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How to teach your kids to play poker: Start with one card

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Re: How to teach your kids to play poker: Start with one card

#51

Post by cman1444 »

tetromino_ wrote: post #49
kevinwang wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A quick take: > reasonable possibilities are too many to analyze, one is forced to pretty much guess. You could say the same thing about chess, but an experienced player wouldn't, because they know which candidate moves are reasonable and which lines to delve into through intuition shaped by experience. Similarly, you might say the same about poker. The possible hands your opponent has are actually quite large, but a…

> You could say the same thing about chess No, chess is on the opposite side of the spectrum! In chess, at all times you have perfect knowledge of the entire state of the board; in poker, you know 2 cards.

The point being made was that a chess player is not able to foresee all possible future combinations on a chess board (at least until close to the very end), so they must make "educated guesses" as to the best move to make.

Re: How to teach your kids to play poker: Start with one card

#52

Post by cman1444 »

wileydragonfly wrote: post #13
more_corn wrote: post #7

One of the best life lessons I learned was while perusing a poker strategy book in a bookstore as a teen. I’ve never been into poker, not even sure why I picked it up. One thing it said was the most important thing to remember is that most of your hands will be crap. Don’t get attached to a bad hand and don’t convince yourself that an ok hand is a good hand. If you just fold the bad hands and play the good ones you’r…

That’s it. That’s the entire strategy. I pray that the Texas Hold ‘Em fad doesn’t come back. That was an insufferable decade of hearing how clever everyone was.

That's "the entire strategy" for becoming a non-beginner. Poker game theory gets much more complicated at higher levels of play.

Re: How to teach your kids to play poker: Start with one card

#53

Post by cman1444 »

jayknight wrote: post #32
blitztime wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d say bluffing in poker isn’t really lying. I mean you certainly can look at it that way, but another way to look at it is “I have good hands here more often than you do so here strategically you have to fold when I bet”

The difference between a lie and a surprise is that soon everyone will know what the surprise was. A lie has the intention of concealing the truth forever.

Well I guess you better hope your kid kindly shows their hand after you fold to their shove.

Re: How to teach your kids to play poker: Start with one card

#54

Post by wileydragonfly »

cman1444 wrote: post #52
wileydragonfly wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s it. That’s the entire strategy. I pray that the Texas Hold ‘Em fad doesn’t come back. That was an insufferable decade of hearing how clever everyone was.

That's "the entire strategy" for becoming a non-beginner. Poker game theory gets much more complicated at higher levels of play.

[flagged]

Re: How to teach your kids to play poker: Start with one card

#55

Post by wileydragonfly »

albedoa wrote: post #22
wileydragonfly wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s it. That’s the entire strategy. I pray that the Texas Hold ‘Em fad doesn’t come back. That was an insufferable decade of hearing how clever everyone was.

[flagged]

[flagged]

Re: How to teach your kids to play poker: Start with one card

#56

Post by cman1444 »

gretch wrote: post #14
ghostly_s wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure what meaningful distinction you think you're making between verbally lying and implicitly lying with your bet but it's quite tedious.

You inferred it, but it's not implied. Instead of thinking of a bet as saying "I have good cards" think of it instead as "I have an advantage in this pot", which is not a lie. In poker advantages can come from cards, or from other objective measures such as position, stack size. And of course from subjective measures like being able to read your opponent.

But one of the most common strategies is to posture as if you have a good hand even though in reality you don't. That is deception.

Re: How to teach your kids to play poker: Start with one card

#57

Post by cman1444 »

wileydragonfly wrote: post #54
cman1444 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's "the entire strategy" for becoming a non-beginner. Poker game theory gets much more complicated at higher levels of play.

[flagged]

Nowhere did I suggest that I am at those higher levels of play. I just know that they exist.

Re: How to teach your kids to play poker: Start with one card

#58

Post by seizethecheese »

djeastm wrote: post #15
TZubiri wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a common misconception that poker is about lying or that you need to lie to play poker. You can bet with a bad hand, but you don't need to say you have a good hand, if asked you can say you either have a bad hand or a good hand, without any impact to your strategy. Lying holds no advantage in poker, you can easily play poker without lying, no correlation is intrinsic to the game or its rules, it's just a common…

If we replace the word "lying" with "deception" does that change anything?

I wouldn’t consider the type of deception fully within the bounds of a game the type of deception I would want to avoided teaching my kids.

Re: How to teach your kids to play poker: Start with one card

#59

Post by seizethecheese »

ghostly_s wrote: post #11
TZubiri wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a common misconception that poker is about lying or that you need to lie to play poker. You can bet with a bad hand, but you don't need to say you have a good hand, if asked you can say you either have a bad hand or a good hand, without any impact to your strategy. Lying holds no advantage in poker, you can easily play poker without lying, no correlation is intrinsic to the game or its rules, it's just a common…

I’m not sure what meaningful distinction you think you're making between verbally lying and implicitly lying with your bet but it's quite tedious.

It’s not tedious at all. Many games have structural information asymmetry, and part of the fun is navigating this. To add an extra verbal lie is categorically different from playing within the bounds of the game

Re: How to teach your kids to play poker: Start with one card

#60

Post by mcphage »

tetromino_ wrote: post #42

I have always been mystified by the popularity of poker. To me, it is an unpleasant game. First - the fact that it's played for real money. If I win, I feel like a common swindler stealing money that someone could use to pay their bills or buy something nice for themselves. If I lose, I feel like a swindler's victim. And if the people around the table happen to be my friends - why would I ever wish to victimize them,…

> reasonable possibilities are too many to analyze, one is forced to pretty much guess and make gambles. It's an unpleasant experience.

It’s okay to not like popular things, not every game is for every person. The thing you describe as unpleasant, is what some people enjoy about the game.

> It seems like a game for people whose brains are wired in a manner incompatible with mine. If I discover that someone likes poker, I find them rather suspicious.

Well, that is a good chunk of the population. Which isn’t to say it’s wrong to be suspicious of most people, but I’m not sure poker is an reliable indicator.

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