POKER NIGHT: Poker rules issues in game

[serializer]

Hey all,

I had a slight issue with a rule that doesn't seem to be covered here (although it could potentially be related to some of the unexpected wins described)

In Hold 'em, the winner is the player who can make the best 5 card hand out of the 7 available. However on one particular hand the game awarded a winner when it should have been a split pot.

I can't remember the exact cards but it was something like this:

Table: 6, 6, 10, Q, K
Me: 10, 4
Heavy: 10, 9

So, we both have two pair. The game awarded Heavy the win, presumably due to his 9 kicker - but the 9 and my 4 weren't in the final hands. We both had the same best 5 cards: 10, 10, 6, 6, K. If there are better cards on the table then the kickers aren't used.

From what the moderators are saying it doesn't sound hugely likely these rules issues will get fixed but has anyone else seen this?

[divisionten]

Originally Posted by Bunnyman

I got an A-10 straight while the heavy had two pair but somehow he won the pot.

I am confused about this. Has it happened to anyone else?

If there is more than one pot going, this is possible. They only announce the winner of the largest pot- but you still won some money.

Next time this happens, look at your chip count. It should still increase.

[Dachannien]

Originally Posted by HoboStew

We only announce the winner of the biggest pot. If there is a side pot with a different winner, that wont get called out, but the money should all be in the correct place. You can get into some crazy sidepot situations and we didn't want to spend 10 minutes calling out a bunch of names when the pot resolves, so we took the shortcut of just announcing the winner of the big $$$

This actually creates some problems in some situations. Suppose the following (ignoring blinds in this example to make the math easier):

You're almost out of chips at the beginning of the hand, and you go all in with $500. Max sees your $500 and raises $5000, and Strong Bad calls the $5500. After the flop, Max bets another $5000, and Strong Bad folds. So, Max will win the side pot (now $15000). After all the cards are dealt, though, in a rather suspenseful and dramatic-looking showdown between you and Max, it turns out you win the hand and the main pot. However, because Max won the really big side pot, it announces that he's the winner (which would normally mean that you're out, but in this case you actually tripled up).

I'm fairly certain that 95% (or more) of the complaints you all are getting about the game picking the wrong winner of a hand is related to announcing the winners of side bets. Fix the winner announcement problem and you solve all those other problems.

Seriously, it wouldn't be that hard to go through and announce the winner of each side pot and have them rake in some chips as it goes through. "Max wins the side pot!" or "Tycho wins the third side pot!" or whatever. Even if the same character wins more than one side pot, just announce each separately. It's also more fun, because each winner gets to give some snide remark when they grab their chips.

[divisionten]

Originally Posted by serializer

Hey all,

I had a slight issue with a rule that doesn't seem to be covered here (although it could potentially be related to some of the unexpected wins described)

In Hold 'em, the winner is the player who can make the best 5 card hand out of the 7 available. However on one particular hand the game awarded a winner when it should have been a split pot.

I can't remember the exact cards but it was something like this:

Table: 6, 6, 10, Q, K
Me: 10, 4
Heavy: 10, 9

So, we both have two pair. The game awarded Heavy the win, presumably due to his 9 kicker - but the 9 and my 4 weren't in the final hands. We both had the same best 5 cards: 10, 10, 6, 6, K. If there are better cards on the table then the kickers aren't used.

From what the moderators are saying it doesn't sound hugely likely these rules issues will get fixed but has anyone else seen this?

Sometimes kickers are used to determine a tie when two players have the same hand. Just sayin'.

[Dachannien]

Originally Posted by divisionten

Sometimes kickers are used to determine a tie when two players have the same hand. Just sayin'.

Cards that don't wind up in the five-card hand assembled from your hole cards and the board are not considered kickers. In the previous poster's example, both players had the same two pair, with the same kicker being the high card from the board. (The previous poster shouldn't have described the Heavy's hole card as being his kicker, because it isn't.)

My question would be, did it announce the Heavy as the winner, but then split the pot anyway? Or did it actually give him the whole pot?

[Lifevirus]

I actually had a problem when I went to the menu during the card dealing. After I can back I realized I only was given one card, a queen. Mind you I never actually played the hand but it was weird that I was only being shown one card so I ended up folding. I wish I had screenshot it but I figure it was a random fluke, but i'll mention it here.

[furrykef]

Originally Posted by divisionten

Sometimes kickers are used to determine a tie when two players have the same hand. Just sayin'.

Yes, but sometimes the kickers come from the board and the kicker in your hand doesn't play. In serializer's example, both serializer and the Heavy would have TT66K. Neither the Heavy's 9 nor serializer's 4 even come into play. Now, if one of them had an ace, that would play, because it beats the king on the board.

As for whether this actually happened as described... no idea. I've seen somebody on the Steam forums complaining about the opposite "problem", where they didn't realize that their kicker doesn't play. So I would guess that it does in fact use the board cards for kickers properly.

[serializer]

Originally Posted by divisionten

Sometimes kickers are used to determine a tie when two players have the same hand. Just sayin'.

Yah, I understand the rules (as explained in my post). Read again You don't always take the kicker into account, for instance in the situation I outlined, where you can make a "best 5" cards without the kicker.

To really simplify things, let me boil it down to a really obvious example;

Cards on the table: Four aces and a King.
Cards in your hand: a two and a three.
Cards in opponent's hand: a four and a five.

Who is the winner? There isn't one - it's a split pot, because you both have the "Four aces and a King" as the best five cards you can make. The cards in your own hands just aren't used.

Edit: furrykef probably explained it more succinctly

[jp-30]

Originally Posted by furrykef

I respect your position as a moderator, but I have to say I have two issues with this.
1) How do we know they are properly evaluating the merits and demerits of implementing the rule in a patch if we don't discuss them openly? I mean no offense to the designers' intelligence here, but that this issue occurred in the first place tells me that it should be explained.

2) This thread is called "Poker rules issues in game" -- i.e., how PNatI fails to implement the rules of poker properly. Since we're discussing a rule that it fails to implement properly, I think this discussion is very on-topic. If we don't discuss stuff like this here, then what's this thread for?

Fair call.

It just looked like the 3 of you were heading off on a tangent and arguing with each other, rather than addressing the situation in the game. You really need a Telltale employee to step in and comment on the situation you're discussing, or else the 3 of you could have carried on all night.

One of you three had conceded in the end, but carrying on wasn't going to fix the situation in the game. I've seen enough discussions of this nature take a turn for the worst, so I hoped to temper the discussion so that that sort of direction was less likely.

It's all worked out great, you guys made a few more good points. Everyone's aware of the situation, and nothing got out of hand. There are a bunch of new posters here, and while us mods (well, it looks like I'm the only one who's been on for a while) can second guess the intentions of a lot of the people who have been around a while when a fast-posting discussion erupts, we need to have a slightly more cautious outlook when it comes to new posters. Especially during the huge spike in traffic that comes with a new release.

[GuruGuru214]

Originally Posted by langri

Ok, I thought I knew poker, but this hand has me baffled.

Strong Bad finished the hand with: 8 8 A Q 10
The Heavy finished the hand with: 8 8 A 10 6

The game stated that The Heavy won the hand.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but shouldn't Strong Bad have won this hand with the better kickers? If so, this is a SERIOUS problem.

Yeah, I had a similar thing happen to me, except it was with me and Max and Max "won".

[NeatNit]

Ok, what the hell is a side pot and what causes it to be made?

[divisionten]

Originally Posted by NeatNit

Ok, what the hell is a side pot and what causes it to be made?

Side pots occur when at least one player goes all in. That person ha bet all their money. After everyone has finished calling the bet, any player who wishes to raise from that point onward puts that money- automatically- into a side pot. The person who went all in, if they had the best hand wins the initial pot ONLY. The side pot (or pots, if several people go all in on different bets) goes to the person who had the best hand after that one.

EX:
Player 1 100$ (A, A)
Player 2 1000$ (9, 10)
Player 3 1000$ (2, 4)

At some point in the game, Player 1 goes all in. Afterwards, Player 2 and 3 continue to bet. and the rest of the cards are turned over. In the end:
(A, A, 6, 7, 8)
Player 1 has four of a kind and wins the main pot. Player two has a straight and wins the side pot. Player 2 has probably won more money than 1 (side pots can get larger than the initial one) and will be declared the winner. But Player 1 will still get the main pot and stay in the game.

[Klaad]

Hello,

I've experienced what looks like a problem to me : at some point, the game stopped asking me what I wanted to do, but as I never folded, I was still in.



When it came to showdown, I did not get the pot, presumably because the game considered I was out, even though it stated that I got 2 pairs. Strong Bad got the pot. Is there a problem here? =s I don't remember all the details about the current state of the game, though.. I'm kinda new to playing poker actually, maybe I missed something. Thanks a lot.

[Xocrates]

Originally Posted by Klaad

Hello,

I've experienced what looks like a problem to me : at some point, the game stopped asking me what I wanted to do, but as I never folded, I was still in.
-img snip-

When it came to showdown, I did not get the pot, presumably because the game considered I was out, even though it stated that I got 2 pairs. Strong Bad got the pot. Is there a problem here? =s I don't remember all the details about the current state of the game, though.. I'm kinda new to playing poker actually, maybe I missed something. Thanks a lot.

The game stopped asking you because you were all in. And I'm assuming you were still in the game after that hand, because you won the pot. However Strong Bad won the side-pot and that's the one the game announces.

[Jub]

So I folded, Max and Strongbad were all in, Heavy and Tycho folded.

Strongbad won with 2 pairs vs Max with a pair of aces.

Somehow I won the game, and the two were eliminated?

[NeatNit]

Yeah, of course... What else do you think should happen?

[furrykef]

Um, last time I checked, NeatNit, a player who folded cannot win a pot.

This sounds very similar to a well-known bug that Telltale Texas Hold'em has. I'll be very disappointed if I find that this bug does indeed exist in this game...

By the way, regarding the side pot confusion: I know Telltale has said that it works the way it does to speed up the pace of the game and to keep things simple. But I have to ask, Telltale... was that minor convenience really worth the massive PR hit you're taking from people who don't understand what's going on? Sure, I understood what's going on from the beginning because I've played poker a lot, but a lot of people here aren't hardened veterans, and many of them are thinking "Pair loses to two pair? This is BS. I'm never playing this @#!!* again." No doubt you're hearing a lot of people complain, but the number of people who silently get frustrated and give up is surely even greater.

To put it succinctly: the cure is far worse than the disease.

[ebordeau]

Originally Posted by furrykef

Um, last time I checked, NeatNit, a player who folded cannot win a pot.

I think the little winky face means that was sarcasm. But I could be wrong.

Originally Posted by furrykef

By the way, regarding the side pot confusion: I know Telltale has said that it works the way it does to speed up the pace of the game and to keep things simple. But I have to ask, Telltale... was that minor convenience really worth the massive PR hit you're taking from people who don't understand what's going on? Sure, I understood what's going on from the beginning because I've played poker a lot, but a lot of people here aren't hardened veterans, and many of them are thinking "Pair loses to two pair? This is BS. I'm never playing this @#!!* again." No doubt you're hearing a lot of people complain, but the number of people who silently get frustrated and give up is surely even greater.

To put it succinctly: the cure is far worse than the disease.

I agree! And as emtwo stated earlier, at most you'll have 4 pots to announce. Why not just give us the opportunity to skip the announcements if we want?

[Klaad]

Originally Posted by Xocrates

The game stopped asking you because you were all in. And I'm assuming you were still in the game after that hand, because you won the pot. However Strong Bad won the side-pot and that's the one the game announces.

You are correct, thanks for answering. Have fun!

[Elvenmonk]

Originally Posted by ebordeau

I think the little winky face means that was sarcasm. But I could be wrong.



I agree! And as emtwo stated earlier, at most you'll have 4 pots to announce. Why not just give us the opportunity to skip the announcements if we want?

That's an option Iwant. I get tired of right clicking past him.
Also would be cool to be able to mute certain players, but that's for a different thread.