Playing Styles

[Moob22]

I've been trying to figure out how everyone plays, and here's my take.
Max- Highly erratic, if he goes all in he could have a good or bad hand.
Strong Bad- I don't know yet
Heavy- Makes large bets to scare people away
Tycho- Very cautious, big bets usually mean he's got good cards

Just my take on them.

[EternalStar]

Do they actually play differently or is it just in our heads? I'd like a tell tale employee on this one.

BTW from what I can tell:

Max = competitive better, if you prompt him he will often go all in if he has even a decent chance of winning.
Strong Bad = Tends to try and win hands with bluffs
Heavy = Makes big bets when he has a decent hand, otherwise prefers to just check.
Tycho = Extremely cautious, rarely takes chances, if pressured he often folds (even if you are bluffing.) unless he feels very strongly about his hand.

[Danest]

I think Max sometimes behaves completely randomly. And says as much. He'll keep calling with nothing in his hand. Potentially very dangerous, because I can't seem to predict why he's raising.
I thin Strong Bad bluffs a lot and likes throwing chips down.
I think Heavy seems to be the one I fear the most. If I win, he's often the last one I knock out.
I think Tycho plays more cautiously although I've seen him stick with a few poor hands. He may not be as good at poker as I expected him to be.

[OttersPod]

Here's what I'm getting:

Max becomes erratic as the round goes on; his hand could be awesome or absolutely suck, but if he stays in long enough/has few enough chips, he'll go all in. However, if it's pretty obvious early on that his hand sucks, he'll fold.

Strongbad is very often all talk and no substance; he rarely folds until the very, very end, or if he gets super crappy cards. Basically, if he has any chance of winning, he'll keep betting. He relies more on luck than actual skill. Goes all in if pressured by other players.

Heavy is cautious and obviously doesn't want to waste money; he checks more often than anything else (Is free, after all) and only goes all in if he has so much money that it would intimidate the other players. Folds the minute he realizes he's wasting money.

Tycho is cautious to the point of being cowardly in early rounds; if there is the slightest intimidation, he's automatically out unless he has really good cards. He usually only goes all in if there is no doubt of his iminent success. Usually, though, this leads to him staying until the end, where he gets more confident and raises a lot more. Of course, this isn't taking into consideration his latent erratic nature, which leads to him occasionally going all in for the sake of going all in.

[crfh]

Yeah, I have noticed some trends. Max tends to be reckless, Strong Bad tends to bluff like Hell, the Heavy will often make big bets to force you to fold, Tycho as others have said is more cautious.

But I think ALL the characters change their gameplay as the game unfolds. Especially when you go one-on-one. Notice, for example, that when you go one-on-one, the characters will NEVER fold on their first two cards, while you can do so. If you go one-on-one with Strong Bad and he has a big advantage, he'll force you to either bet all your chips or fold most of the time.

This is the reason why my strategy is almost always stay a little back in the first rounds, because Strong Bad, the Heavy and Max will almost always eliminate each other.

Unless there's a tasty item to be won, of course.

[divisionten]

Yeah. I almost always end with Heavy or Tycho. Only once did I end with Strong Bad and myself, and twice with Max.

[Dr_Worm]

The reason for character-specific behavior is probably due to balance towards the player. Max always goes after you, then Strong Bad, The Heavy, and Tycho; the order never changes. If any of you have strategies, try to imagine the game playing in the opposite order and think of how things would turn out.

[Harald B]

Originally Posted by crfh

Yeah, I have noticed some trends. Max tends to be reckless, Strong Bad tends to bluff like Hell, the Heavy will often make big bets to force you to fold, Tycho as others have said is more cautious.

I agree. It's pretty typical to see Max call, Strong Bad raise, Heavy re-raise and Tycho fold, followed by the rest of them folding if you re-raise heavily. Not that that's without risk, because Max is sometimes willing to go all-in on a junk hand and the others sometimes call you on a matter of principle, especially if you do it too often.

[HoboStew]

I already posted some info on the character specific play styles in this thread, but I did find one thing interesting during the course of development. For most of the development time, all the AIs played with the exact same rules - the only difference between them was play order and random die rolls. Yet when we did our first playtest, people swore to me that certain players would play differently, that Max was more erratic, Tycho was smarter, etc. I'm sure some psychologist has made a career out of this sort of perception bias, I found it fascinating!

[wefeelgroove]

Does anyone have any tips for beating Tycho? He's the hardest one for me to beat and I almost always end up in one-on-ones with him.

[furrykef]

When the blinds escalate, and Tycho is the only one left, he has a tendency to shove all-in if you just call from the small blind. I used this to beat him when I just called with KK. He shoved and my pair held up. I would do this with any pair (maybe not the smallest pairs like 33 through 55) and any two really big cards like AK, KJ, etc., and maybe any ace. The lower end of the high cards such as JT is pushing it, though, unless you're about to get blinded out. The bigger card is also the more important one... AT is better than KQ.

I've noticed this tendency from other opponents, too, but I'm not yet sure if they all do it.

[Polychrome]

Not much to say about the individual characters that hasn't already been said, but I do have some other more general observations...

Max and Strong Bad tend to bet highly on even the remote chance of a straight or flush. You can use this knowledge to collect heavily off the two, however, it can backfire if they actually have the right card in their pocket. This makes Max seem *slightly* less random. The other characters don't seem to take Max's randomness into account, which means Max will often taunt them into betting, suddenly bet high or all-in, and then collect when they fold. Depending on how much you sit back or interfere, Max will actually last a long time in many games.

Strong Bad seems unable to comprehend that the other players also get the flop-river cards. If there's a good hand in the table cards, he'll bet heavily, even if his own cards don't assist him at all.

Most of the characters, when cornered at the end, will go all-in all the time if you have a vastly higher amount of money in proportion. (For example, you've singled one out and they've only got 3000 left, or alternatively, a character only has about 1000 left when everybody else is pretty even...) Not really a bad strategy... Take the chance all at once vs. dealing with a "slow death".

Tycho seems to become more aggressive and take bigger chances the less money he has. Heavy is the opposite. He becomes less aggressive when he has less money. All said, consider the above. They'll both go all-in when cornered. You'll be relying mostly on luck if you get them that low on money.

People on GameFAQs have noticed that Heavy has *very* strong facial tells. You can get an idea of whether he's bluffing or not by whether or not he's smiling/frowning/about to cry when he bets. Supposedly Tycho has tells as well, but I haven't really figured him out.