Poker by Mail

[lgas]

Has anyone ever heard of anyone trying something like playing poker by mail, similar to the way some people play chess by mail?

Obviously the logistics would be more complex -- you would need a third party dealer that kept track of who was dealt what cards and so on, but the idea being that in a non-real-time game, you would have as long as you liked to make your decision, to run software simulations, to explore game theory tables, look up detailed notes on how the player has played in similar situations, etc.... basically to do whatever you felt was necessary to come up with the *perfect* play for that particular situation.

I don't think anyone would ever want to play this way for money, as it would be way too susceptible to cheating, but it seems like it might be an interesting approach to learning more about the game, especially if you had the opportunity to play with good players and get their feedback on hands afterwards, etc. (which presumably you would if this was primarily a learning exercise).

You could even automate it by creating a website that handled the deck, dealing, etc. if it turned out to be a valuable tool.

Anyone else think this might be interesting?

[maddog2030]

Um, yeah, good luck with that.

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You could even automate it by creating a website that handled the deck, dealing, etc. if it turned out to be a valuable tool.

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Oh definitely. It'd be almost like having one long poker party with your friends. You could name this great invention, "Party Poker".

[lgas]

[ QUOTE ]
Oh definitely. It'd be almost like having one long poker party with your friends. You could name this great invention, "Party Poker".

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You're missing the point here. The two key differences are that a) you get as long as you want to make your decision, and b) the point is not to play a friendly game of poker against each other, but rather to study the play of poker.

Thanks for your insightful comments though.

[Gelford]

In theory you are right, but since you only play one 20% of the hand you are dealt and a lot of those are mucked quickly, then mailpoker would become slower than paint waiting to dry ... not forgetting, that you have to wait for 8 to 10 players to make there decision (and if one raises, then we need wait another round at least before betting is over)

While mailpoker sound slow, slow and fairly boring, there is one comparison that hold up to chess, you can analyse your plays after the game is over

Run simulations over your handhistories and such

[JoshuaD]

You mean like an internet discussion forum?

...

[lgas]

That's true -- trying to play full ring this way would drag out much longer than chess-by-mail. Although it could perhaps still be interesting for analyzing heads-up play because you play almost every hand heads up and there would only be 2 players to wait on, not 8-10.

[lgas]

Well, what I'm suggesting could actually be done in a forum (like this one), but there would be some differences... Amoung other things I am specifically encouraging doing time-consuming tasks such as computer simulations or game-theory oriented analysis of the situation, and other things which aren't practical to do at the table in a real hand -- and most of the hand history discussions here don't involve those types of things for that very reason -- they aren't practical to do at the table.

I suppose the traditional hand history discussion model is pretty good though and perhaps this doesn't really offer any significant improvement over that.

[vypremik]

I think your idea has some merit from an analytical point of view. It would be best suited for heads-up, though. Three to four players may be interesting, too.

As you say, it would give players the chance to think about their next move, run some simulations, calculate some odds...

Of course, you are missing the visual aspect of the game. It is hard to get a tell on a player half a world away.

In lieu of this, you could keep contact with opponents in another way - taunt them and the such - look for clues.

If the game was played with someone you actually live close to, there could be a period of a day or two when you could try to get a read on them.

This almost sounds like it is getting into another game. I don't know if I could face someone every day and continually pretend I had a monster hand, when I am sitting on 23o.

It could be interesting.

[hencole]

I found a site that did email poker. No idea what the url was though.

[Arnfinn Madsen]

It could be really interesting if one of us played a table of good non 2+2'ers (heads up or multiway) and we would debate and vote about the correct actions.