Gin

[MagicNinja]

Ok, this is a post out to anyone who has played any sort of semi-serious gin. I've been playing a lot with a guy from the live poker game I play in. We play $500-$1k per game (money flows). We play slightly different rules than standard, with 20 points for gin and 10 points for undercutting. I am currently stuck a reasonable amount playing this game, but I am guaranteed unlimited action if I want to play. I am a winning poker player, thus the lost money is no big deal but the potential for more makes me want to become the next Stu Ungar. His skill is of someone who has not really thought about the game but who has played the game for years and years with people who also aren't very good at it. I feel i'm a favourite in the game, but I'm concerned that after losing money i may not be, just wanting to work on my game before i keep playing.

Anyone know any good books / places to play constantly etc for Gin? Anyone want to chat about the game etc? Also if i start posting hands etc, will people who have any clue reply?

[MagicNinja]

Anyone who is interested in this game, post your interest, perhaps we can start posting hand examples, general strategy stuff, book stuff etc.

I've just gone over the archives and read past posts and it looks like there's a fair amount of interest in this game.

[SheetWise]

[ QUOTE ]
I feel i'm a favourite in the game, but I'm concerned that after losing money i may not be ...

[/ QUOTE ]
I can tell you that Stu never felt that.

[MagicNinja]

lol clearly Stu is a bit different.... Ok, i open up with a question on speccing, and when people think its right to spec. I would never spec unless it meant i came close to knocking in first draw or two and it just eliminated some dead wood for me.

[TaoTe]

I enjoy just about all the major card games but have very little experience with gin. I've played online at yahoo a little bit, and I'm definetly interested in learning more about the game.

[Yads]

[ QUOTE ]
Ok, i open up with a question on speccing, and when people think its right to spec. I would never spec unless it meant i came close to knocking in first draw or two and it just eliminated some dead wood for me.

[/ QUOTE ]

I find speccing is usally a bad play unless you're playing against really savy opponents and want to confuse them. I never do it.

[MagicNinja]

Ok, here's some basic early game strategy, maybe it brings up some discussion:

Ok, so everyone knows that usually the best card to throw to start is either the same card as the one thats down (after the opponent declines), or the one +/- one rank apart from it, in a different suit. This is common gin strategy.

But I got to thinking why this is, which is also fairly obvious but has largescale reprecussions for the game:

Opponent's first throw is the Tc (ten of clubs):
You have the Ts and the Jd. Which is the safer throw?
Logically working through:
If opp throws the Tc he cannot have two tens (unless they are both straights).
That means the Ts will make 3 combinations for the opponent:
the 89Ts, the 9TJs, and the TJQs.
However, if you throw the Jd, it will make only 2 combinations:
The opponent cannot have two tens in his hand. He also cannot have the jack of clubs, since no one would throw the Tc if they had the Jc on their first throw. Furthermore he cannot have the Td because he would not split tens (or usually wouldn't. Might be played dependent). Therefore there are only two combinations he can have if he takes the Jd: The JQKd or the Jh Js Jd. Therefore you know the following: The Jc is still in the deck and he has those three exact jacks, or he has that exact straight.

Therefore the Jd is a safer throw. This is common knowledge to anyone who plays, but I hadn't really thought about why it was so.

This logical analysis of the gin hand can be done on the next few cards. Presumably if one is good enough at this logical process, one can use his 10 cards, plus the first couple discards to work out basically exactly what the opponent has.

I think that by the middle game presuming you are paying attention to all cards discarded and with the knowledge of your own hand, you can work out pretty much exactly what the opponent has, all the remaining cards and then work out the probabilities of hitting your cards, and the equity of going for gin vs knocking. This is obviously what the game is about, but approaching it in this manner seems to be useful...

I've also been thinking about some equity related stuff about when to knock as opposed to when to go for gin, with presumed perfect information on the opponents hand given outs to gin etc.

BTW I have not read any books on this topic, if anyone has and there's any good info, please post the info.

[WhiteWolf]

That looks like good stuff. I'm also trying to learn more about gin... where did you pick up all that info?

I'm also interested if anyone else can recommend books or other resources....

- The Wolf

[MagicNinja]

I played / analysed my own play. And pulled out a sheet of paper and started scribbling. There is literally NOTHING online about gin strategy except for the random one page of strategy on all the sites that have online gin which are pretty useless. Don't even bother looking. That's why i brought this topic up.

If anyone else brings up anything interesting regarding the games, their own questions, or can look over ideas of my own, we can maybe have a discussion.

[Jimbo]

[ QUOTE ]
Opponent's first throw is the Tc (ten of clubs):
You have the Ts and the Jd. Which is the safer throw?
Logically working through:
If opp throws the Tc he cannot have two tens (unless they are both straights).
That means the Ts will make 3 combinations for the opponent:
the 89Ts, the 9TJs, and the TJQs.
However, if you throw the Jd, it will make only 2 combinations:
The opponent cannot have two tens in his hand. He also cannot have the jack of clubs, since no one would throw the Tc if they had the Jc on their first throw. Furthermore he cannot have the Td because he would not split tens (or usually wouldn't. Might be played dependent). Therefore there are only two combinations he can have if he takes the Jd: The JQKd or the Jh Js Jd. Therefore you know the following: The Jc is still in the deck and he has those three exact jacks, or he has that exact straight.

Therefore the Jd is a safer throw. This is common knowledge to anyone who plays, but I hadn't really thought about why it was so.


[/ QUOTE ]

You might want to reanalyze this and make a retraction.