Some random poker thoughts.
Topic: Poker
Bunching in Online play.

I've been playing online solidly for about three months now and am starting to miss playing live (played cash at the Vic once since the start of February). One thing I can't understand about online players is why they all bunch together when games start. What I mean is that if someone starts a new game by sitting down in seat four, there's a very strong chance that the next person joins in seat five or three. If he comes into seat three, there's a great chance that the next person comes in at two or five. And so on.

"So what?" you might ask. Well the reason I think it's silly is that you can get situations where a nine handed table has 5 players seated at seats three through to seven. If someone is scanning through the lobby looking for a game to join and sees this, they might be put off joining if they are going to have to wait for the big blind for several hands because there is no gap. They might go to a game where they can get a seat sooner. That's why if I join a new game I will sit such that there are gaps on both sides of me. I want to leave a seat open for the action junkies. There may not be many people who are so desperate to get straight into action that it will affect their choice of table. But they're the ones I want to play against!

Money Mugged.

I've been thinking some more about 'Deal or No Deal'. Having read the excellent 'Fooled by Randomness', I continue to be impressed by Noel Edmonds' ability to make comments about the process of the game when it's pure chance. Things like 'We're on a knife edge here' and 'This could be the turning point' stand out. But neither is as good as 'If you get money greedy, you could get money mugged'. The latter could make an excellent theme for one of those T-Shirts you see for sale in the back pages of Private Eye or Viz: a picture of Noel Edmonds and the message 'Don't get money mugged'. Can't do any worse than the ones of Jim Bowen and Andrew Marr.

On the subject of T-Shirts, I would love to know whether anyone's got the guts to wear one of Andy Ward's more defeatist poker T-shirts in a big event. I mean the ones with one-line messages like 'Bokked', 'Felted', and 'Rivered'. I reckon that wearing one of them while playing a $10k event is the ultimate sign of confidence. It's telling the world that you're not supersticious and fear nothing. Good on you, if you're brave enough.

Coming back to 'Deal or No Deal' though, why can't people see that there is only one skill in this game of random choices? It's manipulating the banker. If you are prepared to take a deal that's below the value of the average remaining box, then you want that offer to be as high as possible. The banker is watching the player and will take any weakness as a sign that he can get away with a low offer. Players should fight back by dismissing his offers without an apparent consideration in the early rounds. It could make a difference of twenty grand or so later on. Nail-biting could cost you a lot of money here. So why do so many people display weakness?