a genie offers you a deal

[alphatmw]

he offers to give you the ability to see your opponents hole cards, forever. in exchange, your hand will ALWAYS be the nut low. meaning your preflop hand will always be 32o, when the flop comes K62, it turns into 43o, etc. there's no guarentee that your opponents will never figure this out.

do you take this deal? and what type of games will you play? you can't back out at any time (meaning the 'fun' of poker may be lost forever).

if you would take this, how much would you be willing to pay for it?

(if you play hi/lo games or lowball, obviously your hand will simply be the worst possible. no loophole here.)

[BenA]

What a crap genie. If you can't ever have a showdown value hand, you'll never win. Its that simple. If you could have 32o and always have it be that way, meaning you get a pair, trips, 2 pair, boat, straight once in a while, you'd do a lot better. But frankly, you are asking whether pure bluffs against opponents whose whole cards you know can make up for never winning when you are called, you are crazy.

Change this to something like pocket 2s on every hand, and it would be interesting.

[Leviathan101]

I actually think this has HUGE potential to be profitable. You can simply let your opponents bluff their way into oblivion. Any time they make a c-bet, just raise. Triple barrel bluffs would work great, you can value bet as if you had top pair hands against draws, fold when they hit and force them off if they miss. it would SUCK, cause all the fun in poker would be gone. If you could turn it off it would be great, but as is I would never use it because it takes away the entire point of poker. It becomes a game of chicken because you can never call an all in, and anytime you get a bluff called your boned.
interesting but it would make poker boringggggggg.

Edit: On the other hand if you always had SOME hand not the nut low, but always the 2nd best hand at showdown (or 3rd best in a 3 way pot or so on) it would be more interesting from a profit standpoint, because some people won't view your hand as a bluff everytime.

i.e if you had 99 on a JT8r board and he has JA and calls. He sees you have a legimate hand EVEN if it's fixed that you're gonna lose.

[BenA]

[ QUOTE ]
I actually think this has HUGE potential to be profitable. You can simply let your opponents bluff their way into oblivion. Any time they make a c-bet, just raise. Triple barrel bluffs would work great, you can value bet as if you had top pair hands against draws, fold when they hit and force them off if they miss. it would SUCK, cause all the fun in poker would be gone. If you could turn it off it would be great, but as is I would never use it because it takes away the entire point of poker. It becomes a game of chicken because you can never call an all in, and anytime you get a bluff called your boned.
interesting but it would make poker boringggggggg.

[/ QUOTE ]

My problem with this is that these situations are not often enough to have to make up for constantly limping or raising with crap PF, depending on your position and opponents hole cards, and then having to constantly fold later on. Sure, you can easily pick off every bluff, raise when someone has a marginal hand, win a lot by the river, but you will NEVER win a showdown. Not everyone is bluffing all the time, and you'll be forced to fold more than you think. Plus, in this game, the only real good strategy is to raise. Calling is obviously stupid. You'll get called by lots of hands playing 'correctly,' they'll hit hands they won't fold, and that's it folks. Since you know their cards, you then have to c/f.

I simply don't agree with you.

[Leviathan101]

However lets say this. You see a guy with 55 raise in the CO. You also see that BB is holding 53o. His odds of flopping a set are almost nil. The blinds are holding trash and are almost certainly folding. So you are on the button and you reraise just enough that him calling for set odds is correct. hell you could just min raise it. that works too. He misses almost every flop, and usually doesn't even have a good draw.
he
A) c-bets. You raise a lot and he folds.
B) checks to you. You bet a lot and he folds.

Now lets say you see suited connectors limp. again an easy target. The thing is, you know EXACTLY what EVERYONE has. You know the odds of them hitting.

Clearly, players don't hit monsters all the time. But usually they won't call big bets with almost nothing (bottom pair or worse). When they do hit, what's the problem? Just fold. Afterall, AK only hits the flop like 35% of the time or something. (i'm bad with numbers)It's not like you have to push them off every hand. Indeed doing so will probably make player suspicous. I think you should probably have a nit like play style, since it will make your opponents give you more credit.

Even if he has a great hand preflop its horrid otherwise.
If you see two players with good hands anywhere, then you can just fold preflop. You make moves when you will probably be heads up on the flop because you see all the hole cards. And then if they miss (which most hands do) you just make them fold.

[alphatmw]

bena, post some hands that illustarte how we might lose a decent sized pot, without the opponnet getting completely lucky. because if you can't beat the game knowing your opponents hole cards, you are making huge mistakes. i posted this as an open question, but the fact that YES YOU CAN WIN i thought was pretty obvious.

[Leviathan101]

The only time I can see you losing a big pot is when you shove over their c-bet with AK, and they get the gumption to call you because they think you're bluffing. which you are. You should win way more then enough small pots to make this be way in your favor.

[phish]

I think you can clean up with this deal, even assuming you can't play any split pot or low-only games.

I'd play NL HU or real short. Steal blinds when my opponents have total crap. Try to get in cheap when my opponent has mediocre hands, then checkraise him all-in when he bluffs with a complete miss. And fold anytime he has a decent hand. (Never try to play him off Ace high or any pair even on the river)

I think poker'd still be interesting, cause not all your plays will work. For example you may raise pre-flop when he has 72 but he may go all-in and you'd have to fold.
Or you may checkraise him all-in when he has JT and the board is A48 and he for some reason decides to call or misclicks.

There would still be variance and skill to the game. It'd just be of a different nature.

[Manup]

HU you could never win. You could settle for MTT finishing 2nd, but you'd never win. AND...since you'd have to live with the fact of being 2nd best and knowing you could never win poker would obviouly become a boring (all be it very profitable) hobby. so you'd have to ask yourself and your ego if the money is worth it because you'd never have a bracelel and people would eventually know that you're full of sheeet.

[alphatmw]

oooh one thing i didn't think of before is that you can never play in a televised tournament.