The Future of Poker
persuadeo
Red Chipper Posts: 4,338 ✭✭✭✭✭
...is and isn't what you think it will be. The good news is, part of it starts next week in Las Vegas.
I am going to be hosting a deepstack (uncapped buy-in, min 200bbs, super low rake) 2/3 game at the new Sahara in LV starting January 14th at 7 pm. For two years, I've run an infinite deep training game (a few of you know about it) and this is the live fruition of that weekly war. Now, I need butts in the seats and word on the streets to make this brave structure happen live. I know this sounds weird, but I think this very deep game is part of the future of poker, because we need, essentially, affordable, interesting pain. Let me know if you are up for it, here or through whatever channel. (I've negotiated it as a time game, so it is sweet cheap to play!) Thanks to all those who I've talked to here, then and now, Chris M./Persuadeo.
I am going to be hosting a deepstack (uncapped buy-in, min 200bbs, super low rake) 2/3 game at the new Sahara in LV starting January 14th at 7 pm. For two years, I've run an infinite deep training game (a few of you know about it) and this is the live fruition of that weekly war. Now, I need butts in the seats and word on the streets to make this brave structure happen live. I know this sounds weird, but I think this very deep game is part of the future of poker, because we need, essentially, affordable, interesting pain. Let me know if you are up for it, here or through whatever channel. (I've negotiated it as a time game, so it is sweet cheap to play!) Thanks to all those who I've talked to here, then and now, Chris M./Persuadeo.
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no short stackers, uncapped, low timed rake, fun people !!
Count me in !
I'd go further than this.
One rare topic on which I agree with Malmuth is that the conversion from LHE to NLHE cash was an unmitigated disaster for the health of the game. This is particularly true online.
While the future of the "academic" game of poker may very well be ultra-deep, uncapped cash, the future of the game either as a social outlet or as a profitable skill game for those who put in the work is not. In fact, I'd argue NLHE cash is uniquely bad for either purpose.
Kat and Mason are right, the LHE to NLHE conversion was not a superior long term move. But this also like saying Rome should have stayed a republic. We must deal with the reality of the times. Everyone is perfecting and selling 100 bb strategies. Caps aren't keeping rooms from closing. Texas poker isn't booming because they play capped; it's the opposite. Did you once imagine using Monker solves at RCP for your 1/2 game at the Flamingo? Yet that is what is happening, not a push to play LHE.
For those that love NLHE and its imperial decadence, even if it was the wrong road to go down, it is the game, and there is no Poker Boom without it. So, I'm open to and part of the movement to play it to its consequence, but at low stakes we can afford. That's what this is about. You shouldn't have to sit at Bellagio's highest stakes games to play deep stack poker and truly enjoy the NL part of NLHE.
What influences the size of the game more - the size of the blinds or the size of the stacks? If I want to play cards and the smallest game in the room is $2/3 uncapped and the whole table has $2k in front of them... In my head, that's not a small game. Especially when, currently, that game is a $300 max buy in and the biggest stack might have $700-$1000. I'd be curious to see how something like this plays out with the general population and what the 'standard' buy in looks like.
What the baseline Vegas population could handle is a perhaps a 1-1 game where everyone has 300 bbs. Now we have the risk equivalent of 1/3 but the skill challenge of a much more interesting game. I may try this at another casino, off-strip. (I've already run a live private game with this format and it was as popular a home game as I've been a part of, lasting several years.) However, i don't think it would run, for reasons we haven't gotten to.
The good news is, I have secured certain important advantages for players by running it as 2/3. It's a stake and game size that can appeal to players from 1/2-5/10. That's a very different and unsegregated kind of social and strategic interaction. (In fact, I'm not going to put pressure on him by naming him, but one famous player you all know is curious enough to say he'll be there.) Further, I was able to find the minimum size that triggered a time game charge of 5$ per half hour - that's potentially less rake than you will end up paying in most 1/2 games.
I hope the experiment works. I would love to play a $1-1 $300 game. And even with a $5/half it's going to be cheaper than any LA based game. Speaking of... convince one of the LA rooms to do this and I'll be there. Hell, convince them to play something other than 40bb capped games and I'll love you forever.
Right, on the other end of the spectrum, it's remarkable that essentially none of the LA rooms has experimented with low-stakes, semi-deep NLHE. I guess poker room managers are instinctively conservative.
Somebody once told me the short buy ins kept the action junkies in the game. They like the lottery aspect of it. And deeper games require people to be all serious and I guess that's no fun.
At this point I think maintaining the reputation of the "crazy LA games" is really what they want. It's their brand.
While the rake is different you can see the format play out at Golden Nugget Vegas. They have a 1-2 game where you will see $300 buyins, $30,000 buyins, and everything in between. It bring an interesting dynamic to the game with the small stacks in general playing really tight looking for a tier one pocket to double on and the huge stacks usually playing loose and trying to bully the short stacks
Yes, the lottery aspect of the cap game is important to understand fully. Ed Miller urged people not to treat their game like a slot machine, but this can go beyond just a strategy analogy. The capped games and short stackers really are partaking in a simple version of the NL poker game, where one to three decisions, with the drama of people involved, compose what is the poker. This will always have a majority place and is the entry point of "NL."
So don't expect that to change. The question is, what is the full game, and as the current constraints are solved, does the fuller use of each street of play provide any help? There is folklore that NL is the most complex game, but this only derives from potential bet sizing permutations reaching toward infinite. So that is where depth potentially comes in. (Consider that Range Convertor, the primary source of full solutions for the poker community, does not offer a bundle deeper than 200 bbs.) Another analogy thus springs to mind: while checkers is played here in the U.S. on an 8 by 8 board and is mostly considered a child's game, apparently there is a superior version on a 10 by 10 board, with more pieces, that is still quite interesting and challenging.
In any case, the weekly game kicks off tonight at the Sahara. Parking is free and the casino is nice. See a few of you then.
That chess had no future was stated almost a century ago, and luminaries looked for ways to change things up. This included an extended board, new pieces with different moves, and so on. Later, Bobby Fischer introduced what is variously called Fischer Random or chess960. (One might also mention variants like Bughouse which are more akin to silly poker variants like double-board Omaha.) In all cases the fundamental motivation was that opening theory and deep lines had progressed to the point where many feared chess was becoming a battle of memorization. Sound familiar?
In another parallel, with chess again leading poker, the advent of chess engines, and subsequently self-learning AIs, led to humans being clearly inferior chess players than machines. After a great deal of initial hand wringing, the humans realized that the machines were teaching them new facets of what chess was.
And there was much rejoicing, and so on.
Anyway, if ultra-deep play takes poker players "out of book", I'm all for it. And as mentioned previously, I very much support anything that provides poker players with broader choices in how they play, enjoy and explore the game.
Hope it goes well tonight, Chris.
It was, predictably, a very social game with a lot of chatter.
"DGAF" of the Sessions podcast will be covering the game in a release next week, so you can hear more about it then.
The key will be the coming weeks, when I won't necessarily have as many friends filling seats. Consider coming out and taking a shot this Thursday the 21st if you are in the area.