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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

#81

Post by chrismcb »

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,…

"or buy something nice for themselves" like spending an evening playing a game with friends? Of you are playing against strangers, it isn't on you what someone else did with their money. As for you, you works only play with money you are willing to lose. Of course poker isn't for everyone.

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

#82

Post by emmelaich »

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,…

It's a choice to play for money and how much. When I play with friends, there's only a $20 buy-in and no rebuys. Makes for a far cheaper night than going to a pub or movie.

As a kid (~12 year old) I played for matchsticks.

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

#83

Post by ForestCritter »

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,…

poker, without the money, isn't much different from any other card game. We used to play poker as a family game with a butter tub of pennies that all went back into the pot when we were done. It's very similar to rummy or bridge. Part skill part luck. Like pretty much any board game.

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

#84

Post by Talanes »

bawolff wrote: post #76
wrs wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Poker players very seldom outright lie, like saying out loud "hey everybody, my hand is great!", and it's usually not just simple "deception" either. How about "behaving in a way that increases the probability of your particular adversaries making incorrect inferences about your situation"?

> How about "behaving in a way that increases the probability of your particular adversaries making incorrect inferences about your situation"? I'd call that lying with extra steps. (Which to be clear, im fine with in the context of a game (and in certain contexts even in real life). Plenty of sports can be traced back to ritualized ways of practising to murder people. Take all the field sports of track and field)

Your definition seems like it would include the entire field of cryptography as lies, would it not?

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

#85

Post by Talanes »

mcphage wrote: post #62
cman1444 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sure—but when you say it like that, suddenly it’s not a bad skill at all to tach your children, and teach them to be wary of others using it.

Yeah, it's basically the main thing I was taught to do to avoid any chance encounters with (animal) predators growing up: walk confidently and present as a fellow predator and not a prey animal.

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

#86

Post by grues-dinner »

kqr wrote: post #73
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,…

Add to the list that for most of the game, you're not actually playing! Even in more action packed variants like Omaha you spend a lot of time folded watching the others at the table play. (Although that does also have some of the enjoyment of playing, it's not the same.)

Careful what you wish for! Mahjong is the opposite: you're always playing or setting up the next round, there's no down time, you can't stop paying attention even for a moment or you might miss an important tile, and you can't even skip a round for a comfort break.

Also it seems to be complex enough there is no mental space or time left to talk about anything other than the tiles. Exhausting!

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

#87

Post by behringer »

jefftk wrote: post #29
DrewRWx wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think she adopted her pokerface she learned it against you or was there another reason?

I think it's simpler than that: people get better at things with practice. Werewolf isn't like poker where people typically try to conceal their emotions and leak nothing; instead you're trying to act like you're on the Villager team regardless of whether you actually are.

Remember, being a good liar means you can sniff out a lie too. It's not a terrible skill to teach if it can be wielded for good.

Maybe a mafia style game would be more suitable where both sides are played.

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

#88

Post by smnplk »

calvinmorrison wrote: post #38
sitzkrieg wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

playing poker with the following truly undermines the entire experience: people that dont understand rules 100% wagers with no real value (time/money/snacks) people who dont want to play outright

GTO goes out the window when a drunk guy sits down with a few friends. Either you're gonna grab the pot a few times or bust because the dude went all in with dueces against your KA. he wins a flush on the river.

Drunk guys are the easisest to play against. You don't need GTO, you can just play exploitatively and adjust your range against his, so that you still have big range advantige preflop. And you can lower variance and decide to not go all-in with AK preflop, but this also depends on how deep the effective stack is in a given situation.

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

#89

Post by grues-dinner »

mcphage wrote: post #61
p1necone wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you ignore the externalities of winning/losing money the thing that the betting brings to poker that is very hard to replace is the impact it has on the players decision making. People playing poker with "funny money" play the game fundamentally differently to the extent it's almost a different game (arguably worse, certainly less predictable) entirely. If you take the money out of it you have to replace it with s…

> I would argue that risk management is an interesting skill that's very hard to include in a game with perfect information. I agree with you here quite strongly.

It's a different kind of skill that is more about predicting what your opponent will do based on the same information at which you are both looking.

Chess and go even more so are perfect information games, but there is substantial risk in strategies than can be derailed by the opponent noticing them too early or even by not noticing and ignoring bait.

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