Mathematics of Games and Puzzles: From Cards to Sudoku

Turn now to games that rely heavily on chance and betting, such as roulette and craps, and learn how to evaluate the fairness (or unfairness) of games using the ever-important concept of expected value. Once you know if a game is to your advantage or not, you can use the Kelly criterion or the Gambler's Ruin formula to help you decide your best wagering strategies.

Depending on how you play it, blackjack can be the best or the worst game in a casino. Here, Professor Benjamin shows you how to get the best of blackjack before it gets the best of you. By taking you through scenarios of increasing difficulty to strengthen your skills, he reveals optimal strategies for knowing when to stand, when to hit, when to double, and when to split.

What happens when you're playing a game with an intelligent adversary whose goals are opposed to yours? You have a zero-sum game such as penny matching, rock-paper-scissors, and simplified poker. Discover how to use math to bluff, play unpredictably, and win these kinds of games through powerful strategies.

Investigate the mathematics of Texas Hold'em, one of the most popular traditional poker games. What's the probability your hand will improve before and after more cards are revealed? How do you calculate your "pot odds" to help you determine your proper wagering decisions? You will also learn simple and effective strategies for playing video poker.

Mathematically trained players also have a decisive edge in backgammon, which trains you to make decisions in highly uncertain conditions. This course explains the rules of the game, the basic strategies for winning, the best ways to play your opening rolls, and how math constantly enters the picture-from figuring out the safest way to move your checkers to the all-important doubling cube.

The world of games is filled with scams. The trick: knowing the strategies behind how these hustles work so you can avoid being exploited. Explore the fundamentals of nontransitive properties through penny ante, Bingo, and games involving dice and cards. Then, get a lively introduction to some simple puzzles involving cups, coins, and toothpicks-and their surprisingly sneaky answers.

Try your hand at some classic puzzles that have been driving people crazy for centuries involving sliding blocks, jumping pegs, and blinking lights-each of which deals heavily with odd or even numbers. Once you've learned some handy mathematical concepts and tools for solving these puzzles, these fun and exciting games won't seem so "impossible" anymore.

It's one of the most famous puzzles ever invented. But Professor Benjamin has an easy-to-learn, eight-step method for solving this mind-bending puzzle quickly and accurately-every time. After examining the mathematics behind the cube, you'll follow him step-by-step through an algorithm that will have you solving any Rubik's Cube in less than three minutes.

What's the key to solving Sudoku problems when you're at your wits' end? Training your mind to look for patterns and to use careful logic, just like mathematicians. This episode is packed with helpful techniques and strategies for overcoming even the most difficult Sudoku grids. Among those you'll learn about: crosshatching, miniboxes, naked pairs and triples, and the unique rectangle rule.

Chess is more like doing real mathematics than almost any other game out there. You'll get a quick overview of how it's is played; learn how to see connections between math and chess; explore some classic chess puzzles and problems; tap into strategies and tactics for the opening, middle, and end game; and get some tips that are sure to improve your game.

Finish this series with a look back at the three categories that most games fall into (games where the last player to move wins, games where the goal is to be the first to create a structure, and games where the player who accumulates the most stuff wins). Cram, NIM, Chomp, Connect Four-play them all. Also, take a look at how computers play games-and how they've helped us become better players.