Duplicate Poker

[gsyme]

I was toying with the idea of a poker variant that somehow eliminates luck (and, as a bonus, would be legal in the state of Illinois). The obvious solution would be some form of duplicate poker. A simple version of this would be: teams of two would play heads-up against each other, and each game would play the same set of hands, but with the position switched.

I.e. if, at table one, team 1 gets AA and team 2 gets KK, at table 2 team 1 gets KK and team 2 gets AA. Suppose the flop comes AKK at table 1--then it would come that way at table 2, too. This is a rather silly example, but it does show how luck would be significantly reduced, in that, after the smoke clears, a lot of money will be lost and gained for both teams at both tables.

Implementing this would be a PITA, and the best solution I could come up with is to get a bunch of index cards, bundle them into matching sets, and write poker hands on them. Or I could write a simple Java program to print out poker hands onto perforated card paper. After, say, 20 hands, the two tables can exchange index cards and play the hands the other table got. Obviously this requires a lot of set-up, but if a big tournament were held, one can just rotate the "decks" among the players and not have to use as many.

Second problem is the scoring. Assuming it's no-limit, how would that work? If people just got one stack of 100 blinds or so you're going to get a lot of ties when one player wins it all on each team.

[Skjonne]

Duplicate has been the only serious way to play bridge for years. A computer program generates random hands, sends the information to a card dealing machine that makes four stacks each with thirteen cards. A person puts these four piles of cards into a plastic devise with four pockets.

The large bridge tournaments easily consist of 500 pairs, so 250 duplicates of the same hand is needed.

[BluffTHIS!]

All you seem to be saying is that you want a guarantee that the cards will break even for you not just in your lifetime or a year, but right now. I don't mean to be making a smart-aleck reply, but I just don't see a point to your suggestion in general, and regarding Illinois in particular as it already has casinos with negative expectation games where short term luck is your only hope to win, and whose cardrooms are your only hope to play a +EV game outside of counting blackjack, progressive slots or positive payback video poker machines.

[gsyme]

Yeah, this is where I got the idea. I had no idea they had sorting machines to do it, though. Thats crazy.

[blank frank]

I've seen this done for other games with luck in them (besides just bridge), but I don't think the idea is really to remove luck from the game, but rather to isolate the effect of luck from the effect of skill to give a better judgement of skill.

Here's how I would do it in a tournament. Have the same number of people at each table. Each table's deck has the same order of cards in it. You play poker against the people at your table, but advancement in the tournament is determined by how well you do compared to players at the same position as you at other tables. Those players got the same cards you did, and played against the same cards you did.

For example, have 25 tables with 5 players each. After a set number of deals, the top five stacks among players to the left of the dealer advance. As do the top five stacks among players two to the left of the dealer, and so on. For the second round, the players who were to the left of the dealer are now at the same table. After a set number of deals, the top player in each position across all the tables advances to the final table.

Logistically, getting this many decks together would be a nightmare. Except that we now have computerized casinos that could run this sort of tournament with ease.

Of course, you don't eliminate to whole effect of luck. There is the luck in what table you sit at, and the final table has no other tables to cross check the effect against. However, I still think it would be an interesting tournament.

[Beach-Whale]

Very nice ideas. And with a computer-controlled "shuffling" machine at each table, it would be easy. And these can probably be portable things moved into any casino. Only one deck per table needed.

And it shouldn't go to one table until it was only two players left. Four players left: two tables of two players. Eight players left: two tables of four players.

Also, I think this kind of event would play well as a limit (or maybe pot-limit) event with infinite stacks, so the only elimination would take place as an effect of having a worse result than another player with the same cards.

So, no need for increasing blinds and antes.

Also, of course, everyone should play the same number of hands.

Edit:

Actually, I think I would enjoy such an event much, much more than current tournamens. No bad luck with the cards, no adjustments to stack sizes and blinds sizes, no risk of going bust. The only thing you have to worry about is playing good poker and adapting the best you can to the other players. It would be a cash-game player's tournament. Probably even better than cash-games. I would think that the variation in your results would be extremely low. Of course, not everyone would look for that.

I also would think that this would make for great TV: imagine seeing exactly the same hands being played by two different sets of players, with different styles, and comparing what happens and how they do. I think this would raise the entertainment value to a whole new level for televised poker.

[WeGotScrewed]

This concept was once explored and implemented at skillpoker.com

[Alex/Mugaaz]

Does this really remove the luck? If a single player makes a different decision it can change yours own as well as the results.

Wouldn't the opponents have to all play exactly the same as well?