After a disastrous campaign so far, things can’t get any worse for Punjab but opponents Kolkata blow hot and cold and this may present their best chance of achieving some respectability, says Edward Hammond-Kenny. Related posts: IPL Betting: Kings XI Punjab v Kolkata Knight Riders The only way is up for bottom-of-the-table Kings XI… IPL Cricket Betting: Kolkata Knight Riders v Royal Challengers Bangalore Fresh from beating the Deccan Chargers, the Kolkata Knight..

There’s nothing to choose between Big Fella Thanks and Duc De Regniere on chasing form to date, but the latter was a smart hurdler and should be able to improve on his three efforts to date over fences. In addition, this trip will be on the sharp side for Big Fella Thanks, though he should still take second from some inferior rivals. Related posts: Timeform Daily: Friday, Catterick 3.30 Jim Tango is open to improvement over fences, and..

The Russian chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov has an interesting new piece in the February 11, 2010 issue of The New York Review of Books , a review of Spanish writer Diego Rasskin-Gutman’s Chess Metaphors: Artificial Intelligence of the Human Mind . Much of the article concerns the book, but toward the end Kasparov makes a couple of interesting references to poker — comparing it to chess and talking about both games in the context of advancing research in the field of artificial intelligence — that I thought I’d share here. Kasparov begins by recounting how back in 1985 — after he had defeated Anatoly Karpov and become World Chess Champion at age 22 — he took on 32 chess-playing computers in a much publicized event in Hamburg and beat them all

Noticed an item in yesterday’s USA Today about online poker, a reference to a newly-published study about online poker called “Social and Psychological Challenges of Poker” by Kyle Siler, a doctoral student in sociology at Cornell University. As usually happens with these articles that try to summarize a discipline-specific study for a wide audience, the USA Today piece boils Siler’s article down to one simple, easy-to-digest claim, essentially announcing that it shows “Poker wins often lead to bigger losses .” In other words, the USA Today article makes it sounds as though Siler’s exhaustive study of a large sample of online poker hands proves that players who win a little tend to lose it back and then some — confirming, in a way, the fears of those who object to poker and/or gambling as an inevitable road to ruin, regardless of one’s short-term successes

Over 2500 exhibitors, including more than 300 new companies and representatives will gather in Las Vegas this week to display, announce and unveil the latest and most innovative entertainment technologies, applications, games and software before they hit the market. Known and the largest consumer technology trade show on the planet, the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show  (CES) will run from Thursday, January 7th to Sunday, January 10th at Las Vegas Convention Center, Las Vegas Hilton and The Venetian Resort and Casino .