{"id":110073,"date":"2019-03-12T09:03:18","date_gmt":"2019-03-12T16:03:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/?p=110073"},"modified":"2019-03-12T09:03:18","modified_gmt":"2019-03-12T16:03:18","slug":"ed-thorps-wife","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/ed-thorps-wife\/","title":{"rendered":"Ed Thorp\u2019s Wife"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ed Thorp is one of the fathers of blackjack card counting. Recently he made a nice donation to the Blackjack Ball, which ensures the continuance of the ball even after it\u2019s founder, Max Rubin, passes away. As a partial thank you, Max told Thorp that he could invite his entire family to this year\u2019s Blackjack Ball if he wanted, totally complimentary.<\/span><\/p>\n

This year, Thorp brought his wife, three children, one son-in-law, and two grandchildren. Slightly before the dinner started, I sat down at a random table. One of my goals at the ball was to find guests for the podcast. Before dinner I was writing up notes before I forgot who the people on my list were and what made them interesting.<\/span><\/p>\n

It turned out that the table where I had sat down was the one that the Thorps were planning on reserving for themselves. As there are only eight chairs at the table, I told them I would move. They graciously said that wasn\u2019t necessary and they\u2019d just go find another chair, which they did. So, I ended up sitting between his granddaughter, who had just graduated from Dartmouth College, and his wife, Catherine.<\/span><\/p>\n

While I conversed with both ladies, as well as others at the table, I had the longest conversation with Catherine. She had married Ed Thorp, who is now in his mid-80s and still quite sharp, about seven years ago. Since I married Bonnie five years ago, there were certain similarities.<\/span><\/p>\n

Catherine said Ed chose her mathematically! He had some mathematical model that told him that she was the one! I found that fascinating. I\u2019m happy with my choice of Bonnie, but certainly did not use any mathematical formula to pick her out. So, I decided to ask Ed to tell me more about his methodology.<\/span><\/p>\n

He smiled and said it\u2019s not original with him and Wikipedia addresses this as the \u201cSecretary Problem.\u201d My explanation below is going to be highly simplified, but you can look it up in Wikipedia should you like.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Secretary Problem was originally derived in the context of determining how many potential secretaries you should interview before deciding on which one to hire. The problem requires that you know the number of interviewees in the pool, n, and that you are able to rank each secretary relative to the others. <\/span><\/p>\n

The key number for the optimal number of secretaries (or candidates for marriage) turns out to be n \/ e, where e is a mathematical constant whose value is approximately 2.718.<\/span><\/p>\n

That is, when Ed was looking for a wife, if he thought he would have five years to find one and would meet eight potential mates a year, that would be 40 candidates. Doing the math, we have 40 \/ 2.718 = 14.7. This means that with the first 14 women Ed meets, no matter how desirable they are, he does not propose. He merely ranks each one relative to the others.<\/span><\/p>\n

Starting with the 15<\/span>th<\/span> woman, he should propose to the first one he meets who exceeds the others in ranking. Assuming she accepts, that\u2019s the one he should marry. If none of the last 26 women outrank the best one in the first 14, he should simply marry the last one.<\/span><\/p>\n

(Presumably in the real world, if the 40<\/span>th<\/span> one was totally inappropriate, he would continue until he found one that\u2019s reasonably appropriate.) <\/span><\/p>\n

So, I told Catherine that I might forget her name before next year, but I was probably going to remember that she was Ms. 15, because she couldn\u2019t have been in the first 14! She and Ed were both fine with that!<\/span><\/p>\n

This was a pleasant chat and \u201cintellectual\u201d discussion with two charming people, but I have my doubts that this was actually the method Ed Thorp used to select his wife. Why? Because it\u2019s extremely difficult to rank people.<\/span><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s say he\u2019s met Karen, Linda, and Mary and assume they are all \u201creasonably\u201d acceptable. One will be prettier, one will be smarter, one will make better lasagna, one will be more responsible financially (a definite consideration because Thorp is, I believe, a billionaire or close to it), one will be more compatible on religious and political issues, one will be better liked by his family members, etc. <\/span><\/p>\n

How can you possibly give a unique ranking for these three women — let alone 14? \u00a0It\u2019s virtually impossible that one woman could be superior in every aspect to the others. So, you\u2019re going to have to make some kind of formula that tells you which attribute is most important. And these are real live women, who each come with lots and lots of attributes, each of whom have good days and bad days. This is not a catalog where you can pick and choose.<\/span><\/p>\n

So, this strikes me as an apocryphal story that Ed and Catherine like to tell but was not actually used in real life. However he actually chose her, he did well. She appears to be quite charming and they are clearly very fond of one another. <\/span><\/p>\n

The Secretary Problem, however, is an interesting theoretical concept about when to stop your searching. I\u2019m glad I was introduced to it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Author\u2019s note: \u00a0After I wrote the above, I sent it to Dr. Thorp to get his feedback before I published. It\u2019s possible I misrepresented the problem, and I was, after all, suggesting that he wasn\u2019t being entirely truthful in saying he used this technique to find Catherine. He is one of my heroes and I didn\u2019t want to insult him. \u00a0He responded:<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Hi Bob,<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We enjoyed your company. \u00a0Yes, a math model like this is fun to think about but the real world is so much more complex in this instance that one shouldn\u2019t, and we didn\u2019t, follow it. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Best,<\/span><\/p>\n

Ed<\/span><\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"youtube\"<\/a>\"instagram\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ed Thorp is one of the fathers of blackjack card counting. Recently he made a nice donation to the Blackjack Ball, which ensures the continuance of the ball even after it\u2019s founder, Max Rubin, passes away. As a partial thank you, Max told Thorp that he could invite his entire family to this year\u2019s Blackjack […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6498,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[29,2],"tags":[428,382],"yoast_head":"\nEd Thorp\u2019s Wife - Gambling With An Edge<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/ed-thorps-wife\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ed Thorp\u2019s Wife - Gambling With An Edge\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Ed Thorp is one of the fathers of blackjack card counting. 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