings during the weekend before. That was exhausting work. I remember the very morning of leaving, I woke up early with a very sore back. The back pain had become worse since I sold my bed and slept on the floor for 10 days. In spite of that, I was very excited about the upcoming big advanture, so I woke up early, not really sure if I slept last night.

Gradually I brought the last batch of my belongings downstair and squeezed them into my car. Oops! Something was wrong here. After the lugguages got filled, they became fatter and I could not load things as I planned into my trunk. I had to change the plan and shift things around, and luckily I found a way to fill them into the trunk and the back seats. The car was more crowded then I thought it would be, as shown in these pictures.






But it is still in drivable condition. Clearly, nothing should block the eyesight from the mirror. Here is a solid proof:


For one last time I looked up at what soon will be my ex-apartment, and memories combined with all sorts of taste swept me away. I ran across the street and took a good look of the six-story apartment. This was the time to say goodbye at last.

With little extra delay I started the engine and once again followed the road from my place to I-10. I have been driving this direction everyday to school and this is just familiar to me. However, as I realized this is probably my last time driving on this road, I tried to be more attentive to things around, although this was unnecessary. I was too familiar with what's on this road and I could easily recall what is in the plazas when I passed by.

I hopped onto I-10 and followed the congested traffic one last time in LA. The first stop I made was a Chinese style breakfast place. I knew these places for long time, but rarely came here because I didn't really feel the need. It is so close that I can come any time I like. Sometimes, the thought of being able to access these home food is good enough to keep me happy, and I don't really have to eat it. Well, not any more. This was my memorable last meal at LA:



Just to be on the safe side, I quickly visited the mechanics who tuned up my cars for a last-minute check. He gave me the final green light, so I was sure it is save to go. I went further East, leaving the familiar part of LA behind and heading to my first stop, Las Vegas. I kept the radio on K-Mozart 105.1, my favorite station at LA. I drove with pleasant classic music along the way on I-10 then I-15, and gradually the music died away, replaced by the static noice. I tried to switch back and forth between K-Mozart and KOST 103.5 or KFWB 980. Those were the stations I regularly listened to. I was able to pick up something from time to time, but after a short time nothing was available anymore. The last bit of connection between me and LA was gone, and I knew I have 15 days of advanture into the unkown ahead.

Not sure if it was due to the excitement of the pending trip, I drove faster than usual on that day. The traffic was light on the Wednesday on I-15, and I breezed through the barren land between LA and Vegas. I reached Vegas in four hours including a snack break at the rest area in the middle of desert and a gas station stop. That was a good beginning of the driving trip.

Thoughts on Traveling Alone

Now, if you think the idea of driving across US as a way of moving is not crazy enough, here is something even crazier: From the very beginning, I plan to take this 15-day trip alone, with my own car. People who heard about this mostly became worried and puzzled. "Why do you want to do this all by yourself?" is the general theme within different things I heard from people who I shared my plan with. Many friends suggested me to find some companion for the trip. I thought they have a valid point: I could become tired, sick or even injured during the trip, and there would be no help around and even no way to finish the rest of the trip. True, it is better to take on such a trip with someone else consider all the uncertainties involved. I had the same thoughts so I decided to try asking around.

However, it was easy to say, but hard to do. Although there were several labmates who were also moving from LA to Gainesville, when I asked around, it was obvious that no one was as crazy as me to take such a trip. Since I thought about traveling alone and preferred that from the beginning, I was not trying very hard on looking for someone else. I just settled on the fact that I had tried and could not find anyone, so I would go alone, and pretty much used that as an excuse to stop people bugging me about looking for a companion. After all, it was unlikely that someone else happened to have 15 days available for such a big trip, and we could work out a plan suitable for both of us.

My father once offered me that he comes to US and goes on the trip with me. It is very nice of him, indeed, and I appreciate that thought a lot. However, I also know that he was busy around that time, and 15 days would be too long for him. Plus, it would be an arduous work during these days, probably not really good for him. I wouldn't drive long distance for one day immediately after flying into a place with 9-hour time difference myself, let alone it is 15 days we are talking about. So eventually I turned down the offer and told him I can handle it myself.

Eventually, when I hit the road, the mere back-up plan I had was a verbal agreement with Shao-cheng, a senior groupmate who also moves. We agreed that if I become unable to finish the drive, I can call him to fly into the closest city and help me out. Although it does not sound save enough (what if I get stuck at somewhere with no close-by airport, or some thing happens that I need immediate help?) , I thought it was all I need to put the last bit of courage in me to take on the trip.

Although it seemed like a forced decision as no other option was available, now come back to think about the experience during the trip, perhaps I really like traveling alone and will do that more frequently in the future.

When it comes to traveling I am always very serious about one thing: If I travel with families or friends, I INSIST that the experience should be optimized for everyone in the party (of course, including myself). By that, I mean I want to see everyone enjoying the trip very much, and there is little we can do to make anyone in the party happier about the trip. Especially, if I am the one who arrange the trip, I will go for every effort to make sure this happens. The reasoning behind it is simple: For people have to trade off a lot for a trip together - arranging a suitable time for everyone, spending time and money for the trip, and making extra effort to finish the work before the trip or make up after the trip, etc. When I become aware that there are many explicit or hidden cost involved, I simply cannot stand a mediocre trip experience. I do not travel a lot, but when I travel I only want the best for myself and those who travel with me.

I know I start to sound like a paranoid. Well indeed I can be a paranoid for some things. For example, I made a packing list when I came to US for graduate study. That list, in retrospect, appears a bit crazy. I posted it under the title "Pariod's packing list" on a Taiwanese discussion forum for study aboard. If you read Chinese you can check the list out. If not, to get an idea about how crazy I got, the list includes small things like toilet paper (because you will go to toilet before you go to grocery stores), length measure (to get to know how large our apartment is before getting furniture), sewing kit, etc. and tips like you should separate all necessary items in luggages just in case one of them get lost ;-). Well that's a different story, let's go back to traveling.

Though I am serious about everyone having a good experience, it is a difficult objective to achieve. The fundamental problem is that people have different preferences, and hence it is difficult to satisfy everyone at the same time. Some prefer indoor activities to outdoor, some prefer a tight schedule and others prefer a more relaxing way, some are budget-minded, some like to taste new experience, and so on so forth. When I travel, I usually travel with families or close friends, who I know well enough to avoid conflicts of interests, and if a compromise has to be made, we can be aware of that and discuss beforehand.

Now I think I didn't try hard to get a companion for the trip, because I knew it was a trip full of uncertainties, and it would be difficult to plan for optimized experience for a group. So I would rather go by myself. I know what I want very well, and I could shape the trip to suit my own needs without worrying what my companions think. I just didn't want someone to sit with me for the length of 15 days seeing me enjoying but having a not-so-good time for him/herself. That's against my principle of traveling.

All those were the thoughts I had before this trip. Now after a long two weeks with myself, I think I am ready to really comment on the pros and cons of traveling alone. You can take a look, and see if it is for you:

Pros:

(1). To me, the most attracting point of traveling alone is you get to do whatever you want. It is all about yourself. You decide when to start, when to stop, where to go, and what you do. From time to time, it tricks you into the illusion that you OWN all the time in the universe. Doesn't that sound very good? I think this is especially for me. When I go on to a travel, I would go every distance to explore the most I can. If I can still walk I would not stop. If I don't have enough time to see interesting things, then skip meals. Skip some sleep as well if needed. Traveling is about getting some new experience and seeing new places for me. I always try very hard to do the most in the given time. I think "play hard" is the philosophy here. I know that not everyone likes it this way.

(2) To me, the second best thing of traveling alone is that you really get some time to yourself. You can think about questions and listen to your own voice - Don't get me wrong, I am not the type of person who speaks to the mirror at home - But you really get some unique experience having a dialogue within yourself when you travel alone. And sometimes, the conversation within can go very deep, such as into the value of life or planning for the future, etc. Those are the things I wouldn't think too much if I travel with companions.

(3) Traveling alone is especially good when the theme of the travel is about exploration and adventure. Because you spend less time talking and joking, the focus can be on other things around you. That way, you get to observe more than you would with other people around.

(4) It can increase the chance of meeting with some interesting people on the road.

Cons:

(1). The worst thing of traveling alone is that you don't get anyone to share the same memory with you. Yes I can make a blog like this, but the things in here is all myself. There is just no one there with you. The memory, albeit a very good one, is certainly a lonely piece.

(2). It would also be nice to have some help on the road from time to time. For example, while I am driving it may be good to have someone checking the map. It may be easier to have two people handle the luggages than just one. However, as I have been living alone for three years and battling this kind of issues day in and day out, I am OK with that. Just a bit of inconvenience from time to time, not a real big deal.

(3). Traveling alone is the least cost efficient way, of course.

(4). When you travel alone it also means you deal with all potential problems alone. And people do get worried about that.

This is just my two cents. What's you opinion on traveling alone?