Brags. Beats. Battlestar Galactica.

would def like a post about [triple draw's] mechanics that make it so fun.

I would divide the fun-ness of the game into a few main categories:

1. The number of decisions. This refers to how many decision points there are in the game, and with the drawing mechanic there are not only 4 betting rounds where you have to make decisions, but also 3 drawing decisions. This is a key part of a strategy game - actually having potential situations for strategy to be implemented. These drawing decisions give you more to think about, and the game is intrinsically more fun if you have to think/

However, it is also important to note that having the potential to make a decision between fold, check, call, bet or raise in itself is not enough. The decision needs to be interesting. This is where the idea of automatic decisions come in.

Let's take a game like Razz. You are in a heads up pot where you both start with a low door card, but one player catches a K on 4th street, and the other catches another non-pairing low card. Well, suddenly the decisions have been limited. The player with the low board now automatically bets, the player with the K can never raise.

A game becomes less interesting if situations like this happen often, and plays become more automatic. In TD, these situations happen much more rarely.

2. Snowing is fun.

There are few games where you get a second tool at your disposal to bluff with. In non-draw forms, there is only betting. In TD, there is snowing, where you go pat with garbage to get your opponent to fold. 

This is not only fun, but it is an incredibly complex concept. By snowing, you sacrifice all showdown equity in the hand. This trade-off is something that is easily dealt with mathematically, and as a result, snowing feels creative.

3. The frequency of the nuts.

Having the immortal nuts be appearing quite often adds an addictive quality to the game. The frequency is just right that you occasionally get into a huge pot where you know you're going to win most of the time, and at worst tie. The thrill of getting it makes it a lot of fun when you're running good, and the hope of getting it keeps you playing when you're not. 

4. Showdown-bound game.

Hands will often go to showdown and this is fun for two reasons. The first ties into #1 in that it has made the hand have more decisions within it, and the other is that no one likes folding. Folding is incredibly unfun especially if you do it before the river, costing yourself the chance to suck out. This game allows you to play to the river the majority of the time when you do play a pot.

So I got a request for my next blog topic and I will tackle it here. This is from snowboard789

make a blog post about how possible it is for someone to decode and solve TD as a game with decision trees etc and then applying them to real play. there is a rumour in 2p2 that thats what some russian guy dont remember the name (famous) did. 

Also with this possibility talk about what you think the future of this game could be in terms of investing in it ie learning it so you can make money for years to come (compared to other forms of poker) and the possibility of TD dies sometime soon.  

Addressing the idea of Triple Draw being solvable, I'm not convinced that it is easily solvable by just decoding the decision trees. It is a vastly complicated game given that there are more decisions beyond just betting. It is also very inconvenient that equity is really hard to figure out given that you have to work out the correct drawing strategy to work out equity, and you have to work out equities to get the correct drawing strategy. It is not like Hold'em where equity is a pretty simple constant thing that you can work your strategy around. 

I'm fairly sceptical about the rumour. If he has solved TD then why isn't he playing it 24/7? It seems fairly unlikely that a single person can make much progress unless he has the resources and team of the Polaris guys (LHE bot). If he did, surely he would be fairly well known for doing so. Anyway, I will believe it until I see something that strongly suggests this has happened.

In terms of investing in it, I don't think the rumour that someone might have solved the game changes what I think about this matter much; it's negligible. If you had asked me whether it was worth learning on April 14th, 2011, I would have said yes, and that it was a massive gold mine. However, both Black Friday and FTP going down have changed the situation considerably.

Right now I'm quite confident that it's good to learn, but not definite. The games are nowhere near as frequent as they used to be, but there are still a fair amount of 10/20 games. I don't know how tough these are but getting good enough to beat them would get you to a profit level that is far better than any equivalent stake in any other game. 

However, not everyone can just pick up TD and learn it at the same rate, and this is something that depends on the player. I've seen some who just have a knack for it, but some who take longer to get used to the whole thing.

Ultimately, one of the best reasons to learn the game is enjoying it, and TD is way more enjoyable than other games (not just my opinion, most people agree with this and I could write a post about what mechanics make this true). Enjoying learning and playing something makes the process a hell of a lot quicker.

It's interesting the idea that the game could die at some point. It's a fair possibility and there are two extreme factors that are at odds with TD. One is that it's immensely addictive that a lot of people come into it, and the other is that bad players will get rinsed in this game faster than any other. A game is no longer fun if you're getting destroyed and there are only good regs left. I honestly couldn't predict what happens to TD in the future but hopefully there are still occasional influxes of big money to keep the game going. 

If anyone has any questions or different requests for topics, feel free to comment below.

I spent the last couple weeks playing Diablo III, but it quickly became a grind game after I had explored most of what you can do in the game. However, it's important to point out the addictive qualities of it despite being fairly repetitive and not that interesting mechanically. This can be attributed to clever reward systems like the levelling up, item or gold drops. 

Basically every game now has some sort of persistent levelling system to keep players on the hook. Although traditionally used in RPGs, even shooter games like Call of Duty have implemented these. 

Could poker sites adapt these features to make a similar VIP system? Many already have in a way, such as Stars' VIP level system. Though I'm talking about making it more central and visible, sticking a level by your name and giving you 99 levels to grind through, and more unlockable rewards as you level up through the ranks. Oh and a big fat XP bar at the bottom of the window that all online games have. 

There could also be unlockable items every level to keep the progression interesting, although these will have to be largely aesthetic things, like avatars, insignias and all that.

Would it work? Or do people pay less attention to that kind of thing when money becomes involved and it is no longer a stake-free game? Hey, maybe there's a market for a poker site quite heavily based around this.

It occurred to me that Zynga poker might already have something like this in play. I will not touch that site to verify but I imagine it works quite well to getting the casual player hooked. 

My online roll is pretty low atm so I'm taking it easy, playing some small stakes PLO. I would deposit but I fear I wouldn't have the required confidence to take on the high variance and the TD regs anyway.

It feels kinda like a new start in some ways. I made $300k last year and this year I'm pretty much break-even so far. I'm not really expecting to reach those kinda of profit figures, because of the state of the games, the amount of money I have in my account and my own lack of effort. At the same time, it's possible I can get a surge of upswong and confidence that I get back to my previous state.

I'm feeling a bit out of ideas on things to blog about, so I'm looking for people to ask me some specific but open-ended questions about poker and I'll try to write a lengthy post in response.

So I tested out the NL variant that I wrote about (no pocket pairs and turn and river come at once) in a home-game tournament. We played 5-handed and the game pretty quickly got out of the muck. Normally, these players would play very tight, with a lot of opening and folding preflop.

A flop was seen most hands, with a river being seen fairly often too. People would peel a lot of hands pre, basically any ace, any good king, any connector, and some random suited hands. Flop chasing was the norm, with people peeling one over plus backdoor flush draw, bare gutshots, or just ace high hands. 

The frequent river action was interesting. It meant more bluffs and more decisions. People who chased would often try to rep something. Both players' ranges were less well defined as a result of there being less streets of action, as well as hands being weaker.

3-betting preflop was interesting, because it's hard to not give away your hand too much and allow someone to call, see a flop a pair on a non-high-card board and feel good. It seems necessary to balance by sometimes calling strong hands more often. 

Unfortunately we weren't playing cash so the blinds got short, but it still remained more interesting than NLHE. Calling pre was a viable option still even when under 20BBs, and there was a lot of raise/calling going on.

Overall, the game just had way more action, more decisions, more situations for people to make mistakes. I would recommend playing it if you set up a homegame instead of NL.

So I posted about my hypothetical poker variant a few days ago (NLHE played with 2 card flop, 1 card river, and new 4 card hand rankings), and although some people liked the idea, it didn't generate that much discussion, which I was hoping for.  

The concept was interesting to think about though, because it's good to break down the fundamental aspects of a poker game to see why they play like they do, and what features create an interesting game. 

Every game can be broken down into a few main features: 

- The betting system. Limits (NL, FL etc.) is an obvious and clearly stated one and plays an important role, which is shown clearly by the wild differences between NLHE and FLHE. Amount of betting rounds is also important. A lot of games are regularly four street games, while Stud variants are usually five, 5 Card Draw is merely 2!  

- The source of information available. This is everything that helps to define the ranges of each player and is mainly just up cards like in Hold'Em or Stud. It can also be the drawing aspect in Draw games. 

- The equity distribution between hands and ranges at each point. This is probably the most important factor and also very complex to figure out, though things like Stove have come a long way for HE.  

So far, I've been talking mostly objectively about game features. However, the concept of what makes an interesting game can be somewhat subjective. In my opinion, a game is more interesting the more decisions a player has to make. This means that the best action in each situation has to be unobvious to the player. Each of the features can be designed for this goal: 

- Betting needs to allow for viable choices for the player. Take Fixed Limit Omaha, a game that is never played. In such a game the limit bet sizing is too small that it has removed the option of folding - your default strategy becomes to call down in a lot of situations that it doesn't leave you any room to make a real decision. 

- The information available needs to not define the opponent's range too much. Take a game like 5 Card Stud, with 1 down card and 4 up cards. The only information hidden is a single card out of a 5 card hand, meaning what he could potentially have is severely limited in a lot of situations. If his board is weak and you can beat him regardless of what his hole card is, then you don't have a decision, and if your board automatically beats what his 5 card hand, neither does he. 

- The equity distribution goes very much hand in hand with the information available. In the above 5CS example, one players displayed range could already be 100% versus the other player's range regardless of betting. Generally, high equity favourites will limit the option of aggression for the equity underdog. This will leave one player calling and folding, and the other betting or checking, which means way fewer decisions. Another important aspect is how the equity switches between players per street, and this is best illustrated when the nuts has changed on a new street in PLO, and drawing player's range now looks stronger. This concept shifts power away from the person with the uncapped range on the previous street and gives power to someone who has a capped range, as he now has a new chance to be aggressive. 

Anyway, this brings me to the main problems with NLHE. First, I should point out that it has a ton of good features, and that is why it became popular. One of the best parts is that you give no information away about your individual hand unlike in Stud. Your displayed range is never weaker or stronger than your opponent's - you could still technically have anything and so can he. It also became popular because it's the first real big bet games that works, and the nature of big bet lead to a lot more decisions, as well as more opportunities to bluff. The game is also very simple in nature (you have 2 cards, now try to match it with the board) which is a very important feature that I'm not including under 'interesting'.  

However, if I had the opportunity to slightly change it, while retaining most of it's features I'd make two adjustments: 

1) Remove the turn: Yep, the turn is my least favourite part of the way the board runs out. Simply put, not enough changes on enough boards. It is uninteresting, due to what I described as the way equity switches between the players. Having one card roll off at a time means very few hands which were behind catch up - it is a feature that works very well for limit: when your bets are a small percentage of the pot, it makes sense that the chance of improving on the next card isn't that high.  

How would I do it? Have the turn and river come off at the same time, or a 'two card river'. You will notice that this changes the game into a 3 street game rather than a 4 street game, which is also great. 4 streets is too many. It's hard for me to articulate why I think this, but it leads to way fewer showdowns because it takes longer to get there.  

2) Remove pocket pairs from the game: Or at least, remove all pocket pairs higher than 99/TT (though this rule isn't as intuitive) If you get one, your hand has to only play one hole card. The problem with big pocket pairs is that they are way too strong, it completely limits what hands you can see the flop with. They are big favourites pre-flop, big favourites to hold up for the flop, and then often big favourites after the flop. This has created a game that is aggressive pre-flop and very commonly ends pre-flop or on the flop. If they were gone, you'd get a preflop game more similar to PLO, where you don't have favourites pre-flop that high. If you are 3-bet, you can more comfortably call with something more speculative knowing that your pairs are more often live and that you will get to see two more cards for one flop bet.

Addendum: Another way I thought of reducing the power of pocket pairs is to say that they are not allowed to interact with the board - AA must remain a pair of aces no kickers. This will mean AA loses if JT makes two pair on a J4674 board, if any Ax catches the case A, or the board ends up showing more than AA or better (a nice kick in the teeth if you flop quads and can't beat the board, but you do get to have both trip blockers). In this scenario, AA is around a 55-65% favourite to most hands pre-flop, but becomes incredibly weak post-flop, which could lead to interesting play. This would also remove all sets from the game, which I think is a positive.

-

It's important to note that none of the features of NL were a big problem until people got very good at it. When people are bad at the game, it is interesting for them under my earlier definition because no decisions seem obvious. However, now people are much closer to optimal strategy than before and it turns out, it is boring. 

I think these two feature changes will make the game completely change from a pre-flop non-showdown oriented game that it is now, to a post-flop game that involves a fair amount showdowns and varied aggression. Of course, it'd never happen, but it's still interesting to think about. 

Something I've been thinking about is new ways to break down and describe the fundamental ideas of poker. Right now, we use terms like value, bluff and protection to describe why we bet. It generally makes things easy and works quite well for a game like NLHE, which is why they have come about and stuck, but I don't think they necessarily translate to other games, and don't always make complete sense in NLHE.

If I were to explain the theory of poker to someone who already has an okay understanding of it already, I would break it down like this:

There are two ways to win, and that is through showdown equity and non-showdown equity. 

You gain or lose showdown winnings where the true equity* is dished out among the players remaining in the pot. You gain non-showdown  winnings when everybody but you has folded - it is giving yourself 100% equity of the final pot and everyone 0% equity. 

* True equity - The chance of winning given showdown. 

All your actions are geared to either maximise equity through one of these ways. Actions can be broken down as such:

Folding - Cannot create either positive or negative showdown winnings. Cannot create positive non-showdown winnings. The only way to create negative non-showdown winnings. 

Passive actions (calling/checking) - Can create either positive or negative showdown winnings. 

Aggressive actions (betting/raising) - Can create either positive and negative showdown winnings and positive non-showdown winnings. 

Note: These descriptions only apply strictly in heads up pots. 

Folding, checking and calling only ever achieve one type of goal, which is why current terminology does not class them in the same way it categorises betting. Aggressive actions can be broken down though into two different objectives though, and that's where our current terminology attempts to address that with terms like value, bluff and protection. 

Now, value makes a lot of sense. It's simply positive showdown winnings when called. I like value, it's simply making money on your opponent's call because he had less than 50% equity, it's well defined so let's keep it. Value can also apply to calling. When you bet and your opponent calls, value is transferred one way or the other. The player with less equity gives away value, and the player with more gains it.  

Bluff is a mixed one; the idea is getting someone to fold a better hand. It makes sense, it's creating non-showdown winnings. It creates fold equity, when you have caused your opponent to fold his equity and now has 0%. 

What about protection? It is often cited as the third reason to bet besides value or bluff. There are sometimes situation when you should bet even though you don't fold out better but you don't get called by worse, but you should bet because opponent has equity and will fold it. Wait a minute, folding his equity...fold equity? That's right, protection and bluffing are the same purpose, to get your opponent to fold their share of the pot. 

So if I were to teach someone why they're betting, I would describe it as a sum of both value and fold equity. The concept of merging ("it is both a value bet and a bluff") is a lot more intuitive under this system, it merely indicates that both are positive.  

What about semi-bluffing then? Where does that come under? Well semi-bluffing requires the introduction of a new concept, which is based around the fact that each action does not end the hand - there is the chance of subsequent actions. Whenever you bet, you can get raised, and now you have a new opportunity to fold, call or raise. Whenever you call a non all-in bet on a non-river street, the next street opens up a new round of betting where you have the chance to be aggressive, passive or fold, and therefore the ability to create new showdown or non-showdown winnings. 

This touches on what is commonly referred to as implied odds. Implied odds is generally taught as the chance to win more money on a later street, with a high emphasis on playing a draw, which is usually just a small piece of the puzzle. I would define it as the sum of all future showdown and non-showdown winnings. It is therefore easy to see how it can be broken down into the following: 

Implied value - It is the amount you have gained or lost with future passive and aggressive actions.

Implied fold equity - it is the amount you have gained with future aggressive action and lost with future folds. 

Note that we can specify losing by saying reverse implied odds, value or fold equity. 

When we consider any immediate decision, these must be taken into account. A call might be profitable if you assumed the hand ended immediately and equity was divided up, but not if you factor in the rest of the hand. 

With these new concepts, you can see what a semi-bluff is. Let's say you have a flush draw, your opponent checks, and you bet. 

The bet has: 

- negative immediate value (but it is still more than if you had a "pure bluff", something with no true equity when called.)

- immediate fold equity if your opponent folds the current street. 

- implied value when you do improve, bet and get called.

- implied fold equity when you don't improve, but bet and cause a fold.

- reverse implied value when you get raised immediately and have to call a bet behind, or when you make a worse flush than your opponent, or when you bluff later and it fails

- reverse implied fold equity when you get raised now and have to fold some equity on the flop or turn. 

There are many possibilities that you have to factor in that will affect your equity, whether it is positive or negative, immediate or implied, showdown or non-showdown. The complexity of thinking forward, accounting for several different scenarios, is a reason why it is very hard to work out the implied equity of any particular bet while there is still a long way to showdown.  

Most analysis that I see during poker discussions is flawed because they will focus entirely on immediate equity and brush implied equity aside as it's too difficult to quantify. Because of the nature of NL where bets increase in size on later streets, this can throw the solution off by a long way. Just remember, the hand must end in either a non-showdown or a showdown. If it ends in a showdown, that means it must get past betting action on the river or someone must go all-in before then. If it is a non-showdown that means someone's true equity does not get realised.  

Laying out the fundamentals this way may encourage a better way of thinking for each particular decision. 

- Instead of calling bets value bets, bluffs, semi-bluffs, realise they are a combination of different types of equity that must be accounted for. 

- Instead of considering if you have the current best hand, you should be considering how the hand will play out, whether it will showdown and if it does, who will have the best hand on the river? If it doesn't, who will be the one who folded?

- Instead of thinking about the action you're making now, imagine what future betting action will look like. Who will be making the bets, and of what size?   

Then, consider how your action on the current street will change the answer to all these questions. 

I hope that people will take on this new terminology when trying to discuss or think about situations. I think it is clearer and actually reflects how equity works.

Schweig

Haven't blogged for a while, just haven't been playing that much. I won like $60k in a week when I returned to poker, then lost $60k again in a day, and it's generally been quite up and down. Trying to get back into it more by posting more, thinking about it more.

I've come up with this new hypothetical poker variant. I posted it in the forums here and I think it has value: 

http://www.deucescracked.com/forums/4-General-Discussion/513091-Invented-a-new-poker-vari 

I just returned from a two month break from poker, which was a result of my biggest downswing ever. Although losing $200k was a lot, it was surprising how little it affected me emotionally, much less than considerably smaller losses did back in the day. Though, there is that silver lining that I can afford to lose the amount I did and not be dead or something.

Many poker players decide to go straight back to the tables after such a loss, in order to "reclaim" what was lost. I used to do this, but over the last couple years I've adopted the complete opposite, which is to completely avoid poker when I lose large amounts of money. Although this method is preferable than jumping back in, I feel the breaks I take could be a lot shorter.

Like my last few "returns to poker", I've started off winning. It's this kind of thing that makes you go "why the hell weren't you playing poker earlier?" Of course, it's important not to forget the exact opposite feeling when you lose. However, the two major worries about going back into poker were both of which have been somewhat nullified:

1) "I don't have enough in my online account." I only had $40k still online after my downswing. Thankfully, this amount has almost doubled within a mere week, and I can feel more comfortable now.

2) "The games are dead." They aren't nearly as bad as I thought they were, and I've quite easily come across relatively juicy games. There have been a few new faces at 50/100 and 100/200 TD, and that's always a good sign.

This is pretty much what I'm going to focus on for the time being. Before the downswing, I was actively looking to buy a house - I got shown around a couple houses which was quite an interesting experience - but that had to be put on hold because of how much I lost. Now that I'm back, this is going to be my main source of motivation moving forward.

Someone in a Skype group asked me this question: "If you could go back, what would you do differently in poker?" Of course this question has many answers no matter who you are, as no poker player can possibly make perfect decisions all throughout his career. It made me think, well there's lots of things I could pick, but in the end, I don't feel any large amount of regret for anything I've done. 

I've had stumbles along the way, but I've never come close to being broke or anything, and I'm still young with a long future ahead of me. Most importantly though, throughout all the low points of my career, I was always learning something. I never went a long period of time where I feel I was stagnating as a poker player, and I think the biggest regret any poker player is if, for whatever reason, he chooses to stop learning from his mistakes and asking how he could improve.

So I pose the same question to you all: what would you have done differently? What's your biggest regret? Now take that answer and ask yourself how it can affect the road ahead.

Went pretty well.