I think this game is interesting for applications to more complicated poker games.

Each player antes $1 and has over $1 billion in front of them. The button is switched back and forth each round. They are each dealt one card face down. Betting is done via a No Limit structure, with the minimum bet as $0.01. Highest card at showdown wins.

To extend it further, you can rank cards by suits (to give 52 different possible hands and increase the strategy potential) or add millions of hands via a random number generator.

What basic strategy would you employ? This game seems highly mathematical, so it seems like something that a bot could play against other bots for millions of hands. Maybe start with a simple strategy and discuss ways to exploit that, and so on.

Deal me out

Is there a limit to the number of raises?

"i want to be like sklansky but i'm not totally sure how"

No.

yes absolutely intriguing im rushing to apply this to my normal NL game already

Would be better if everybody put their card on their foreheads so all the others players could see it and bet for that.

Forgot what they call this but played it years ago and we all about died laughing when everybody had low cards and the guy with a 2 kept betting.

Anyway, to start with stategy with this game would be to figure the excat expectation for every card and bet accordingly. Then pick out how ever many cards to bluff with to raise that expectaion.

Postion would be crucial here I would think.

Would be fun but winning would be based on reading players and not really the card you have I would say.

I believe the game was called "Indian," and there is nothing funnier on this earth than someone with a 2 or a three on his head tossing big bets in the pot.

As for the original game, it sounds like heads-up poker with slightly different rules. I can't see any major implications, other than I'd be really pissed if we were a billion deep and the other guy was betting pennies.

In this game there is virtually no ante, as they are absolutely nothing with respect to the stack sizes and it is a no limit game. So for me, the bluffs will probably not exist as there is no reward, and it will probably turn into a long wait to get the nuts.

Regards ...

if you have the 8h+ bet the pot. if he pushes, only call with the As. If he reraises, and he's a bot, reraise any Q+, if he reraises, reraise only As and Ah. if he reraises he has the nuts. Lolz.

Might be more interesting as pot limit.

we played a few holdem games like this i believe.. called blind mans bluff

The purpose of the stack size (which ideally would be infinite) is to ensure there is always a chance to reraise again, allowing for there to be some point where you might choose to just call with the second nuts in a game with millions of "cards".

Bluffs are always going to have a reward so long as your opponent is going to fold too much - and if they are playing as you described as "wait[ing] for the nuts", this seems likely.

Maybe a simple/fun way to analyse this would be to "design" simple bots, attempt to figure out a way to beat them, and then look at trying to exploit that strategy, and so on. Perhaps make all bets pot sized to avoid further complications, but maybe different bet sizing could be found to be optimal.


Equity Bot
Always bets and raises when it has over 50% equity against the simple range it puts opponents on, calls when it has 33%+ equity (pot sized bets). It assumes that an opponent who bets is betting with the top 50% of hands, an opponent who raises their bet is doing so with the top 25% of hands, a 3bet with the top 12.5%, and so on - given what this is what this bot is doing itself.

Now obviously this bot folds so much you could just bet every hand and have a positive expectation against it. The idea is to then modify the strategy to defend against the counter strategy, and keep doing so.

game solved!

i'd rather play razz

I don't think it would change the game at all.

Regular, Razz, and Indian versions of this game would be identical, only in Regular you'd be looking to have the unknown number be lower than the one you know, and in Razz and Indian you'd want the unknown number to be higher than the one you know.