Poker Game

"Poker" describes a number of games all of which have the following in common:

Poker is used metaphorically for many purposes.

Generally, five-card poker hands are ranked as follows (highest to lowest):

for hands of same type the value of the cards is considered, if its still a tie the pot is usually split

The ace is the highest-ranking card in the deck, followed by the king, the queen, the jack, and the numbered cards in order. The 2 is the lowest-ranking card. In some hands, however (such as the straight and straight flush), an ace can be used as a "1" card - Ace, 2, 3, 4, 5 is a valid straight, as is 10-Jack-Queen-King-Ace. The ace cannot be in the middle; one cannot form a straight with Queen-King-Ace-2-3.

This ranking is based upon the decreasing probability of being dealt these particular hands in a random selection of five cards from a standard 52-card deck.

The wording above, "no-one sees all the cards", is sufficiently vague because in some variations the player doesn't even see all of his own cards. Like the one where you put one of the cards on your forehead.

The highest straight flush is called a "royal flush" (often listed separately on score sheets). The highest straight non-flush is sometimes called a "broadway". Texas Hold'em is probably the most popular poker game today.

If kind of hands tied, higher ranking numbers win, counting numbers used in four-of-a-kind, three-of-a-kind, pair, and any others. Straight uses the highest card in the straight, where an ace is low if a A-2-3-4-5 straight; in all other cases the ace is high (except some kinds of low ball games). However, if you have more than five cards, only five of them are used. Suits are not relevant for breaking ties; a royal flush in hearts is just as good as one in spades.

The cards dealt are random. And let's assume cheating is out of the question, as you stand to lose more than money.

So how is it that the good players consistently outperform the bad players?

There are two components to being a good poker player: knowledge of card probabilities and playing a better psychological game than your opponent. There is a limit to how much useful probability knowledge there is to learn, so the best players are primarily distinguished by the latter.

Professional poker players will tell you that there is a third component which is vastly more important than the two mentioned above, which is "table selection". Table selection is the ability to sit down at tables with lousy players (or players who don't have much money to wager), rather than at tables with players who are good/tough/rich.

Having a large amount of money with which to wager also is a major factor. If I sit at a poker table with the world's greatest player, and I have $10000 in my pocket and he has only $100, and there is no limitation on the maximum bet - I will whip his butt (over the long haul) every time. A very common and effective strategy is to wager more money than your opponents can afford to lose - a poker player who can consistently "make the game too rich" for his opponents will himself get rich collecting the antes and initial wagers. (This strategy works well in business, too).

In poker, this fails. If you sit down at a table with the world's greatest poker player, he *wants* you to have 100x as much money as him, or at least for the game to start out that way...

To explain a bit more, if you're constantly trying to overpower the 'weaker' (in chips) player, you play right into their ideal play: they can afford to wait for good hands, because they can be quite certain that you'll pay them off when they get one. If the blinds are small compared to their stack (even though their stack is small compared to yours), they can just wait it out, and they will end up taking your money.

In effect, if the blinds are small enough that they can afford to pay out 20-30 blinds/antes, they'll take you in a big game. In a heads-up match, they'll likely only need to wait out 4-6 hands. And a good player simply won't sit down if they can't. This is not to say that money is not a factor; but it's not as much of a factor once you have enough to cover the blinds comfortably.

-- WilliamUnderwood

That is what is wrong with playing cash games. Just play a tournament style (even if there are only two players), each player starts same number of chips, and nobody wins until the other player loses all of their chips. You can bet money on winning if you want to, and it does not have to correspond to how many chips they are. Amount of money in your pocket is therefore irrelevant, except that you need to have enough to afford to pay the entry fee (which you have to decide before you start, and then the prize is twice the entry fee).

You might enjoy reading "Poker, a Guaranteed Income for Life" by Frank Wallace, available online for free at http://www.stackcheck.com/links.html. (Please note that I have no intention of starting a Neo-Tech discussion or debate on Wiki, I'm merely pointing out that this out of print book has been posted at the site for Wallace's current endeavors.) Wallace was a research chemist who made more money at poker than at his day job. I'm not a poker player myself but I think I can accurately summarize the point of the book: Assuming that the mechanics of knowing the odds and so forth is within the mental capacity of a player, the real question remaining is how to scrutinize the psychology of the other players. Wallace figured out how to identify players so lost in their own delusions, so unresponsive to the reality of what was happening in the game, that he could extract money from them without them even realizing that they were his mark. However, a successful poker player is only a success to the extent that other players are unsuccessful at dealing with reality, so Wallace left poker and decided to develop a philosophy of life and business success (later named "Neo-Tech", thus the site name) based on exchanging positive values rather than helping suckers be losers. That's the gist of what he claims, anyway.

There is no such thing as 'social gambling.' Either you are there to cut the other bloke's heart out and eat it - or you're a sucker. If you don't like this choice - don't gamble.
-- The Notebooks of Lazarus Long (From RobertHeinlein 's Time Enough For Love)
Lazarus, you need to switch to decaf.

After reading about John Finn, I decided my conscience would be quieter if I remained a sucker. -- DanilSuits''

My friends and I gamble socially, but then our antes are only a nickel, so it's hard to have bad feelings when a really bad night means losing five bucks.

Friends? Oh, I'll cut out a friend's heart at the poker table, that's not troubling.

That's right. Also, ask me when I stopped beating my wife.

I don't actually think it's "cutting out a friend's heart" when I take five bucks from a friend. You're entertained for a couple of hours, and it cost you five bucks plus the cost of the beer and potato chips - I think that's a pretty good entertainment value for money spent. Though I should say that I lose more than I win, right now, since I'm not that good at it. I don't mind, though.

I disagree the part about cutting your opponent's heart--your job is to win money, not your opponent's heart (unless you are playing WashizuMahjong? in which case you can win your opponent's money and their blood too, or E-Card in which case you can lose your eye and ear if you bet too much). However, it is possible to play poker for smaller amount of money or none at all. You had better try hard to win! "Softplaying" is no good. If you don't want to win a lady's last $20 or don't want your friend to lose money or something like that, well, that's no excuse; you can make the following choices: [1] You should decide ahead of time, to play for less amount of money or none at all. [2] You can give them back money after the game is finished. [3] You can take them out to dinner or something (this last one suggested by Negreanu).

Poker has some fascinating dynamics about feedback cycles and risk. An example: Beginner's games don't involve that much bluffing, so most of the time you fold when you don't think you have the best hand. This means you fold more often than you don't; if you're at a table of four people, for example, you should fold three out of four times, roughly.

I noticed at a recent game that I was good at sticking to this when the table was smaller; say, four people. But when a bunch of friends showed up and we were a table of seven, my game got much worse. Because each hand took longer to play, I wanted to fold less, because that would involve that much more time sitting out. The general principles of play had stayed the same. But the length of the feedback cycle highlighted some aspects of play at the expense of others.

PhilHellmuth? advises, for beginning HoldEm? players, a strategy where you will only play one hand in 21 against a full table of eight or more players. That means at least two and maybe more times around the table before you play a hand. Requires lots of discipline.

Sounds like he's refined his technique. :-) -- WillSargent

Has anybody tried any serious poker computer games, where you play against computerized players? Are they any good? So much of the game at the middle & higher levels involves thinking about what the other players are thinking (I think the ArtificialIntelligence people call this MetaCognition?) that I imagine it'd be very hard to write a good computer poker player.

Note that the 14th annual World Rec.Gambling.Poker Tournament for this year is about to begin (Sept 2004). The homepage to either sign up or watch is http://www.quizkids.com/wrgpt or http://nymn.com. There is no cost to enter, and no prize for winning (and no corporate involvement of any kind). Each player gets 10000 virtual dollars and the game is TexasHoldEm?, no-limit, freezeout, which means you can bet any amount of money you want, up to everything you have and the game is played without adding more money until one player has won everything. It's a ton of fun with over 1094 participants last year, played by e-mail and will last probably until June or July. -- AndyPierce

Played by email??? How is your hand determined? How is cheating prevented?

An automated serverbot deals the hands, records the bets and keeps track of the results. It has seemed to work well for the last 13 years anyway. Check out http://www.quizkids.com/wrgpt13/ for info on last year's tourney and lots of fun stats. Note that it's not hugely time intensive; one decision per day maybe on average. That's why the tourney goes so long. Of course, since it's no-limit, it can also go very quickly for individuals. :) http://www.pokerhistorynetwork.com

Everyone starting equal total of poker chips, and not adding more money until game is over, is best way to play poker; I don't like cash games. People who play chess and game like that might agree. Just like any other game, you can play with or without money, however you do need to keep score. Play with or without entry fees and prizes, just like with any other game; it doesn't matter.

GameTheory has a historic link with poker - whereas probabilities tell you when to bet on a hand, game theory will tell you when to bluff on a hand.

There is four classes of "communist hands" in a Texas Hold'em game:

CategoryGame

EditText of this page (last edited June 22, 2014) or FindPage with title or text search