h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

In your example of a hand you forgot to change one of the names Jill (to Betty, I think).

I'm a complete novice at this game, and managed to follow the idea fairly well, I quite liked the run of the narrative, but agree that the intro could use a little rewrite. 'A moment to learn and a lifetime to master' is a perferctly good cliche though, and I see no need to drop it as it sums it up exactly.

What I would like at the begining is something about how the goal of the game is to win the pot by having (or pretending to have) the best hand, and then have a short list of explaining what hand has most value. (Royal flush, etc..

Hi purple, i agree about the hand value information. the author links to the Poker - a card game entry, but perhaps it should be made more clear that the information can be found in that entry.

yes, i agree also that the cliche is a cliche, and fine as far as those types of things go , but I still get a bit twisted in the noggin by that sentence . . .

Friar

purplejenny - winning hands (and all other details relevant to poker in general) are dealt with in the Poker entry linked to in this entry

ive just read the article on poker- the original one,i have to say its out of date and contains a number of inaccuracies...its also a bit vague

Fancy updating it?

im working on something...not an update,but something, more to do with variations and strategy...if i ever get it finished,im not much of a writer though...but im a decent poker player.

Thanks Friar, here's what I've done with the article thus far.

While it was noted in the previous version of the entry that the hands in the sample section were not likely, I changed the verbage to admit the hands were 'very unlikely' and that the betting was also not very realistic, but that the example was intended just to show how the order of play was applied. The first portion of the entry states playing strategy is out of scope...If I were good enough to write about betting and playing stategies, I wouldnt have a day job.

I re-wrote the sentence with the cliche. The sentence doesnt have the same meaning, but readers should get the drift.

I corrected the big blind definition, I honestly cant believe I wrote that, let alone didnt catch it myself in the few hundred times I must've read the entry myself.

Changed the 'Mechanics' subheader to 'Order of Play'.

Made mention of min buy-ins at the end of the [no|pot]-limit discussion.

Added 'machanic' to the list of definitions.

Thanks to all for the feedback.

I love this game, and I like the article so far. Unfortunately, I'm rather sleepy at the moment (having just woke up), so I'm not yet coherent enough to help you out. I'll look it over later, though. Promise!

For some reason (lack of caffeine?) I had missed some of Friar's and other people's feedback.

I've made some updates that reflect most, if not all, of the suggestions and tyops/corrections thus far.

I'm continually amazed that as passionate as poker players are about the game that the feedback here at h2g2 remains constructive and positive.

Thanks all.

Alright, it's certainly informative enough. I'll just go over a few bits of pedantic nitpicking, covering your example:

"The action starts with JBetty..." - I don't think it's too hard to pick out what's wrong here.

Throughout the example, you refer to the hand 'three of a kind' in full when referring to the specific hands, such as "three of a kind Kings." Was this deliberate? Nobody will ever hear it said that way; it's always 'three Kings' or 'trip Kings' or 'a set of Kings.' If you did it on purpose, of course, leave it in, but it detracts from the ease of reading for me.

It is very informative though, and, though I know how to play the game myself, I'd certainly direct someone trying to learn to your entry, as it really is very helpful.

I'll catch that JBetty typo...thanks.

I did avoid 'trip' and 'set' and other jargon simply for tje sake of clarity. I completely understand why it may be somewhat difficult to read, but I think if a novice were reading it carefully, spelling out the hands as I did enhances understanding...however, I could be COMPLETELY wrong on that too.

Thanks all for the feedback,

well done,its a lot better now.
hope i havnt been driving you crazy...
cheers.

This is my first post here, I hope it ends up in the right place...

Just a correction to Pot Limit - If you are first to act, and there is $100 in the pot, then yes, the maximum you can bet is $100. If are you not first to act, but it is checked to you, the same, $100 is the max. If however, there is action before you, then some quick math is required. First, let us suppose there is $100 in the middle of the table from previous rounds. The player UTG leads out $20, is called by one player, and now the action is yours. You must first call the bet to you, $20. NOW you may add up all the money on the table, $100 in the middle plus $20 three times (the other two players plus your call) for a total of $160. You can bet that $160 in addition to your $20 call, for a total bet of $180.

When I am more comfortable with how all this works I will post some additional advice or critique. I had to get my feet wet somewhere.

Didn't see a way to edit my first post, so I'll add another.

In starting hands, it might be worth discussing why certain hands are better than others. For instance, a pair needs no improvement to beat an AK, a suited AK is more likely to improve to a flush than an offsuited AK, if one player holds AK and another AQ and an A comes on the flop the kicker is probably going to come in to play.

You can approach this by discussion of odds. Odds are a tremendous part of playing good Hold'em, or indeed any poker game. The odds of 88 beating AA are roughly 4.5 to 1 whereas the odds of 88 beating AK are a fraction better than even.

One last thing. On the flop you state that Andrew raises because his set of Ks is the best. While this is true, he can hardly know that. His set of Ks is not the nuts at this point. The best possible hand here is a JQ to make a straight. The second best possible hand here is AA for a set of As. Of course, he should still raise his set of Ks - if he is up against As it is just terrible timing. If he is up against a JQ he should find out now by seeing who calls or raises, and he still has outs to make a boat.

Thanks for the pointers.

I reworded the pot-limit section a little. I'm a complete novice at pot-limit (never played), so I reworded the description, and then informed readers they should not worry about the specifics as it will rarely/never be seen. If you think I really should provide numbers as examples, I'll take your suggestion from your earlier post...

I'm not sure a discussion of odds would benefit the entry, as I'm just trying to get accross the point of how to play hold'em...not how to play good hold'em. I will re-read that portion and perhaps put in some explaination of why the particular hads are stronger or weaker.

I corrected the example hand...thanks for pointing that out. Mistakes like that, and the fact that I'm not a world series winner, is why I've never written a poker book

I think you're a little hard on pot-limit. When I play with my friends, we always play pot-limit, as it allows more scope for big bets and excitement than limit poker and less chance of early bankruptcy than no-limit. We sometimes have trouble working out exactly what the limit is in a given situation, but that's part of the fun of the evening.

Not that this means I ever win anything, though.

You might want to add a section on caution, too. There is another poker cliche that reads "if you sit down at a table and cannot work out who the sucker is within half an hour, then you're it". Discretion is sometimes the better part of valour.

I'd also remove the line that says 'this document is intended only to describe the mechanics of a cash game, not strategy'. Some of the amendments that you have made could be seen as being to do with strategy, such as the part about good and bad starting hands. Either way, the entry stands up perfectly without it.

Comprehensive entry about a great game.

Are you still working on this? It's a great entry and just needs a little more to make it ready!

We have a Scout just waiting to make this one an Edited Entry. I'm half inclined to accept it if no-one has any reall problems as it's so almost there....