Keeping it real.

It's been a while now since I last posted something on this blog and I realised that it was mostly because things happen, life happens and you end up struggling with other priorities. This does not mean I have slowed down playing card games but rather that I have not been able to do so with the frequency I could afford in the past.

What I have noticed however is that when time becomes a luxury you tend to focus more on a handful of games you know and love rather than seek out new games to try out. For instance lately I have rediscovered Uno and I have played it with some frequency thanks mostly to an android app I downloaded.

Uno is a game that is very simple to learn and yet it offers some intriguing game play. Additionally over the years its standard rule set has evolved to include new regulations that increase the excitement and enjoyment of the game. If you haven't played Uno in some time then I would suggest you grab a deck and take it for a spin or two.

Uno Rules and tips here

Another game I have played recently is Gin Rummy. This is perhaps the only Rummy variation I really love and enjoy. The only downside to this game is that it is designed as a two-player game. I have found variations for more players but then the game stops being Gin.

Yet the one game I play above all others is most definitely online Texas Holdem poker. I have two preferred platforms Pokerstars and PKR. Pokerstars offers one of the best and cleanest interfaces which allows you to further customise it to suite your own tastes. You also get an Android app, so you can play on your tablet with equal ease. PKR has a lavish 3D environment which takes the game in a whole new direction. You can fully customise your Avatar to make him resemble yourself as well as clothe him to mimic your personal style. The in game animations are great and the cards are easy to read and follow.

Both Pokerstars and PKR have easy betting shortcuts that simplify such actions as betting, raising and re-raising. You'll find Sharks and Fish on both platforms but Pokerstars tends to have a higher proportion of good players in my opinion.

If you decide to give PKR a go be warned that you need a good PC with a decent graphics card or you will not enjoy what the game can really offer. Pokerstars is less demanding on your hardware but is more of an essential platform geared for the players who don't want clutter around the screen when they play.

Speaking of clutter, the platform that trumps all others in terms of shear clutter and what I call "noise" is Zynga poker. This platform is horrific in the amount of clutter thrown at the players with blinking icons, mini games and special offers. Keeping track of your game can indeed prove challenging but still many Facebook users play Zynga poker, maybe because it was the first out there and they have remained loyal to it over time. Personally I have nothing against placing adverts or offers in say the gaming lobby of a poker platform but once in a hand these should be kept to an absolute minimum. I mean if you are moderately serious about playing a decent game you don't want to be distracted with annoying ads, especially if you happen to be deciding whether to fold or go all-in.

That is all for now, hope to be able to get back soon with a new card deck review.

posted from Bloggeroid

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Ranking of Suits in card games

Technorati Tags: suits,tarot,ranking of suits,Seven card Stud,Contract Bridge,Euchre,Spades,Hearts,French Tarot,Big Two,Latin suits

While it is usually quite simple to explain the ranking of cards based on their relative position within a sequence, for instance a nine of hearts is lower than a ten of hearts, some effort must be made to memorise the ranking of suits since this is usually very game dependant.

Take Euchre for instance, apart from having the Jack of trump as the highest ranked card, the Jack of the same colour as the Jack of trump, is also trump but one rank lower. This peculiarity when it comes to card rankings that also involve suits is by no means exclusive to Euchre; you also find it in other games.

In Seven-card Stud poker, suits are particularly important when determining who will place the first Bring-in bet when two or more players show the same ranked card. In Seven-card Stud, two possible ranking of suits exist, as we will now see. The first, from lowest to highest has Diamonds lowest, followed by Clubs, Hearts with Spades being highest. The second, from lowest to highest has Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts and Spades. Contract Bridge also uses this latter ranking. The easiest way to recall the latter sequence is to place the suits in ascending alphabetical order. I personally do not know of a way to memorize the former sequence, you just have to learn it. However, especially when playing a poker variation that utilises a peculiar ranking of suits, it is important to determine which ranking is in play before sitting down at a table.

Suits are significantly more important in trick-taking games. In these games, a specific suit is declared trump, or in other words that suit will prevail over the remaining suits. The manner in which the trump suit is declared may vary but the principle is usually the same. In “Spades” for instance, spades are always trump and players base their game plan around winning as many tricks aided by whatever spades and high cards they hold at the start of a hand. In “Hearts”, the opposite holds true, here the trump suit is undesirable and you want to get rid of any heart that comes your way. Each heart you win in a trick is one point scored against you, if then you have the misfortune of winning the queen of spades, well that is a further 13 points scored against you.

Earlier on, we mentioned Contract Bridge; in this game, the emphasis on determining a trump suit is even more significant, since any suit can become trump and players bid for which suit they would like to be trump. To complicate matters, the actual ranking of the suits themselves determines whether one bid is higher than another, as well as how many points a partnership will score if they fulfil their contract. In Bridge, the ranking of suits is identical to the second ranking of suits described for Seven-card Stud (clubs low, diamonds, hearts and spades high), but this ranking also utilises a fifth imaginary suit called No-trump (NT). In Bridge NT ranks highest and basically means that no suit will prevail over another, at least for that particular hand. 

This importance attributed to particular suits, was not always a major part of trick-taking card games. In older tarot games, played with the 78-card deck for instance, the suits were never trump. Twenty-one unique trumps were in fact included in addition to the pip suits and no other suit was normally elevated to trump status. The Tarot deck also include four picture cards in each of the four suits and not three as in the more traditional 52-card decks; these are in order, Page (or Jack), Knight followed by Queen and King being highest. Obviously, a lower ranked trump would lose to a higher ranked trump, but that is just about it. In tarot games, the pip suits rake in few if any points, with the lion’s share of points scored by those players who successfully capture as many trump cards as they possibly can.

With the advent of the printing press, and mass-produced decks of cards, the larger decks proved less popular apart from being more expensive to produce, so the smaller 52-card decks enjoyed wider circulation among the general gambling public. Without the twenty-one distinct trumps, which were not included in these smaller decks, trick-taking card games needed other ways of determining trumps. This in my opinion was precisely the reasoning that led to the attribution of trump qualities to specific suits, and for the importance of attributing a ranking to the four suits.

In Italy for instance, were a 40-card deck sporting Latin pips (i.e. batons, coins, cups and swords) is still fairly popular, there are certain regional card games that still put an emphasis on one particular suit over the other. In the fishing game of Scopa for instance, the suit of coins (analogous to the modern suit of diamonds), is offered a higher value to the other suits. In fact, players who capture the most coins will score a point.

Going back to suit ranking and modern card games that are still played today, the ranking of suits differ from those described up to now. In Skat, the correct ranking of suits from lowest to highest is clubs, spades, hearts with diamonds highest. In Big Two the correct ranking from lowest to highest is spades, hearts, clubs with diamonds highest. For this reason, as mentioned earlier on, it is important to become familiar with whatever ranking is in use for a particular game.

Card games owe their diversity and allure to the ingenious game designers who through the ages have found new and exciting ways to use this most versatile and compact of social games. Ranking suits in a specific order adds an extra layer of complexity to a card game while making it more challenging and rewarding to master.

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The dangers of excess in gaming and life.

 

Several blogs ago, I wrote in some detail regarding various aspects of gambling. I recall reasoning that as with most things in life, gambling has both a positive as well as a negative aspect. I also added back then, that more often than not it was the darker, shadier aspects that got into the collective psyche thus demonizing the concept as a whole.

What I said back then still holds true for me, and I will not re-iterate those cogitations, still I feel I have something more to add to all the rhetoric. In the following exposition I propose to link gambling in general to the way the human brain is wired, and how this biological imperative impacts upon all mental undertakings, including gambling.

The human brain is a pattern-matching machine, we learn by memorizing patterns, determining similarities between what we perceive to be related matters. Even pre-schoolers are taught to first learn how to group related objects together, at times even before being taught the rudimentary concepts behind mathematics and language. Additionally, mathematical constructs such as addition, are normally approached from the standpoint of groupings of similar units. Poetry is itself an exercise in pattern matching, creating linguistic harmony by alternating rhyming verse.

John Ratey (2001), a Harvard psychiatrist believes that the brain works by relating whole concepts to one another while looking for similarities, differences and relationships between them. Each time we learn something new, we effectively put together a new pattern that will aid us in the evaluation of similar circumstances. There is a downside to this drive for identifying patterns, for our minds may trick us into seeing patterns where there might be none. Methods based on these made-up or false patterns, could lead to disastrous conclusions as we shall see later.

Going one step further, most of our endeavours in life are based on our ability to recognise patterns, and to successfully take favourable actions based on our ability to predict the next element in patterns occurring around us. An extreme example of all this would be determining an acceptable level of risk for a given venture. Taken from a mathematical standpoint, risk is calculated using formulas derived from the observation of patterns, which are then broken down and logically weaved into abstract thought processes which facilitate the direct analysis of a situation. From a sociological standpoint, risk can then be analysed from the past behaviours of individuals or groups, given a specific set of environmental variables whether intrinsic or extrinsic, which impinge upon the scenario being considered.

As we grow we therefore realise that being skilled at recognising patterns and extrapolating future occurrences from past experience, will lead to favourable personal outcomes. In a nutshell we learn that becoming good at detecting certain patterns will result in rewards and satisfaction. In some people, the rewards and satisfaction accrued from their pattern matching skill, take precedence over anything else they might do in life. It is not uncommon for people we identify as being exceptionally gifted in a certain field, to be so immersed in their work as to appear alienated in other fields of life. They become the eccentric gurus, the whizz kids that inspire millions with the fruits of their labour.

Yet this same pattern matching skill is what drives us towards other endeavours in life such as gaming. Games come in all shapes and sizes yet at the heart of each game you will find some sort of pattern matching exercise. Take Chess for instance, this intriguing game follows a specific set of rules; each individual chessman moves in a predetermined pattern and can conduct any finite number of moves within a specific scenario. The Chess player learns to leverage the strength of each piece on the board, based on patterns of play which he memorizes. At a higher level then, he will take those patterns of play and systematically extrapolate each move forward in time in order to determine the best course of action. The stronger players are those who have efficient recall of precisely the moves required to perform a certain manoeuvre that will lead to victory. The satisfaction derived from beating an opponent becomes the vital juice that drives the consummate player towards improving and practising his skill, game after game.

This happens even with games of imperfect information such as backgammon or poker. In these games, chance adds a further dimension to game play; because it forces the player to optimise a strategy that takes into account that which he cannot control. In backgammon for instance, the player strives to maximise positional strength by building points on the board, to either block an opponent or set him up for an aggressive onslaught. To do so the proficient backgammon player would have studied the best possible moves given specific rolls of dice. He would learn how to recognise certain checker layouts, in order to quickly determine whether or not to offer or accept a double.

In poker, the players learn to maximize the effect of each infinitesimal bit of information available to them, in order to enact psychological and strategic moves that grant them an edge over the competition. They would effectively be doing this by recalling past correlations between behaviour and actual play, in order to spot similar patterns in moves happening in the current hand. Not only but thanks to mathematical models such as Expected Value, they also learn to attach weights to the possibility of certain patterns materializing as opposed to others. At a higher level then the gamer will also learn to scrap certain patterns based on newer information that would favour others.

Either game (poker or backgammon) depends on a player’s ability to recall effective skilful plays based on recognising patterns, the better a player’s recall, the more potentially skilful his play. Again as with other endeavours mentioned earlier on, winning at these games results in potent psychological re-enforcement, encouraging that player to both repeat those patterns that led to victory as well as strive to improve his game over time. Improvement in turn comes at the cost of assessing certain patterns that work and adopting them, while discarding others that prove ineffective over time. Indeed the greatest ability lies in the discovery that perhaps an embraced pattern needs to be disposed of in order to foster intellectual growth and hence better over all play.

So long as a person’s inclination and aptitude at recognising patterns is kept in check, there can be nothing wrong in pursuing excellence in a particular field of interest; but what happens when that skill becomes an obsession? That is when a player becomes so enamoured with the rewards accrued from his perceived or actual ability, that everything else takes second place. Such a person could even potentially start to get his priorities all wrong, resulting in social problems that could eventually destroy him on a psychological and physical level.

We are here entering the realm of addictions, where a person will now take up an activity with so much intensity that nothing else carries any importance; the worse the addiction, the greater the impact on the actions taken by that person. A quick search on Wikipedia describes addictive behaviour as any activity, substance, object, or behaviour that becomes the major focus of a person's life resulting in a physical, mental, and/or social withdrawal from their normal day to day obligations. For instance a person believes he has mastered a specific method (or pattern of actions) that promises a lucrative outcome. The promise itself becomes the motivator to experiment repeatedly with that method which however could be flawed. Yet the person becomes engaged into a pattern of repeated behaviours that develop into psychological addiction. The person suffers losses as a consequence to underlying false premises that make up that perceived method. Rather than stopping to reconsider, that person blindly loses himself in that delusion, resulting in further losses.

Yet it does not have to be so, the underlying skill is a valid one and working on it, regardless of the venue, can have positive ripple effects on other areas in one’s life. The secret towards maximising the benefits one could accrue from it is to never stop learning. When a person believes he has learnt all there is to be learnt on a subject, he will inevitably start building a delusion that could prove fatal. Moderation and knowledge on the other hand could not only to reap the benefits of one’s skill-base but also not to fall victim of personal misconceptions over time.

Some people, it is true are genetically predisposed to addictive behaviour patterns (addictive personalities), they must therefore learn to stay away from those situations that will lead to addiction. As for others they must simply learn that on-going education, constructive self-criticism and moderation go a long way towards maximising their pattern-recognition skills without falling victims to the dangers of excess.

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People do not play the same way you do!

Technorati Tags: poker,assumptions,thinking,player types,betting,casual players,tournament,Texas Holdem

The competitive aspect of poker has always drawn me, more than cash games. This is why you will most often see me regularly play competition formats online. Likewise, when I put together a home game, I normally opt to offer a tournament style game that so far has proven popular with my guests. Through these games, both the several thousand hands I have played so far online and the few hundreds I have played off-line, I have discovered that while books and theories do help you towards developing your skill-base, they can never really prepare you for the people you eventually meet at the tables.

The basic premise here is that in the real world, you will frequently find people who do not think about a hand in the same way you do, nor will they play a hand in the same way you do. This may be because either they are reckless by nature, or simply because they have no formal poker training.

Most people I have played casually with, play poker instinctually, at times emotionally. What this means is that the moment they pick a pair for instance, any pair, they will play it as if they are holding gold. They will play A-x, K-x or any high card for that matter, the same way they would play better holdings. Perhaps nobody told them they are playing it all wrong; yet there again who am I to tell them they are? What I have learnt is that in such circumstances I must learn to revisit the way I play the game, not my opponent. I must think differently, I cannot blame a casual opponent for playing pocket deuces as though they were holding Aces, but rather I should blame myself for my unfounded assumptions.

The first unfounded assumption, that could really cost you many chips, is to assume that your opponents will play a hand in the same way you do. If I feel that pocket aces need betting aggressively pre-flop, this does not imply my opponents do so too. Maybe they believe calling is sufficient, not because they might want to trap me, but because calling for them is more natural than raising. Alternatively, they might value any pair regardless of rank. Let me illustrate this point with an example.

A while ago, I was playing some poker with friends, most of whom had not played Texas Holdem at all. To be fair most had played some variation of 5-card draw but nothing more than that. Therefore, feeling very proud of my set-up and my newfound knowledge up until then, I set about explaining how the game plays as well as what beats what in poker. Confident that everyone had grasped the notions, we began to play.

Halfway through the evening, a friend of mine whom I shall call Sally, and on whom I had the advantage of position at the table, opened pre-flop with a bet. This was by no means unique for her, she had been opening with a minimum bet all evening, and I was admiring that to tell you the truth. This time round however, I looked at my pocket cards to find Jacks. Knowing that she had a tendency to play a whole lot of marginal and rubbish hands and wanting to thin out the field, perhaps play her heads-up, I decided to raise her bet by a further two big blinds. I need to specify that at the time I was playing in the cut-off position, which made Sally’s opening bet from middle position an interesting proposition.

My raise had the desired effect of getting the other players on the table to fold, except Sally of course who called my bet. The flop came down 2-4-9 rainbow, no flush or straight draws possible, and no scary high-cards to challenge my Jacks. Sally bets almost half the pot, this action itself confused me in that if she connected to the flop and made a pair she was not going to be a threat, but I had to give her credence for a pair. There again, she could be holding trips, perhaps she started with pocket nines or maybe fours and now she made a set. Still, my re-raise pre-flop must have signalled I had a strong pair so why did she call my raise, if indeed she had a small pair. At this point I began to think she might be holding on to a strong pair, queens or higher. I decided that the best course of action would be to call her bet and have a look at the turn. The turn came Jack of hearts; I had turned my pocket Jacks into trips! I was ecstatic, if indeed, she held pocket queens or higher I now had the nuts. Eager to get my hands on the pot, I opted for a pot-sized bet, surely she will fold I thought! Was I wrong!

Sally just came over the top, doubling my bet; I began to think she had gone crazy. No trips on the board could beat my Jacks; she was drawing dead with her queens or better. Still, the feeling was that whatever I would be throwing at her, she would call, it was useless raising, and she would not fold. I opted to call.

The river card came a deuce, indeed there now was a pair on the table, but surely, this would not help Sally, not with her high pair. Yet, once again, Sally bets and this time, she just shoved her chips all into the middle. I just kept telling myself, the girl is nuts, you want to do this so let us do it! I called.

“Three Jacks!” I announce while turning my hand over.

“I think I beat that, four twos!” she calls while showing me her pocket deuces.

Besides feeling utterly belittled and outplayed, that hand made me realise what a terrible mistake I had made earlier. I had wrongly reasoned that she would somehow play that hand the same way I would. I would find it very difficult not to dump a small pair pre-flop if someone re-raises me, yet she did just that. Following that line of thought, I therefore wrongly excluded the possibility of her turning a pocket pair into trips on the flop; she just could not have called my re-raise with a low pair…big mistake!

This little anecdote leads me to a second erroneous assumption we sometimes make about our opponents. We assume, once again very wrongly, that our opponents know or at least can reason what we might be holding. This is again a very dangerous assumption. In the previous example, I was assuming that Sally could interpret my re-raise pre-flop to mean I had a strong pair. That she would somehow know, as she entered the flop, that I had something she needed to beat with a stronger hand. This was not what she thought at all. Sally being Sally, she was simply happy to be holding on to a pair, perhaps that was the first pocket pair she had seen in a few hands and she just wanted to play at all costs. She was definitely not reasoning that I might have a higher pair; her pair was as good as money in the bank for all she knew.

The next logical step in our reasoning would be determining how best to play against a player such as Sally, that is how should one play against a player that observes none of the conventions I might be taking for granted? There is no easy answer to this question other than choosing your spots more wisely. Depending squarely on the manner in which a player normally plays a hand, or maybe on his patterns of play, one should then extrapolate a strategy that will counter his behaviourisms and favour your own skilful play.

For instance if a player comes across as loose passive, calling with weak or marginal holdings, it may indeed pay to bet into this player with nut hands because he will most certainly call any bet you lay on the table. On the other hand, if your opponent is more of a loose aggressive, it may make better sense to check to him and allow him to set the bar, especially if you do hold an unbeatable nut hand. In this way you can hope, or at least attempt to maximize profits per hand with your good hands. Likewise, with weaker holding, you need to thread carefully especially if your opponent has a proven history of playing drawing hands to the extreme consequence. Drawing hands do get lucky some times and you do not want to be there when it happens with most of your chips on the line.

It is also advisable to weigh carefully those instances where you might opt to bluff. Against some players, for instance the loose passive, bluffing may be hard to almost impossible. If you happen to be playing against a calling station, you may fair better if you opt not to bluff at all and wait for premium starting hands in order to attack.

Another assumption is an intriguing one indeed. At times we fall foul of labelling a person as being a rock or maybe, not a bluffer, when in fact that person might be throwing in a couple of bluffs occasionally. You should therefore never base your entire decision process on the premise that a given player is playing too tight to be bluffing. There might be instances it is true, that a player may fold hand after hand and play straightforward with good to premium holdings, but it does not follow that this same player might not try to slip a bluff under the radar, precisely because of the image he might have at the table. For this reason, it pays to consider other factors, such as the pattern of betting shown by that player in question, his behaviour when he is in late position as opposed to when he is in early position, so on and so forth.

While the above arguments seem to only address playing amateurs or casual players, they also apply to other players you might encounter. It is true that more experienced players will use deceptive manoeuvres in an attempt to mislead opponents, yet you need to take yourself out of the equation if you are to approximate an optimal decision given the information at hand. You do this by not assuming anything, but rather by gathering information at the table in an unbiased manner.

In the previous example, given that I knew that Sally would play a lot of hands and that, she valued any pair that came her way; my reasoning should have followed a different path. First, I should have disregarded her opening bet, since she always opened with the same sized bet. However, more importantly, post flop if she did not make any kind of drawing hand or pair Sally would have normally folded her hand. This is where I should have stopped to think that her hand was sufficiently valuable to lead her into betting with it, to open bets. So here, I had a habitual caller who was now actively betting. This of itself should have alerted me that she must have connected to the flop, and since there were no straights or flushes possible, the only way she would have connected was with a pair that she had now turned into a set. So essentially, she could now have trip deuces, fours or nines. In any case, my Jacks were beat at this point.

In hindsight, the only way to minimise losses on the turn with the appearance of a Jack, could have been to check to her and see what kind of bet she would have lain down. I would not have been surprised had she simply bet the minimum on the turn, indicating what she perceived to be a strong hand. Some may argue that going all-in at this point would have really shaken her sufficiently to reassess and possibly fold, yet I had nothing to indicate that she would indeed throw away her trips, regardless of the Jack on the turn. On the river then with the table pairing, a reassessment would have been in order. I still believe that my smooth call on the turn to a hypothetical smaller bet by Sally would still have led her then to go all-in the moment she realised she had made four deuces. The only difference would have been less commitment on my part in terms of chips in play.

The bottom line is this, never assume your opponents play the same way you do and never assume they think the same way you do. Poker is fun because it brings diverse characters together in a game of incomplete information, and the trick is to remember this diversity and keep it in mind. Definitely, there are many other skills to acquire along the way, but learning how to approach the game objectively will definitely give you an edge over the competition.

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Gin Rummy–Rebooting a Classic

Back home, when I was much younger, classic Rummy was the game of choice. We played two variants, the 10-card and the 7-card variant. The 7-card variant was a much shorter game where you were dealt 7 cards and were expected to form 2 sets, one of 4 and one of 3. The 10-card version, which was the principal game played, players were dealt 10 cards and they were expected to form three sets, of 3, 3 and 4.

The play for these traditional versions was simple. You shuffled a standard deck of cards sans Jokers, dealt out the cards to each player face down. The remaining deck was then placed face-down on the table with the top-most card placed face up next to the stock pile in order to start the discard pile. This first face-up card was then offered to each player in turn starting from the dealer’s left. If no one wanted the card then the dealer began his play by taking a face-down card from the stock pile. A player’s turn always ended with a discard thrown on the discard pile. Winning was straight-forward, you just had to form your sets and go down with all your cards at once.

My mother was exceptionally good at this variation of Rummy, I remember that I would get increasingly frustrated when she would win several hands in a row when I would have never even savoured the possibility of winning at least one hand. She obviously knew something I did not know, but back then I never bothered to read into the game or try to understand where I was getting it all wrong.

Some years ago I came across Gin Rummy, with the knock variation. This variation, just in case you never played this game, allows you to go down even if  you have not melded all of your ten cards, so long as the sum of your un-melded cards does not exceed 10 points. Picture cards (King, Queen, Jack) are worth 10 points each and suited cards are worth their face value. Aces are always low.

Before venturing any further however, I would like to specify that Gin Rummy is a two-player game, and even though it can be played with more players, it still essentially works best as a two-player card game.

As with regular Rummy you can create sets of three identical cards (e.g. K-K-K) or sequences (e.g. 7-8-9 of hearts). However the fact that you can knock or go down with un-melded cards means that you have to adopt a different line of thought when playing Gin Rummy.

To begin with, you can for instance go down by tabling a sequence of 5 card say 4-5-6-7-8 of spades with  1-1-3-2-2 (for a total of 9-points) as deadwood. It’s legal and it could score you a lot of points especially if you manage to go down early in a hand. This happens because, as the winner, you become entitled to the total point score in un-melded cards still in the hand of your opponent at the end of the hand. there is however a downside to knocking with deadwood in hand, if your opponent ends up holding fewer deadwood points, then he gets to win 25 points and the difference between his and your deadwood, while you get nothing. Also, when one player goes down with deadwood, his opponent is also entitled to add any cards still in his hands to the tabled set or sets while also tabling any completed sets he might have put together right up to that point.

A match is normally played to 100 points. The player who reaches or exceeds this score first wins. Additionally then, besides the base score of points accrued over a number of hands, each player scores 25 points for each individual hand won, with the winner also scoring a 100 point bonus for winning. If a winning player then successfully wins a match without losing a single hand to his adversary, he will also score an additional 100 points called the shutout bonus.

That, roughly, settles matters regarding gameplay and scoring. Now a word or two regarding strategy. An average hand of Gin lasts somewhere between seven to eleven exchanges. A single exchange would be one full turn were both the dealer and non-dealer complete a turn of play. With this in mind, while it may be a good idea to hang on to you pair of kings, queens or jacks for the first few exchanges, the proposition should lose its allure by the fifth or sixth exchange. The deeper one gets into a hand the more dangerous it becomes to hold on to any picture card since if you do not successfully meld them, might potentially boost the score of your opponent.

When it comes to sets, three-of-a-kinds and sequences or runs are equally favoured when it comes to putting them together. This assuming you start off with two cards to a set, whether it be towards completing a three-of-a-kind or run. For instance, if I am holding on to a pair of Kings, there are two other kings in the deck that will allow me to complete that set. Likewise if I start off holding 5-6 of hearts, then there also are two cards that could complete that set, namely the 4 and 7 of hearts.

What really matters is keeping tabs on what cards were discarded up to a certain point in a hand, and also how much deadwood you still have in hand. Playing in a distracted manner could mean missing out on the fact that the only card you need to complete a crucial set was discarded previously. Alternatively if your opponent has not discarded too many picture cards, this could be an indication that he or she might be actually using them to form his sets.

Coordinated cards which combine 3-of-a-kind options with runs are also very good to have and you should hold on to cards that increase your possible outs to completing a hand. For instance if I am holding on to something like:-   

7d-8d-8h-6h-5h-3h-3s-X-X-X

Where X is part of completed set.

Note that in this instance we have many possible outs to form sets. a 9 or 6 of diamonds would give me a set, any remaining 8 would give me a set, the 7 or 4 of hearts would also give us a set, as would any 3. Such a hand stands a good chance of winning.

While the above situation was contrived to illustrate a point, it is always possible to work towards putting your self in a better position to win.

So far we have spoken about ways to increase your chances of winning, with a nod towards being careful not to get bogged down with high scoring un-melded cards late in a hand. Yet there is another aspect of Gin you need to seriously consider.

Imagine that you are dealt a hand that is totally uncoordinated, so terrible that winning just isn’t an option. Additionally let us assume that you have played through five or six exchanges and no favourable cards came your way. You need to start dumping your high scoring cards and quickly. Your logic in such situations should be to minimize the damage so-to-speak by reducing your deadwood score as much as possible, especially if you get a gut feeling that your opponent will be going down soon.

In summary, while playing Gin Rummy here are some pointers regarding what you ideally should be taking note of.

1. Keep track of the number of exchanges, the deeper you get into a hand the more becomes the urgency of reducing your deadwood score.
2. Keep track of what cards were discarded by your opponent, are they high cards, low cards, were you in anyway interested in grabbing any of them but let the opportunity pass by?
3. Do not claim discards unless you are doing so to complete a set.
4. Hold on to cards that increase your chances of forming more than one possible set.
5. Discard any un-melded high cards (picture cards and suited card from 8 upwards) if you can see no immediate way of melding them into sets.
6. Discard High cards such as Kings if you currently hold  K-?-J-10 with no opportunity forthcoming to form the Kings into a set. With J-10, a queen or 9 in the same suit will give you a set, but holding on to the King in this situation becomes risky the deeper you get into a hand.
7. If a hand enters the 6th or 7th exchange start to seriously look at your un-melded deadwood and discard any un-melded high cards.
8. If you find yourself in a position of holding 3 or less deadwood while standing a good chance of going down with a Gin (zero deadwood), take a risk it may pay off. Going Gin allows you to win a further 25 points and stops your opponent from offloading any his deadwood onto your tabled sets.

Basically I think that if a player were to take note of these suggestions, he will be in a position to play a much better game of Gin Rummy. Obviously the above list is by no means all comprehensive, I am sure there are points I might not have thought about. Yet when push comes to shove, there’s no real substitute to direct experience and actually playing the game.

One more thing, it pays to remember that while skill and experience will improve a Gin Rummy player, he is still playing a game that depends on the luck of the draw. Some hands or matches will not go your way, no matter how well you play. Still in the long term it will always pay to play conscientiously while following the suggestions I have listed above.

 

Technorati Tags: Gin Rummy,Knock,deadwood,strategy

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Giving out free information in Holdem

Technorati Tags: information leaks,tells,handling boredom,Texas Holdem,ABC poker

In poker there is no crime worse than giving free information regarding the strength of one’s hand to opponents at the table. I have fallen foul of this grievous contravention a number of times and in spite of my better judgement, I know I will fall foul yet again. The reason for it I think can be pinned out squarely on boredom or on being too tired to play, hence not playing my “A” game.

This leads me to another important concept when considering the problem of leaking information out to the table, the idea of focus. Poker is a highly skilled endeavour, true you can just throw your chips in and hope for the best, but doing so will ultimately lead to losses which are seldom recouped. If skill plays a part, I would like to think it plays a significant part of the game, it is vital to enter into a game feeling the best you possibly can.

It doesn’t help if you feel tired or are just dropping by a game because you have nothing better to do, if that is the attitude losses will pile. The truth is that most players today are very well-read when it comes to poker; no one approaches the table any longer without knowing the importance of position, pot odds and expected value. Sure some may give these factors greater or lesser importance depending on personal views, but no one gets to the final table of any tournament without having at least grasped these notions.

Yet as any true poker aficionado will tell you, poker is not only about playing the cards and the statistics, poker is about playing the players across the table. This is where poker tells come in and where substantial profit is reaped or concretised. A comprehensive poker education implies that you just have to go about learning what a player’s baseline behaviour is, what happens when he starts feeling uncomfortable or how he manages himself when he starts feeling comfortable. More importantly it becomes valuable to perceive transitions in the emotional states of your opponents the deeper one runs into a tournament.

As time lapses and players wade deeper through level after level of poker play, weariness always takes its toll. The deeper you go the more important mental stamina becomes. Consider that an average player at a full table has to contend with the behaviourisms and playing styles of eight distinct players. He needs to consider their individual play and how it is affected by position and their stack sizes. He needs to consider whether they have a history with any other player at the table since this will affect the way they play against specific players. He needs to understand their emotional states as discussed earlier, and he needs to come to terms with whatever compensatory behaviourism they exhibit in the process. Additionally a player needs to consider how others behave to his bets, whether a a specific bet will take down a pot or at least help him in winning a pot later. He must also concern himself about his personal table image, not how he wishes to present himself but rather how the table perceives him. With online games in particular, bet sizing becomes a vital tool. Varying bet sizes for instance could lead to an important information leak, especially pre-flop where no cards are yet face up.

A good friend of mine reminded me of one crucial lesson in this regards, keep your initial bet sizes constant regardless of your holding. If you decide to play, your initial bet should always be the same, or as a minimum played in the same fashion without emphasis. The more you mess around with either the size of this initial bet or how it is played the more information can potentially be leaked out to the table.

So betting consistently pre-flop can actually make your actions more undecipherable while keeping your opponents wondering what you might be holding on to. This is a vital concept and which could save you a lot of chips in the long term.

Yet there are other situations that could result in involuntary information leaks. For instance, just after winning a hand, you should refrain from any uncontrolled emotional outbursts; because you can still inadvertently give away information even after a hand is over. Just pick up your chips, stack them in the same way you always do and prepare yourself for the next hand. Refrain from discussing what you had or what you thought the others might have had. Any extra information might benefit others at the table who might not have even considered any of the possibilities you might wrongly choose to discuss.

Obviously there’s also the other side of the medal so to speak. You could decide to offer doctored information to the table in order to change a particular table image you might have. This is not far removed from the using of deviatory tactics to mislead opponents regarding your playing style or strength of hand. For instance if you have a solid table image, and players are putting you on strong hands refusing to offer you any action when you play, then it might be a good idea to show a suited connector now and again or maybe a marginal holding you do not normally play. However let me be clear, if you do not win a hand, show nothing. There’s no point in flashing cards if you cannot make a statement of sorts.

Back to information leaks, the greatest culprit can indeed be weariness or boredom. Poker is not for the faint of heart, it is not easy to fold hand after hand when the situation warrants it, and bluffing may not be an option. Coping with weariness can take many forms; some simply get coffee to the table which helps to some extent. Boredom however is harder to tackle but it should be!

When not in a hand, and there will be several hands you will not be playing in, you should try and focus on what the other players are doing and to focus your mental capacities on deciphering as much information as you can from the plays others make. Great players do this all of the time, it keeps them focused and it might also offer some information they might find helpful in the future hands. More importantly it also helps them stay focused on what really matters.

If you allow boredom to kick in, you will definitely stop enjoying the game and you will start seeing the game as a chore. When this happens, our minds tend to play tricks on us. Suddenly we tend to forget the basics, we forget not to play seven-deuce off-suit, we may even stop reading board texture or betting patterns. In short we turn ourselves into mindless automata whose stack will ultimately find itself heaped on another player’s pile. Boredom also has the unsavoury habit of distorting our perceptions of what other players may be doing. We tend to focus on the one hand the player to our left showed us, say a suited-connector, and not on the fact that he really has not been in that many hands after all. In other words boredom tries to convince us that any two card will do the trick.

It is true, on the other hand, that some players give the impression of being in way too many pots. Yet playing trash hands out of position is never a solid long term plan. Sure some hands may look attractive when you haven’t had a decent hand coming your way in a while, but better judgement should always prevail if you really intend to run deep into a tournament. There will be moments when semi-bluffs will win you big pots, but in the long run don’t expect to win consistently if you’re charging in with Q3 suited or J2 or K8. You might pair your big card but your kicker will more often than not come back to haunt you.

ABC poker dictates that you will play a narrow range of strong starting cards when you’re in early position. It also dictates that you will widen the range of starting hands as you progress from middle to late position. In late position then you will play the widest range of valid starting hands possible including suited connectors, (e.g. 7-8 suited or 6-7 suited or 9-T suited) Ax suited, Kx suited and small pairs from sevens to deuces. That is what works, what will earn you extra chips most of the time. Occasionally you may throw in a wild combination of starting hands, perhaps see the flop cheaply if that combo is played from the Big Blind…but don’t marry it. If the flop does not connect, scrap your trash hand and forget about it.

Many players and I fall in this category occasionally, also fall victim of what I call Bluff paranoia, which gets stronger the more bored they feel. Let me explain, you’re playing Holdem, a player to your immediate left calls your three big blinds pre-flop. The turn comes Kh9d4c, you hold pocket Aces. On such a raggedy board you bet three-fourths pot and get called yet again by the guy to your left who by the way is in the cut-off position. The Turn comes 7s, you opt to check, the guy to your left checks also, so no check raising here. The River card’s a Jc, you check again, the guy to your left drops a pot-sized bet. What do you do?

Here we have a somewhat tight player who from late position limped in suspiciously by calling a bet equal to three times the big blind. You know the guy likes to occasionally play somewhat erratically, throwing in some weak starting hands. Basically he likes to mix things up a little. On the Flop he was also willing to call your three-fourths bet but was slow to open any bets when you checked on the Turn. This guy clearly has something, he might have had pocket kings but being essentially a tight player he would have most likely played differently pre-flop, maybe re-raised. Post flop the behaviour suggests he connected somewhat significantly to the flop but still not enough for him to raise your bet. Remember you know this guy to be mostly tight with occasional loose plays. His final pot-sized opening bet on the river however should alert that something must be afoot. He now believes that whatever he holds has somehow passed a crucial test and can therefore win the pot.

In this instance the player to your left had K9 suited for two pair.

While it is never really good practice to muck pocket Aces, still many will fall victim of falling in love with such a strong starting hand. This while also rationalising that the other player must always be bluffing. Often we try to justify our decision making by any means available to us, even by attributing non-existent bluffing manoeuvres when there would be none.

Judgement in these situations would be heavily impaired if we were to add weariness to the equation. It is proven fact that most people will show a gradual deterioration in decision-making the more fatigued they get, poker players are no exception to the rule. Marathon tournaments will inexorably wear out even the most resilient brain. Players need to understand that you need to work your way up the stamina ladder, in order to ensure that all decisions are taken lucidly, and in full control of one’s mental faculties.

What this tells us is that a good tournament poker player has to learn to sustain the level of focus and attention to detail that is required in order to prevail. Through focus and improved stamina he can then hope to curb the information leak he might be unwittingly offering to his adversaries. The method one uses then depends squarely on the individual’s character as well as his unique brain chemistry. Some people just cannot perform under stress, others cannot perform if they happen to be too tired. Unless they find a sure way of addressing these factors they cannot hope to play optimally most of the time.

The process of learning how to handle weariness and boredom, also makes you aware of what information you might be leaking as a consequence. Observation is often the best exploratory tool because we might spot our own defects in others and in so doing learn ways to counter them.

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Happy New Year

So here we are at the beginning of yet another year. Many take this annual happening as an opportunity to plan the year ahead, I'm not talking about resolutions, those have a tendency to day by the wayside as the year progresses.

Cardoholics Anonymous will hail the new year with more articles related to some of the more popular trick-taking games but there will also be ample focus on Rummy-type games in particular Gin Rummy, Kalooki and Canasta. Poker will also feature as we will go into some depth into strategies aimed at improving game-play and increasing one's chances of coming up on top.

We will also go over some strategy associated with another of my favourite rummy-type games, the tile-based Mahjongg. While I have in the past reviewed this game as well as offered options to facilitate game-play I don't believe I have afford enough space to tips on how best to play this extraordinary game.

Yet more importantly the site will from time to time showcase decks of cards from my ever growing collection as well as card-based games I may acquire during the course of the year. As has been my habit, I will also from time to time go over specific topics that relate to card games but which apply across the board rather than to specific games.

 While looking forward to getting in touch with all of you in 2013, may I once again wish you all a prosperous New Year, may your plans come to fruition and may the outcomes to your endeavours never fall short of your expectations.

Until next time!

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