MCR and WSOM Mahjong variations.

 

Technorati Tags: Mahjong,Strategy,WSOM,MCR,Riichi,British,Books

As I had indicated a while back, Mahjong is as varied as the cultures which play it consistently. For a while I have played the British Variation, with some minor modifications. As a neophyte, I tried to review the various rule-sets I could get my hands on and in the process come up with a variation that was at one time both simple to learn as well as strategically fulfilling. My first forays into creating the ultimate, simple variation gave rise to a simplified form which borrowed elements of the Japanese Riichi Mahjong as well as the British rules. It worked, but I kept getting complaints that it was too simplified or not as challenging.

Then there was another aspect that kept nagging me, the fact that I had not managed to find a single guidebook that focused on the strategy aspect. That thankfully changed in recent months when I obtained a copy of “A Mahjong Handbook” by Eleonor Noss Whitney. It starts off by covering the basics, the tiles, the seating around the table, breaking the wall, basically how to go about playing. Then it covers a variation it calls the “Modern variation”. Nothing particular here other than that it focuses on the notion of patterns which earn you doubles over and above a base score for a winning hand. This was all stuff I already knew and experimented with during my early games. The section that really caught my attention however covered both an offensive and a defensive strategy for playing the game. It was while reading this section that I realised for the first time just how important Chows, or sequences of three tiles, really were for a comprehensive strategy.

If you haven’t already, please go back and review my other Mahjong blog entry by clicking here.

You see in my experience of British Mahjong, Chows make sense only within the context of complex hands that are indeed very difficult to put together. An All Chow hand earns you a minimum point score and single Chows hold no value whatsoever. Yet in other scoring systems Chows can be used intelligently both to block opponents from winning in situations where you cannot win, as well as construct hands that garner points by containing mix scoring patterns.

In all the variations I have seen so far, actual play varies little, it is usually the scoring method employed that does while also requiring adjustments to hand building. So before reviewing the two variations mentioned in the title, allow me to go over a few gaming principles and hand-building strategies.

In most Mahjong variations, the objective is to put together a hand of exactly 14 tiles composed of four sets of three tiles and a pair. There are three types of sets you can put together, sequences (Chow), trips (Pung) and quads (Kong). For the purpose of determining a valid winning hand, Kongs are looked upon as though they were sets of three tiles (Pung). Now there are four copies of each tile in a Mahjong set, so  you will find four One’s of Bamboos, four Eights of Characters, four Red Dragon tiles so on and so forth. From this you will therefore appreciate that sequences should be easier to assemble than Pungs or Kongs. It also follows that any pattern that relies on assembling Pungs or Kongs will be harder to put together than those which focus on Chows.

Yet your strategy cannot focus on assembling just Chow-based patterns, basically because in all the point scoring systems I have encountered, the higher scores are weighted significantly in favour of assembling Pung and Kong-based patterns. So what should be your plan of action?

Mahjong is no different to other pattern-based games; Gin Rummy comes to mind here. For this reason, your likelihood of winning a hand will depend to an extent on the strength of your starting hand. Eleonor Noss Whitney states that if you notice that you have a hand requiring more than 5 tiles to complete, then your chances of winning are poor, and you should focus on minimizing damages by not offering the winning tile by discarding undesirable tiles without proper foresight. If on the other hand you have an initial hand that requires 5 or fewer tiles to attain a ready hand (one tile left to win) then you can really focus your strategy on maximizing your score.

The guidelines offered are simple yet effective. If you find yourself holding on to middling sequenced pairs such as 4-5 or 6-7, you should hang on to them in the hope of making Chows with tiles on either side of these pairs. If you have something like 5-6-7-7 then her recommendations are more in favour of forming concealed hands if possible and to stay away from forming exposed Pungs, unless it would mean going out and declaring a winning hand or making a ready hand. Personally I find it difficult to simply pass on forming a melded exposed Pung by claiming a discard, just to focus on achieving a fully concealed hand, but I see the merits of her thinking.

Another aspect found in the book A Mahjong Handbook is the ability to assess how a player plays his hands. Some players develop tendencies toward forming suited hands, or maybe honour tile based hands, this in itself would suggest a counter-strategy based on retaining crucial tiles he might need till the very last minute, or until such time that you cannot hold on them without impacting your chances of winning. The book is also clearly against giving out any information regarding the current strength of your hand such as physically separating your completed sets such as to reveal your current hand situation to your opponents. Some may argue that, okay your opponents know you have a set but that they still do not know what you are holding. That may be true but the fact is that by revealing for example that you have completed three out of the four necessary sets, an opponent may decide to change his strategy in order to attain an early (albeit lower scoring) win just to block you from winning the hand.

There’s more to the aforementioned book than what I have mentioned so far, but now I would like to focus on the two Mahjong variations I was referring to earlier.

MCR

MCR stands for Mahjong Competition Rules. It’s a format used during tournaments in Asia and stands in direct competition with the Japanese Riichi Mahjong rules which are also employed during tournaments in the Far East. MCR does away with some of the more intricate scoring methods employed in traditional Mahjong. Points are scored for patterns identified within a winning hand. There is no doubling in the MCR scoring system; you only get points associated with the patterns you succeed in putting together through your winning hand. You may have multiple patterns scored so long as neither of them overlaps significantly. If two related patterns can be observed within a winning hand, then the higher scoring pattern prevails over the other. Additionally, as happens in Riichi Mahjong, only the winner receives any points.

In my opinion the only really shortfall with MCR Mahjong are the 81 distinct patterns you need to memorize in order to plan your strategy. With repeat play you will arrive to remembering most if not all of them, but you will always need a discrete reference sheet for those that you will find difficulty committing to memory.

WSOM

WSOM stands for World Series of Mahjong. This tournament has been held annually since 2007. This year it was supposed to be hosted in Sydney as opposed to Macau, but the late announcement of the new venue (March) did not allow most players time to make the necessary preparation to attend for this year’s event. This resulted in the tournament being cancelled. We will have to wait till next year for the next WSOM. The rule-set used for this competition is adapted from the pattern-based Zung-Jung variation designed by Alan Kwoon. The WSOM rule-set is seen to borrow favourably from some of the more popular variations like Riichi. As in MCR only the winner gets any points. Discards are also orderly arranged into rows of 6 (left to right) within the wall as happens in Riichi. Flower and Season tiles are not used. Scoring, as for the MCR variation, is pattern-based and your winning hand may score multiple patterns. Unlike Riichi or other Mahjong variations, there is no doubling of scores in the WSOM rules. A winning player will always receive three times the value of his winning hand. If he wins on a discard and his hand score exceeds 30 points, than the person responsible for his win will have to pay the total points owed to the winner less 60 points. These residual 60 points are then paid off in equal parts by the remaining two players. Everyone pays in the case of a self-drawn winning hand, so each of the remaining three players will pay exactly one-third of the total points due to the winner.

That in essence is what WSOM rules are all about. Additionally another favourable aspect of this rule-set is that you only need to get familiar with 44 patterns, and they are not that difficult to remember either. Obviously during your early game it would be a good idea to keep a list of scores for easy reference.

I’d like to conclude this blog by offering you a few links you will find useful should you wish to get down to playing this incredible game.

WSOM Rules

MCR Rules

Book : A Mahjong Handbook (1965)

Book : A Mahjong Handbook (2007)

Book : Mahjong (know the game) – British Mahjong Variation

Book : The Book of Mahjong – An illustrated guide – excellent book with visuals great for first time players focuses Cantonese, Shanghai, 12-tile and Taiwanese (16-tile) variations.

Mahjong Gaming Sets : Mahjong in deluxe faux leather case by Gibsons – I own one of these and love it.

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Playing Heads-up Uno

 

For those familiar with Poker terminology the title will immediately ring a bell. Heads-up play is  one-on-one play, a focused dual of wits unlike no other. Uno tends to lend itself brilliantly to multiplayer gaming and the game is a tonne of fun when played in largish (6-8 person) groups. Yet this same game changes dramatically when two players duke it out one-on-one.

To begin with, even a minor deterioration in the quality of the decisions taken will have longer lasting repercussions on the flow of a hand. Additionally the importance of special cards you are dealt, say the Skip cards or Reverse cards, also changes depending on the game plan you weave as play progresses.

You must also be careful in as to what rules you choose to adhere to before engaging in a heads-up match. For instance let’s say you decide to opt for accumulative penalties, this will severely impact the flow of a hand and game. In standard penalty application, when a player plays a valid +2 card or a +4 card, his opponent must take the ascribed number of cards from the deck and lose his turn to play. If accumulative penalties are used, then if say Player 1 plays a +2 card and Player 2 plays back with another +2 card, then it’s Player 1 who must now pick four cards from the deck. You will understand that this method of allowing penalties to accumulate if possible, can have disastrous effects such as for instance two +4 cards played in succession with the first player having to take an eight card penalty from the deck.

There are also other dynamics in heads-up Uno play that play out differently to multiplayer scenarios. For instance if I use a Skip or Reverse card in a three or more-handed game, the effect of these wild cards is diluted in the sense that the Player playing these cards can only hypothetically enjoy a delayed effect or benefit. If on the other hand these same cards are played heads-up, suddenly what this means is that I can play a string of connected wild cards reducing my own stack rapidly. This happens because playing either a Reverse or Skip card has the immediate effect of returning control of a hand back to me.

As with 3 or more-handed games, playing your larger cards first and your smaller cards later is still the way to go. Your aim should always be to reduce your point score to the barest minimum to avoid getting caught with your pants down at the end of a rather difficult hand.

Wherever possible, you should also try to determine what a player might potentially be holding on to. Through actual play, you will at times notice that a player while successfully reducing his score is still blocked whenever the hand changes to Green for instance. So what you should deduce is that this player must not have any Green cards in his hands. The best strategy therefore would be to favour Green in order to reduce your own hand points while forcing your opponent to skip turns while picking cards from the deck. If doing so is not possible and you feel that there is no way to win a hand, then your backup strategy should always be to reduce the number of points in your hands to an absolute minimum. So in this latter scenario, get rid of all your wild cards first and then follow through with the larger cards.

Attention to detail is king in Uno, it is not only a matter of observing what cards are being piled up on the discard pile but also what cards you are pulling off the top of the deck when it’s your turn to play. If say a lot of reds have been played early in a hand and now it feels as though I’m peeling only greens and blues from the top of the deck, then it would stand to reason that any red (albeit rare) cards I might acquire will hold a strong blocking potential and should be used selectively. While forcing a player to pick a card rather than play a card is a desirable outcome to any strategy employed, having an opponent pick too many cards rather than playing to the discard pile should send alarm bells ringing in your head.

The reason is a simple one; let’s say that you haven’t seen too many wild cards, +4 or +2 cards being played to the table. Let us also imagine that your deck is rapidly dwindling and your prospects of winning look healthy. However let us throw a wrench in to the works by saying that your opponent has been picking cards from the deck for the past 5 rounds. As you approach the three-card mark in your hands, you play a red card knowing your opponent has apparently not picked up any viable reds. Then your opponent seeing your hand go down to just two cards, drops a bomb on you by playing a +4 he has picked from the deck, in the process he switches play to yellow. You have no reply to his switch to yellow, and guess what now you’re the one picking cards rather than playing them to the deck.

What this example highlights is that to win, you really should be trying to stall your opponent cautiously while keeping an eye on what cards have been played up to that point. It all boils down to at least trying to recall key cards played to the deck as well as what colours have so far dominated play. Some gifted folk might even try recalling entire sequences of discarded cards, which while commendable is not essential for Uno. Recalling for instance that it was mostly blue cards up to now is already a good indicator of what other colours are more likely to be played in near-future rounds. It also pays to keep track of any zero cards played (since you only have 4 in a deck) as well as of any special cards in particular +2 and +4 cards.

When a hand becomes blocked, and it will on occasions, game play will also experience an interesting transition towards one focused on the luck of the draw. Let’s say that the last up-card at the top of the discard pile is blue and let’s assume that up to that point a good two-thirds of all possible blue cards have been played. Let us now also assume that neither player in the heads-up dual hold any blue cards. Worse still the up-card is a Blue Zero. Since there are only 4 Zero cards in the entire deck, you will appreciate that only a Wild card or a +4 or any other of the remaining (hopefully still not played) Zero cards can unblock this situation. When this happens both players will end up picking card after card from the remaining stockpile, accumulating sizeable hands before either would be in a position to unblock the situation. In these cases the first player lucky enough to pick any one of the aforementioned block buster cards, will also be the player who will stand a greater chance of winning that particular hand.

In conclusion, if you are intrigued by two-player card games, Heads-up Uno will be something you will most likely enjoy. However before signing off, I would like to suggest a few guidelines that might tailor your playing experience in line with your own preferred playing style. More importantly you should ascertain that both you and your opponent are fully aware of the rules you will be observing.

Option A – Dare Devil Uno.

1. Use accumulative penalties; this will create more dramatic twists and turns where players are more likely to experience dramatic swings in the number of cards in their hands.
2. Use the 7-0 rule; when a player plays either a 7 or a 0, players exchange all their cards with their opponent. This disruptive gaming contraption can create some nerve wrecking moments in Heads-up Uno duels.
3. Use the Jump-in rule; simply put if a player holds both instance of say 3 Red, then he can play them both in succession before passing on the control of the hand to his opponent.

Option B – Standard Heads-up Uno.

1. Use standard penalties; if a player plays either a +2 or +4 his opponent must pick the associated number of cards from the deck even if he has another +2 or +4 to play on top of the one played. In other words, penalties do not accumulate.
2. Do not use the 7-0 rule; in standard play 7 or 0 cards are common cards and no hand switching takes place.
3. Do not use the Jump-in rule; again if a player holds two identical cards, he cannot play them in succession.

Some additional rule guidelines for Heads-up Uno:-

1. If a penalty is played, the player absorbing the penalty loses his turn on that round.
2. If a player plays a Skip card or a Reverse card and he cannot follow through with another card in the same colour, he should take a card from the deck. If the picked card is in the same colour as the Skip or Reverse card played, then he may play it to the discard pile.
3. I do not advocate using the +4 challenge rule, since I personally do not agree with showing your cards to your opponent. Players should be allowed to use any +4 dealt to them in any manner they see fit to reap benefit from its usage.
4. If a player goes out, winning the hand, with either a +2 or +4, his opponent must still collect the penalty since the losing hand’s total point score will be awarded to the winning player.
5. Failing to declare “Uno” before playing the penultimate card will always carry a 2 card penalty. The penalty can only be incurred within the round of play in which the penultimate card is placed on the discard pile. Declaring Uno after that the penultimate card is played to this discard pile will also incur the 2 card penalty.

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Phase 10!

Technorati Tags: Contract Rummy,Phase 10,Wild cards,Skip cards

Some time ago I was invited over to a friend’s house for a get together, it was one of those occasions when board and card games are brought out and guests invited to pass the time away playing highly sociable games in a friendly atmosphere. Among the games brought out was this special deck of cards, a game called Phase 10.

Phase 10 is essentially a contract rummy game, were on each round players must achieve certain contract conditions, like say two sets of three cards. The Phase 10 card pack is made up of two special decks which together comprise 96 number cards, numbered 1 to 12 (in four colours, two of each), 8 Wild cards and 4 skip cards. This gives a total of 108 cards.

The Wild cards are the “Joker” cards in this game. They can be used to make up any contract and a player may use more than one Wild card to complete his contract, so long as he has at least one natural card in a set or contract. Once employed in a contract or set, a Wild card cannot be removed to be used elsewhere. If the Dealer starts the discard pile with a Wild card, then  the first player to play may pick it up immediately and add it to his hand.

The Skip cards are very unique in both their function and their rarity,  you only get 4 in the whole deck. When a player is dealt a Skip card, or picks a Skip cards from the stockpile, he may use it on his turn to force any designated opponent to lose one turn. Once discarded, a Skip card cannot be collected by subsequent players.

The ten contracts or phases in Phase 10 are as follows:-

• Phase 1: 2 sets of 3
• Phase 2: 1 set of 3 and 1 run of 4
• Phase 3: 1 set of 4 and 1 run of 4
• Phase 4: 1 run of 7
• Phase 5: 1 run of 8
• Phase 6: 1 run of 9
• Phase 7: 2 sets of 4
• Phase 8: 7 cards of one colour
• Phase 9: 1 set of 5 and 1 set of 2
• Phase 10: 1 set of 5 and 1 set of 3

Phases need to be completed in order. Once a phase is completed the player must lay his completed phase and then try to discard his remaining cards by laying them onto phases already laid on the table. The player who successfully gets rid of all his cards following the completion of a phase wins that hand. Any cards left in hand when a player goes out are scored against the player holding them. Card points are as follows:-

• 5 points for each card with value 1 to 9.
• 10 points for each card with value 10 to 12.
• 15 points for a Skip.
• 25 points for a Wild.

The player who completes all 10 Phases at the end of a hand wins the game. If two players complete all 10 phases then the player with the lower point score will win.

It may be possible to play Phase 10 using standard cards but you would have to create your deck from two standard decks of cards with at least two jokers per deck. Ideally the decks you use should have the same back colour and designs. To build your Phase 10 deck, do the following:-

1. Pool the two decks together making sure you also include the four Jokers.
2. The four Jokers in the newly formed composite deck will serve as the Skip cards in Phase 10.
3. The 8 Jacks will serve as the Wild cards in Phase 10

As for card points, you need to take note of the following:-

• 5 points for each card value 1 to 9 of any suit.
• 10 points for each card of Ten, Queen(11) and King(12) of any suit.
• 15 points for a Joker of any suit.
• 25 points for a Jack.

Phases can be followed exactly as per regular Phase 10 with the exception of Phase 8 which would then involve 7 cards in one suit rather than one colour.

Phase 10 takes time to play, but the purpose of these types of cards game is to bring friends and family together around a table for some wholesome competitive fun.

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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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