Soko

[Tom Bayes]

Is this the right forum or maybe I should post this in the stud forum since soko is a stud variant?

I've dabbled a little bit in the pot-limit soko at 24hPoker and played my first soko tournament tonight-almost made the money. I basically just tried to play tight 5-stud and not chase the 4-straights and 4-flushes. I'd only look at 3rd street with a pair, strong high cards, or a suited connector (assuming the cards I need were live). Is this right? Too tight, too loose? Any online sites with soko pointers?

Oh, and a hypothetical soko situation. It hasn't come up, but what happens if two players make the exact same 4-straight or 4-flush? Is the pot chopped or does the 5th card come into play?

For example, player A has 89TJK, player B has 89TJA for the same 4-straight (assume no 4-flush is made here). Does the Ace play as a kicker?

[Al Mirpuri]

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Is this the right forum or maybe I should post this in the stud forum since soko is a stud variant?

I've dabbled a little bit in the pot-limit soko at 24hPoker and played my first soko tournament tonight-almost made the money. I basically just tried to play tight 5-stud and not chase the 4-straights and 4-flushes. I'd only look at 3rd street with a pair, strong high cards, or a suited connector (assuming the cards I need were live). Is this right? Too tight, too loose? Any online sites with soko pointers?

[/ QUOTE ]

Why do you think they let the fourstraights and the fourflushes count?

[Tom Bayes]

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Why do you think they let the fourstraights and the fourflushes count?

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I'm pretty sure this 5-stud variation was designed primarily to encourage the looser players to chase and hence to increase the amount of action in what can be a very tight game.

Do you know the answer about whether the 5th card plays if two players show the same 4-straight or 4-flush? My gut tells me that since virtually every poker game is based on the best 5 card hand that the "kicker" would play in this situation, but I've never seen it come up in the small amount of time I've played Soko.

[Al Mirpuri]

According to Sklansky, when the games are a little looser, you gotta play that way too. You need to do this to take advantage of all the weak play. If you are playing tight then you cannot be doing this. Play for a few fourstraight and fourflushes but as always: pick your spots.

I do not know the answer for the other question. There are no standardized rules for soko yet but why not email the site you play on for the answer?

[Tom Bayes]

Thanks for the response Al. I figure that hands that either have good high card strength or suited connectors (or pairs, of course) would be the best candidates for the kind of hands you want to see 3rd street with, assuming your straight/flush cards aren't dead. I'd be much more willing to play with 98s than 98o in this game.

I might email 24hpoker about the other question. It's not a big deal (yet) since I haven't seen the situation come up. I just thought someone might know.

[Al Mirpuri]

[ QUOTE ]
Thanks for the response Al. I figure that hands that either have good high card strength or suited connectors (or pairs, of course) would be the best candidates for the kind of hands you want to see 3rd street with, assuming your straight/flush cards aren't dead. I'd be much more willing to play with 98s than 98o in this game.

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You are nearly there with your playing standards Tom. Why don't you give it one more bash?

[Tom Bayes]

Although I haven't been playing any Soko since the original post, I think you are hinting that I should forget about chasing a hand just for 4-straights or 4-flushes at all, and essentially use the same standards as regular 5-stud. Am I getting warmer? Or am I clueless?

[forssell]

I havent played a single hand of online sökö, but as it is like the national gambling card game here in Finland I grew up playing it, pl usually. I´ve never heard of it played so that a kicker counts if exact four-straights are against each other. Cant imagine it would be like that in the online version, so a split. The 5th card is irrelevant in 4-flushes also but a split is very unlikely as AhQh8h3hx beats AsQs8s2sx.

Havent played sökö at all in a couple of years, but I do remember that low sooted connectors easily become trouble hands and an Ace-high 4-flush is quite strong (I played max 6-handed, loose games usually)and can make some money especially when the ace is the hole card. May get back to this later if I find my way to the online sökö tables, no idea how these guys play. Yeah and I´m interested what you or others think about the skill level of play of online sökö.

[Al Mirpuri]

You were very close to a near maximum strategy but you have just now got very cold. All I wanted to add to your post was that you have to downgrade hands that cannot make fourstraights or fourflushes but you might have played in normal five stud, eg, Ax or Kx.

You want your normal five stud hands to have the ability to back into fourstraights and fourflushes. (An obvious exception to this being pairs.) Aside from the usual five stud hands you want to play suited connectors. If the connectors are cards that you would not play in normal five stud then they have to be suited.

[Tom Bayes]

Well, thanks partially to Al Mirpuri's excellent advice and partially to horrible players, I won a small sökö tournament last night at 24h. A little bit of experience has helped me in adjusting from regular 5-card stud in that hands like AXo or KXo are less likely to hold up. Of course, it's always easier to win a tournament when a complete idiot doubles you up on the first hand of the tourney. I had a board lock on some dope and he kept betting and I kept raising. End result was that I essentially got to start with twice as many chips as everyone else.

To forssell and anyone else interested in online sökö: I've only played the small ring game and the low buy-in tourneys, but there seems to be lots of poor players. The higher limit tables don't run too much and I haven't tried the higher buy-in tournaments that 24h runs occasionally in this game.