Quite a (true) story happened today - I made a poker discovery when I was playing with my G-SHOCK watch !!

This post contains the rules of a stopwatch poker game, but it's not about the game this time. It's more about what this game does undeniably prove:


>>> Effort, risk and time combined together can be more accurate than 5 card poker hand rankings !!


Let's start from the beginning. The normal 5 cards poker hand rankings are of course mathematically correct. The thing is, that poker sees the difference between a pair of deuces and a pair of kings, for example. Pair of kings beats pair of deuces. But as we know, the chances of hitting a pair of deuces are exactly the same as hitting a pair of kings. That's where the card values come into play.

But wouldn't it be great if it was easier to hit a pair of deuces than a pair of kings with having all hand types probability unchanged ? It's actually possible. I'm kind of in a positive shock right now, but I'll try to explain it as clearly as possible without any chaotic thoughts.

Ok, the stopwatch (must have 1/100 seconds accuracy, G-SHOCK square watch recommended) game I invented today allows you to get 5 cards from the deck of 52 and have a poker hand. Everything with only a stopwatch. No cards or anything else needed to play it. One game can take from 5 minutes to 52 minutes. The game is based on a small timing phenomenon that works like this:

- If the rules require you to STOP the stopwatch exactly on a certain 'XX seconds result and they don't accept any other results, your result will be directed towards a 'XX"50. For example - you must hit the STOP button exactly on 59 seconds and if you hit 58 or 00, it's game over. So the safest spot for you will be exactly in the middle between 58 and 00 and this will be '59''50. If you concentrate on not making a mistake, you are much more likely to hit perfect '59''50 than you would if you concentrated on just a perfect timing press. And this is what this game is based on.

The 52 cards are horizontally and vertically arranged (13 rows and 4 columns) and assigned to numbers from 1 to 52 minutes.

2 = 01'59''50
2 = 02'59''50
2 = 03'59''50
2 = 04'59''50

3 = 05'59"50
3 = 06'59''50
3 = 07'59''50
3 = 08'59''50

and so on (...)

To get a certain card you must hit STOP on a perfect result (with '59''50 ending). If you miss ('59''28 for example) - you keep playing. If you miss the seconds too ('58''XX or '00''XX) it's game over and you have to start again from scratch, which is 00'00''00. You play until you hit 5 cards correctly. It's not easy, but as you'll see it's also not difficult

Now the most interesting and fascinating part:

The 5 card poker hand results you'll get in this game will 100% precisely reflect the level of difficulty you reached. Not only the hand types will reflect it, but also the card values !!

I will explain this with details in my next posts, because there's quite a lot of things to mention and I don't want to make a mistake and also keep this post not too long. You can try to analyze it on your own and you'll see that every hand is more difficult to hit than a weaker one and also same thing with card values. Take for example a Royal Flush or Quads Aces ... I will explain this later on

Let me know what you think and please remember that this whole discovery is:

MARIO APPROVED !!!


G. J.

I just tested this out but got bored and couldn’t wait but I got exactly .50 first try



Probably more satisfying to use with a G-shock so you can actually press the buttons on it. Will have to settle with this for now I guess

Very cool discovery nonetheless, I imagine this is similar to the process of the RNG in online poker

Nice one although you didn't get any card this time. The game indeed is kind of slow, you must have like 50 minutes of free time to play it. But it really feels good when you realize during playing that you actually are diving into the deck of 52 cards as the time passes and that you're playing poker.

Yes, it's good when the stopwatch has buttons, but of course any 1/100 stopwatch is fine. Here's the one that I use for this game, it's a cheap one but it has everything you need (solar battery and radio controlled):



I must now buy a new one though, with metal case and bigger buttons, so that I can hit better poker hands

I think this concept could be combined with long distance running and specifically endurance training to improve overall competitive edge.

For example. Imagine the poor busy poker grinder. Waking up at 12:30pm. Wiping the sleep from his eyes with only 6 hours to kill before work. Phew. So much spare energy but nowhere to put it. But… wait…what if he had somewhere productive to place that energy that also helped him get better at quantitative time-critical poker hand selection?




Voila. So for every additional 0.1km run, the difficulty curve on hitting perfect cards could be adjusted/reduced accordingly, resulting not only superior access to better combos later in the day but superior access to human prey all round. Win win. Plus any excess electricity generated could be fed back into the community to help schools and roads.

Here's the correlation between "hand type + card value" and "time + effort + risk" explained. This is an example try from my player perspective with cards:

I take my stopwatch and press the START button (G-Shock of course). I begin with strategy that any card will be good for me as the first card. I try all deuces (lol), all threes, but I don't hit anything. But I manage to perfectly hit 4 (I press STOP => and get 09'59''50). Now I have a chance to try hitting quads fours. So I try to hit the next card (4) at 10'59''50, but I miss. I still have a chance to hit a full house though. I try to hit 4, but I miss again. I try 4 and still no good. Now I know that hitting a full house will be impossible. Fortunately I perfectly hit another spade card and that is 5 at 13'59''50. Good for me. I skip all other fives, because I'm crazy and I want to hit a straight flush 45678. So I try to hit 6, but I miss. I try another card - 6 to have a straight possibility, and I hit it perfectly by pressing STOP at exactly 18'59''50. Now I have 3 cards collected: 4 5 6. Good cards for a straight, but hitting it won't be easy, so I'll be fine if I hit three of a kind, so I try 6. Unfortunately I miss. I skip 6 to keep the straight draw. I then miss 7 7 and 7 and also 7. Now the best I can get is a pair of aces. I don't feel like waiting and I try to hit first three eights without success, I skip the last one which is 8, because it won't give any help. Now I decide to hit absolutely anything because I must hit 5 cards and I start to run out of time. I miss everything until K which I collect at 45'59''50. Now I have last three chances to make a pair. I hit second king and that is K at 46'59''50.

I'm quite happy because I ended the game with a pair of kings - 4 5 6 K K and that is a good result.

As you can see when analyzing all this, everything I tried to do was perfectly connected with the difficulty level - combos, draws, suited or connected cards or pairs. Everything fits all together just as the hand rankings do PLUS it sees the card values (!!). That's because, you're risking more and more time, you have less time left and also you have more and more cards collected.

I think that is just fantastic. A deck of 52 cards hidden within the time .......... (even if the game itself seems to be boring or too much time-consuming).

THE STOPWATCH POKER GAME:
(>>>collect 5 cards)



Press STOP at: XX minutes'59''50 to collect card.

CARD / Minutes:

(A49) _ _ (A50) _ _ (A51) _ _ (A52)
(K45) _ _ (K46) _ _ (K47) _ _ (K48)
(Q41) _ _ (Q42) _ _ (Q43) _ _ (Q44)
(J37) _ _ (J38) _ _ (J39) _ _ (J40)
(T33) _ _ (T34) _ _ (T35) _ _ (T36)
(929) _ _ (930) _ _ (931) _ _ (932)
(825) _ _ (826) _ _ (827) _ _ (828)
(721) _ _ (722) _ _ (723) _ _ (724)
(617) _ _ (618) _ _ (619) _ _ (620)
(513) _ _ (514) _ _ (515) _ _ (516)
(49) _ _ (410) _ _ (411) _ _ (412)
(35) _ _ (36) _ _ (37) _ _ (38)
(21) _ _ (22) _ _ (23) _ _ (24)

If you miss 59 seconds, it's GAME OVER!

I'm close to saying that I like my game more than Texas Hold'em.

That doesn’t even look like an official album or mixtape

I bought this watch (only $100) two days ago. It's the number 1 device for playing my stopwatch poker game:



And here, some more music covers (they're not off-topic ). These guys are clairvoyants:

1. There are 52 weeks in a year.
2. There are over 100 million poker players in the world.
3. Approximately 150 million G-Shock watches have been sold worldwide.
4. G-Shock will celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2033.

Question: What are the odds that Casio will release special edition Poker G-Shock watch in the future ?

Thanks !

I completed my first 5 card hand today. It's not just an example - this can serve as a proof that the SAFE SPOT '59''50 rule is correct. The hand contains a 3 cards in a row combo. It wouldn't be possible to hit this combo if the rules were different:

6 T Q Q Q

Three of a kind Queens ! It feels good also because at a certain point, like half way, I was close to giving up.

It wouldn't be right if they made this and didn't include your poker game with instructions. Get the lawyers on the phone!!

This Casio "Straight Flush" watch is awesome, I haven't seen it before ! Thanks for the post.

Yeah, including instructions would be necessary for my game. Although I'm still quite worried that some people may say that it's boring. But I think it's cool for two reasons:

- it's more accurate than regular deck of cards (card values)
- a watch is all you need to play

Plus:_ as a proof for a discovery and a collector's item it might sell well

Just a quick ad, I finally found the title. It's a big game.