Other games that help your poker playing?

[electrical]

I played pool and three-cushion billiards for years before I got seriously into poker, although I have been playing poker off and on for 25 years or so. Playing pool got me comfortable betting on myself, and got me familiar with making a good game -- getting proper odds to play. It doesn't surprise me that a lot of excellent pool players were/are also great card players: John Hennigan, Puggy Pearson, Amarillo Slim and Mike Sexton among others.

The pool game most like poker is one-pocket. Most of the game is about manipulating your opponent into making mistakes or leaving himself vulnerable. A smaller but significant part is waiting for obvious opportunities to take control of the game. One-pocket also has scores of trick shots for situations that may arise only once every hundred games, but which all good players can recognize.

Three-cushion is as different from Pool as Stud is from Go Fish. The best players in the world average just over one point per inning -- they miss about half their shots. This means every shot is a blend of offense, position, defense and meta-game.

In playing three-cushion, the biggest part of any game is shot selection. From any starting position, there will be as many as eight or ten viable shots, and which one you choose (and precisely how you execute it) will determine your chance of scoring, your chance of having a follow-up shot and your chance of leaving your opponent safe. It is a lot like poker thinking because each decision has further implications to consider before committing.

There is also a Doyle Brunson character in billiards, Raymond Ceulemans. In his Sixties, having been the best in the world for decades, he was still in the top echelon of players in the world, and competed daily with younger, more aggressive new-school players. Ceulemans is an icon in the game with over 100 major titles, and meeting him was as big a thrill as meeting Doyle Brunson.

[RainierBob]

I think there's a personality that takes naturally to game-playing. Pleasure in problem-solving and competitiveness are both important. For myself, I'm a coffee house sort of player at chess, contract bridge, and backgammon.

Then there's Go, the Oriental board game. Jimmy Cha, a leading Korean-American Go player (sometimes he plays as a Korean, sometimes as an American), is also a strong poker player. Saw him on some tv poker tournament not too long ago. Go requires constant balancing of the local tactical situation with implications for the whole board position. In that way, I think it has some resemblance to poker in that your thinking has to balance a number of competing considerations.

Some while back was going to Go tournaments. Professional backgrounds of players interesting. As you might expect, many in computer related work. But also a number of physicians. One ER doc said he found a similarity with Go in that both involved problem solving under pressure. But a lot of variety overall. One, I recall, was a Fireman.

I think Rory is right on target with his remarks about maintaining concentration and competitive toughness.

Chess and Go both are games for prodigies. Poker seems to place a greater premium on experience than natural born insight. Do you agree?

[Jeff76]

[ QUOTE ]
One thing is that when you play chess tournaments you can play for four hours and if you do not have the will to continue playing your best up until the end you can blow four hours of work with one single stupid mistake.

[/ QUOTE ]You just described this past saturday morning where I made a NL HE FT 2nd in chips only to bust out 9th on a bluff against a calling station who I thought was a thinking player. [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

[ QUOTE ]
It is nice to not have to take total responsibility for losing.

[/ QUOTE ]Two edged sword, though. Most losing players keep on losing for exactly this reason. That results are more loosly tied to our choices is what makes this game so difficult.

[Andy B]

[ QUOTE ]
Poker seems to place a greater premium on experience than natural born insight. Do you agree?

[/ QUOTE ]

Ask an eighteen-year-old kid with a six-figure bankroll.

[HOWMANY]

[ QUOTE ]
Poker seems to place a greater premium on experience than natural born insight. Do you agree?

[/ QUOTE ]

All the people I play poker live with have been playing 10x+ as many years as I have and they're terrible. Obviously I get a lot more hands online, but I also don't really play that much, so despite them having way more experience they have pretty much no hope of ever being a favorite against me.

[SkinnyPuppy]

Hmm, Ive always been a good/great tic tac toe player. though it seems these days my game is not as good as it once was, since i cant seem to beat the same players i played when i was young. I guess ill have to put some more study time into it!

On a serious note, chess has been my core subject of attention until poker came around. Chess really helped me with grinding out all positions good and bad, and to take no player lightly. also it helped me reevaluate my abilty in my own game (as i do in poker the couple of times ive mismanaged my bankroll and gone broke for a couple months)

Ive always liked to play the ocassional games like othello (reversi), stratego, GO, even monopoly, But insight seems to be the one thing that makes all the difference in poker. though the experience aspect cant be ruled out.

[Phat Mack]

I'm going to vote for bridge for one reason: there is a point in a bridge game when the bidding is complete, the lead has been made and the dummy is down, where all the players pause and think out their line of play for the hand. Most poker hands have a point where most of the contingencies can be identified, I think a lot of poker players could benefit from this approach.

Note to Andy--if you still play, check out Sherlock Holmes, Bridge Detective. Fun and instructive.

[Andy B]

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there is a point in a bridge game when the bidding is complete, the lead has been made and the dummy is down, where all the players pause and think out their line of play for the hand.

[/ QUOTE ]

Oh, maybe you do this.

It's been a few years since I last played bridge, I think, mostly when I was giving poker a rest in an effort to save my marriage (how'd that work for ya, Andy?). I played some on Yahoo! (Yahoo! bridge is to bridge as Yahoo! poker is to poker), and some friends have an occasional bridge party. This crew includes one good player and a bunch of people who are so awful that they think that I'm a good player. It is with these fine folks that I discovered the secret to coping with incompetent partners, and that is beer.

[daveT]

I think that a good game is Checkers. Like poker, it appears easy, but once you play against a good player, you realize how dynamic this game is.

I think that checkers is good for attempting to anticipate your opponents next move and your next move. Seeing all of the possibilities and forcing your opponent to make mistakes is the essence of both of these games. Both games are games of several seeminglessly insignifigant tactics that add up to one huge strategy.

[Bremen]

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Do any of y'all play/have played in the past other non-gambling games that you think helps your poker playing?

[/ QUOTE ]
Like many others here I played competitive chess before I found poker. I feel that the greatest advantage chess gave me was that when I began poker I approached poker like I would chess. That is to say that I started by getting good books and studying since I assumed that I wasn't that great from the start. It was pure luck that I got HFAP instead of some crud from someone else [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]