Playing blind?

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Ever play Blind Man's Bluff for money? Now THAT is fun when you're drunk.

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Used to love doing this in high school. No one in my current group of players has that much gambool in them. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

On a related hypothetical, could it be profitable to play LIMIT Blind man's bluff? On every street you know everyone's cards except your own. Do you autofold if you see someone hit the flop for top pair? Always bet out and fold to re-raise? Or just play like regular blind man's bluff and pump all the way?

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I think i read somewhere (cardplayer i think) that Scott Fischman built up his online reading abilities/practice by placing tape over his monitor where his hole cards were.

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yeah, I remember reading this somewhere too. I've also read on Hellmuth's blog [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img] that he sometimes drops down in limits and raises blind and only looks if reraised. He said something about most players not having a clue about how to play against such an absurd strategy.

[MrMoo]

I've done this before at home games after I got a little drunk. It became a game in itself just to see if people would notice if I looked at my cards. I started off pretending to look but not actually looking. After about 10 hands of doing so, I eventually started leaving the cards where they were dealt and most times people still didn't notice.

I honestly feel that this can help your game. But not the way you did it. If you tell people you're playing blind it doesn't help you. Instead, don't announce it and try to outplay them by not looking at your cards. Try to figure out what they have and what bet size will get them to fold. Also try to figure out if they're married to a good hand and get away from yours as cheaply as possible.

It should be noted that me doing this started to piss off a few people at my home game. Mostly because I was being a drunk jerk and kind of rubbing it in. They'd ask me what I had and I'd tell them I didn't know because I never looked.

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I honestly feel that this can help your game. But not the way you did it. If you tell people you're playing blind it doesn't help you. Instead, don't announce it and try to outplay them by not looking at your cards. Try to figure out what they have and what bet size will get them to fold. Also try to figure out if they're married to a good hand and get away from yours as cheaply as possible.

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Yeah, I agree that the way I do this isn't the most productive way of learning how to read players. I do find that a player's tells are amplified if I make the announcement before the hand is played though. There's a look of dread that comes over a players face when they know they have to call me down with A-high because they missed the flop. Similarly, they tend to perk up a little if they make any kind of hand. I look for more subdued versions of these reactions when I start looking at my cards again.

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It should be noted that me doing this started to piss off a few people at my home game. Mostly because I was being a drunk jerk and kind of rubbing it in. They'd ask me what I had and I'd tell them I didn't know because I never looked.

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Yeah, this is one of the things that really prevents me from trying this more than once a night. I always show because I want to avoid being thought of as a complete A-hole. I also find that players will continue to give me action even when I start looking at cards again.

[Hedge Henderson]

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Ever play Blind Man's Bluff for money? Now THAT is fun when you're drunk.

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We tried that for the first time a couple of weeks ago in our home game. We take turns calling orbits, and I think the player who called it was just calling it for revenge. I have to admit the game was fun. Not so much because I won a bit, but because I learned more about my opponents in that one orbit than I could have in two full nights of regular games. It was really an eye-opener for me regarding how some players think and how much they actually notice at the table.