What game should I teach my dad?

[Saddlepoint]

Okay, I'm looking for opinions.

I want to teach my father a poker game. He has never played poker before, he says he's not good at it and is uncomfortable with the psychology and variance. He may have dabbled in five card draw and high/low split style games in college, but never for any real money. But we play lots of different games with each other, and he's curious and willing to learn.

Here are the facts:

My dad has a math degree from Berkeley. His emphasis was less on game theory and statistics, and more on general number theory, set theory, topology, etc. He is a phenomenal recreational bridge player, a hair below serious competitive level. Same with chess. He is excellent in both, and only below expert level in the latter because he's been out of practice for so long. He's also excellent at hearts and backgammon, but has never studied advanced backgammon so many concepts would be foreign to him. He is uncommonly smart and a good analytical thinker.

I want to teach him the poker game which is best suited to his skills, the theory being that if it engages his abilities he'll enjoy it more.

What's his game?

[TheIrishThug]

i would say something like 27nl, 27 tripple draw, or stud. these are all games that i've heard require great skills to be good at. ur dad is clearly intelligent, so i think if he tried he might pick up any of those games.

[istewart]

No limit Omaha high-low stud.

[moot]

Well if he's uncomfortable with psychology and variance I'd probably steer him away from no limit games. I would think a limit game would suit him better. Something like Stud/8 perhaps, I dunno..

Hell, he'd probably have a lot of fun with just plain ol' limit hold 'em.

Or you could pick a more obscure game, counting on his mathematical background to give him an even stronger edge.

[blackize]

Limit Stud is your best bet. It probably has the most math involved and I find it the most fun to play.

[felson]

It's probably more important to teach him a game that he can play with friends or appreciate when he sees on TV. Thus, limit/NL HE.

[bobbyi]

Would he be learning only so that the two of you can play together or would he be playing with other people? If it's the latter, you should really just teach him holdem since it is so much more common than any other game and is what he is most likely to encounter. If it is just for the two of you to play together, you should probably pick a game that you don't know or don't play well so that you will start off closer to equal and will learn together.

Since he is good at bridge and hearts, I would expect seven stud (or stud/8) to suit his skills well since it requires a similar ability to track what cards have been played (obviously not relevant heads up) and to have a good feel for odds.

[RiverDood]

Yes NLHE is on TV, but it's probably the worst match with what we know about Dad's skills and preferences. It has way too much situation-specific play. It doesn't lend itself to stylized formulas (like bridge bidding conventions or chess openings) that will always serve you well. You're constantly juggling competing thoughts as you play your way through tricky situations.

Worst of all, NLHE is way too volatile. You can ruin four hours of good work with a single bad call. Dad will not like that.

I'd recommend limit Omaha/8 at modest stakes. You can do just fine with a very analytical, disciplined approach. Fold trash and don't worry if a miracle flop would have made it playable. Use a point-count system to evaluate your starting hands. Figure out the nut hands once the board shows up. Count your outs. Figure out if you have pot odds to draw to them. Recognize that paired boards have 6 possible boats and know where yours is in the hierarchy.

All these elements should resonate with games he already knows well. There are formulas in this game and they generally work. Especially if you're playing against loose, sloppy opponents. He ought to be making money at it pretty soon.

If/when he gets bored, THEN you can play Pied Piper and introduce him to the thrilling, scary world of NLHE.

[poker-penguin]

I would vote for Razz.

Keeping track of cards is something he's presumably good at, exposed cards change the odds, there's a lot more potential odds calculations than holdem, there's less uncertainty about opponents' down cards, at low limits you can only play hands where your opponents are chasing you which reduces variance and teaches him that aggression is rewarded.

[benfranklin]

I'm assuming that he will be playing on-line, at least initially. If not, the choice is dictated by game availability at home games or the local card room.

I would say the best place to start is low limit O/8. This game is superficially more complex than HE, but that is one of the reasons it is very good for a beginner. In terms of the big three games, O/8 is the easiest game to become good at, followed by HE and then stud. Omaha high, by the way, is not for the beginner. Mason's Poker Essays discuss these topics in detail. Also, particularly at low limits, O/8 is more of a card game while HE is more of a people game.

O/8 is primarily a game of hand evaluation, while HE is much more a game of psychology. O/8 is a preflop game, while HE is a postflop game. O/8 has a much lower variance than a similar HE game. You can become a good O/8 player quicker and easier than you can become a good HE player, because just learning correct hand evaluation will make you a break-even to winning player.

A good O/8 player has a much bigger edge over poor players than a good HE player has over poor HE players. Also, an expert O/8 player has a much smaller edge over a good O/8 player than an expert HE player has over a good HE player.

Finally, in my opinion, poor O/8 players tend to be fishier than poor HE players. There are several reasons for this. One is that a poor player can win a lot of small split pots, which leads to self-deception about how well they are doing. Another is that four down cards makes it a lot easier to talk yourself into seeing the flop with garbage. Many low limit O/8 fish literally see every flop. Finally, O/8 has an incorrect reputation for being a "river game" (generally referred to as "freaking rivered again"), as if the river card suspends all laws of probabilty. This also leads to massive self-deception, and makes poor players able to convince themselves that they are good players hitting some bad luck.

Each point in your description of your father points to O/8 over HE. And if you are not that familiar with the game, you can learn it together, making it more interesting for both of you.