Diamonds

[navybuttons 15]

This game is called "Diamonds" and I'm dedicating it to MinhLyFan.

 

I will explain the game as though it were being played HU.

 

Players post BB and SB. Each player is dealt 3 cards. The player out of position will flip over one card. Then the player with the dealer button will flip over one card. Then there is a round of half-pot betting.

 

Next, each player is dealt another card. The player out of position will flip over one card. Then the player with the dealer button will flip over one card. Then there is a round of pot-sized betting.

 

NEXT COME THE DIAMONDS!

 

The "Diamonds" are two community cards dealt face up similar to a flop.

 

Now the player with the dealer button must act first during a round of pot-sized betting.

 

Next, each player is dealt one card, the player OOP must flip over one card then the player with the dealer button flips over one card. Lastly, a round of pot sized betting.

 

Best 5 card hand wins.

 

MinhLyFan knows that I'm no longer playing and am now trading currencies. But I hope he wouldn't mind discussing the game with me here.

 

_______________________________

I'll go first,

 

I think flipping over an ace as your first card OOP is going to always be the right play. Your bluffs will be stronger, it'll disguise your suited-connected type hands, sometimes it'll be good enough to win, sometimes it'll be good enough to keep the SB from raising. It'll have a lot of power in freezing your opponents bets on later streets.

 

Let's say you're OOP on 3rd, what are you flipping over in the following hands: A34ss, A7Tr, AK5r, A9Tsss ?

 

 

_______________________________

Edit: I'm posting this edit early on the morning of 7-19-13. In case this forum lasts longer than the General one.

 

 

 

[Whiskers 680]

OMG NAVYBUTTONS

 

 

Edit: I didn't actually read your post; I just got a little excited.

[Whiskers 680]

MinhLyFan knows that I'm no longer playing and am now trading currencies. But I hope he wouldn't mind discussing the game with me here.

 

Trading currencies, huh? How's that working out for you? Know much about bitcoins?

 

For what it's worth:

 

MinhLyFan

Last Active Aug 08 2009 08:45 PM

[navybuttons 15]

Trading currencies is loosely analogous to playing the world's best poker player at his or her desired variant for your desired stakes.

 

I spent a night looking into bitcoins. I still don't know what to make of it. An economist could give you a much better bad answer than I could.

[CobaltBlue 662]

Welcome back, navy. Good to see your face around here.

[MinhLyFan 1]

Alright, I am just going to think out loud a bit.

 

So, after thinking about it a little, flipping aces is always going to be strong and probably the best play. But how often are we going to get aces? And how many flops will aces be a hand that will protect us from getting run over by our opponents in different positions after the diamonds? I think probably a lot, since it's only a six card game where we're trying to make a five card hand. However, I have an interesting thought that flipping big cards that connect with the most number of boards is also an interesting play. A problem I see with flipping aces is that your hand is, a lot of times, going to play face up on later streets. And finding ways to play a balanced strategy is going to be tough. But if we're flipping jacks or queens or have a jts board think about how many diamonds it hits vs aces and have a little more maneuverability in terms of being able to bluff with more equity vs an ace up. And then the ace up will get into a lot of tough spots because he's playing vs a polarized range with few outs if he's wrong, which isn't great. And again, against action, aces up will, a lot of times be forced to play face up, again not great. This is of course, on the first flip, where, because of the half pot sized bet pre diamonds is so small relative to stacks, I don't think we need to protect ourselves early nearly as much as protecting ourselves later, which to me, is going to be easier repping bigger made hands, not ace highs. This is really important because the later streets will play too big for a hand that's playing face up.

 

All of this will definitely be dictated by your opponents flips IP but OOP I still like the idea of having a more dynamic range than just flipping your strongest cards. But I could definitely see being wrong in a 6 card bigger bet game. Ill think more and add some tonight or tomorrow if anyone has any interesting thoughts.

[navybuttons 15]

It's actually a 7 card game. Deal 3, flip 1, deal 1, flip one, 2 community diamonds, deal 1, flip 1.

 

Sold me on not flipping aces over as an inherent imperative at this time.

 

I can see your opponents tendencies on the river affecting our first flip, but how does what they flip on third affect our decision as to our flip on 3rd?

[MinhLyFan 1]

I think what we flip will always depend on our opp tendencies. Against a fish, you always want to be exploiting hard so finding cards to flip that make him either give away his hand, fold it, induce a big river bet, prevent him from bluffing or keep us from realizing equity, to set up a bluff or pay off unwillingly would determine my flips. It sounds like a lot and complicated, but I think good poker sense would make this relatively easy in real time. Balancing, however, would be pretty difficult in this game. Against a good opponent, I would really be trying to flip cards that would keep my ranges balanced, flexible, and difficult to play against. So, I would always be trying to flip cards that are in line with my actions the most, whether bluffing of vbetting. For instance, if I am in a situation where I 3b pre and the diamonds come out, I would be wanting to be flipping cards that connect with the board more than cards that don't. This would allow me to bluff effectively, vbet well, and would protect me from getting run over. Of course, you would have to balance well against your opp when you flip a strong card vs a weak card and check, but that shouldn't be too difficult. And when you flip strong and he flips strong, I think we really have to be conscious of tendencies, stack depth, and balance before taking action. I'd really love to play this game.

[navybuttons 15]

What do you mean when you say easy?

 

 

[MinhLyFan 1]

I may have been speaking indelicately, but I think it would be easy for me to intuitively sense how to properly exploit weak players. However, that is assuming a lot, because that's been my job for what feels like a really long time.

[Zach6668 513]

dustin!

[navybuttons 15]

Players toward the earlier stages of development neglect to recognize the real origin of stratagems. If you explained concepts to a great player who learned solely through his or her own hard work and intuition they would know what you were explaining to them before the words came out of your mouth in many cases. Chip Reese might never have heard the terms "range" or "balance" but he most likely understood the concepts at an intuitive level.

 

Well, here's another concept that I've never heard before but I imagine that at least some players (I'm looking at you MinhLyFan) understand it on at least an intuitive level.

 

Hold on to your seats!

 

It's called "reverse polarity." What it means is that when your range is polarized between bluffs and very strong made hands you hope that your opponent has a medium strength hand.

 

I can give examples from nearly any poker game but it's probably better for a student of the game to determine for his or herself how it applies to their desired variant currently spread.

 

How it applies to Diamonds:

Let's say that OOP flips A

Button flips T.

let's give OOP two different hands from which he has to flip one card (KK6) or (62J). In both instances by flipping the 6 he polarizes his range which is going to negate medium strength hands that the button might have (something like [T82]T).

 

because "when your range is polarized between bluffs and very strong made hands you hope that your opponent has a medium strength hand."

 

and turned on its head... "when your opponents range is medium strength hands you hope your range is polarized."

 

have fun gentlemen. :-)

[navybuttons 15]

ZACH!

[navybuttons 15]

"Magnitude." It's the size of the game.

 

This game is by far the largest reasonable one that I can imagine. This means that when it is solved it will have the largest edge over a non-enhanced human of a game I can think of.

 

100BB stacks in Diamonds vs. NLHE makes NLHE look like a joke and if any player alive today played the solution for NLHE it would basically put the worst beating imaginable on it. Think all the times you don't limp/call J4 on the button at exact perfect ratios to the exact raise. It's killing you in that spot.

 

Now think about being in Diamonds, being OOP holding an 89Ts. If you don't flip each at the exact ratio then the solution is blowing your planet up.

[navybuttons 15]

Let's say you're walking at 4 am and you come to a cross walk. To follow the law you must wait for your light to change. You wait for 5 long minutes before a lady drives to the intersection and catches a yellow light so that you could cross. Now you cross as you intended to do and she waits for you to cross.

 

By waiting for your light to change she was forced to wait and you were initially forced to wait by threat of her.

 

By following the law both received negatives (if being forced to do something is a negative.)

 

In poker we are out of balance and we weigh the consequences of our lack of balance and make decisions. In big bet games we balance our lopsidedness with bet sizing decisions.

 

A computer playing the solution to a big bet game does not have lopsidedness. Every decision cannot be exploited. Because its hand ratios are perfect it will always have better reverse polarity than a human would.

 

Name who you think is the best no limit player in the world is. He or she?

 

Every decision they make against the solution is wrong.

[navybuttons 15]

poker's savior is going to be playing 3 handed.

[FCP Bob 1,312]

poker's savior is going to be playing 3 handed.

 

If 3 handed became the dominant form of poker wouldn't position become even more important which might lead to the nits who never want to play unless they have a perceived massive advantage to be even more selective about when they play ?

[navybuttons 15]

If 3 handed became the dominant form of poker wouldn't position become even more important which might lead to the nits who never want to play unless they have a perceived massive advantage to be even more selective about when they play ?

 

You've asked a question at the right time. And what the hey, i feel like cracking a few eggs today.

 

It's not about game selection psychology, it's a matter of game theory.

 

Imagine The Sundance Kid is the best NLHE player in the world. That means that if you had a table full of The Sundance Kids they'd all be playing the same strategy and if you copied that strategy exactly you too would be the best NLHE player in the world. But if it's you, The Sundance Kid, and Butch Cassidy at the same table playing 3 handed, well... Butch Cassidy can have edge in the game.

 

crack.

[Balloon guy 158]

Hey Dustin.

 

Chinese yuan? buy or sell? Long term?

[navybuttons 15]

Hey Dustin.

 

Chinese yuan? buy or sell? Long term?

 

Hey BG!

 

I don't discuss results, I don't give advice, and I don't discuss stratagems.

 

That being said, to the best of my knowledge you can't trade yuan.

[FCP Bob 1,312]

I don't discuss results, I don't give advice, and I don't discuss stratagems.

 

That being said, to the best of my knowledge you can't trade yuan.

 

At the Bank of China branches here in Toronto you can have a RMB account.

 

Also at HSBC branches can have a savings account in RMB as well

 

http://www.hsbc.ca/1/2/personal/banking/accounts/foreign-currency-accounts

[navybuttons 15]

my source must have been dated.

 

in that case...

[Balloon guy 158]

LOL

 

Good to hear from you man.

[navybuttons 15]

Good to talk to you too Rob.

 

Trifecta tonight gentlemen.

 

1 and 2) "Lanes" and "flow of traffic". Ideal is lots of lanes with high flow of traffic. Boardlocked is one lane and no flow of traffic. On second we can either stay in the same lane and rep the same hands or switch lanes and rep different ones. Flow of traffic is determined by the strongest of the range we're representing. If we can rep strong hands we can drive faster. If we get to a spot where all we have is strong hands we get traffic tickets for speeding and if we get to a spot where all we have is bluffs then the whole traffic is jammed. It's generally more ideal to have low flow of traffic but lots of lanes than high flow of traffic and one lane. One lane leads to jams and speeding tickets. Lots of lanes are created by balance. Representing the strongest possible is going to give us the best reverse polarity and the highest flow of traffic.

 

3) I am not in the habit of drinking. It's been over a year since the last time I had a beer. But I do enjoy going to bars. Something about being social or around other people who are trying to enjoy themselves is fun to me. Anyway, tonight I was at a bar in l.a. and the prettiest girl in the bar looked to have the prettiest personality of the girls I would be interested in. She seemed kind when I looked at her. I wanted to talk to her but she had two friends with her. I thought about how to approach the problem and it occurred to me that John Nash tried to solve the same problem in the movie "A Beautiful Mind." Blinded by the desire to know if Nash would have ended up with any of the women by telling them that he'd just solved Game Theory by using them as models I approached the women and asked if they would be complimented being the solution to a math problem. Nash was wise to go home and work.

 

Well, here it is. "Confidence" The distance between an incorrect solution and the actual one. In diamonds, always waiting until the river to flip your ace has the lowest confidence of any play I can think of in a vacuum. Always flipping it on first has the highest confidence of any play I can think of in a vacuum.

 

Flipping the Ace on first always leads to the highest reverse polarity, has the highest flow of traffic, and the most lanes.

 

Basically... bink!

 

p.s. Having confidence probably has more "game theory confidence" than telling a woman you are a math nerd and that she is solvable. She's not.

[navybuttons 15]

I just finished a long drive so I don't know if this will make much sense.

 

"Raking" Betting and raising every time the action is on you.

 

Remember when you were a weak player that one time you waited to put in the big raise with a big hand? It generally has low confidence because it puts little in with a strong hand, is difficult to balance, and besides it's often highly exploitable by a competent player.

 

Raking is repping the best and never taking your foot off the gas.

 

In the game Diamonds, on third it looks like representing being rolled up. If we're OOP and we flip a K and button flips A I think there's gonna be times where we're rolled up that we want to be putting money in. Balancing it with dueces in the hole has the highest confidence.