A secret poker game you can play on the subway

The most obvious issues with this is that the game boils down to predicting passenger patterns, but you're still just comparing two RNGs, which is one of the worst kinds of games. I also don't think this can be called Poker, really. Poker is an imperfect information game, where your hand tells you some information about your opponents' hands.

It would be interesting to read HN's ideas on how you can simulate the shared information part of the game in such a scenario.

give him a break ;)! It’s fun to analyze and think “maybe this could actually work as a game, here’s the current flaws”. Seriously overthinking unserious things is one of the fun parts of HN IMO

You might be able to do that with a betting aspect? If you and your partner both select two "rows" and keep them secret and then after each station you could change how much you're willing to stake you get some information based on the bet.

It's an imperfect solution but I still like the premise of this game, it just needs to be field tested a bit.

Is human behaviour not predicable enough for you? I bet passengers are more likely to congregate on the side that the door enters/exits, etc

> . I also don't think this can be called Poker, really. Poker is an imperfect information game,

There is no game of Poker. It is a wide variety of games like 5-card draw, Omaha, Texas, studs, Chinese open face poker. Also a slot machine where you draw 5 cards or pretty much any game that uses classical poker hand rankings is called poker. There is also a planning poker.

I think the name is fine

You can definitely select a new hand each station by making inappropriate gestures or sounds.

The card games listed have the information aspect in common. The slot machine is not a Poker, it's a poker-themed slot machine and the game people play with it is called losing money.

Not that I disagree with anything about the nature of those games, but your narrow usage of a word poker is wrong.

I even checked the Wikipedia article about Poker and there is a quote very similar to my wording:

"Other games that use poker hand rankings may likewise be referred to as poker."

In the style of Texas Hold'em, both players could secretly choose two seats each and write them down. Then, you'd collectively choose 5 seats to be the shared "cards."

This next suggestion would stretch the "poker" definition somewhat, but I think it retains the same characteristics (imperfect information, shared "cards").

You start from a shared list of attributes (coat color, presence of a hat, etc.) and designate a row of seats. Each person gets one attribute secretly. You wager after each stop following poker conventions.

Only downside to this is that unlike poker, your hand can get worse after a stop.

Well, it's my opinion based on the assumption that players used to specific common card games under the moniker might be disappointed when a new game with the same name lacks an essential component (and it's not cards).

Naming things is hard but there's no hard limits for the expansive approach, you can call all card games or all 5-things-games Poker. Your mileage as to communication with other people may vary, though.

Where we're disagreeing is at how we're seeing what's conventional.

All you say is true. Except in your first post you didn't say "I personally prefer a convention of calling only those games poker".

You said "you can't call it poker" with a tone of an authority.

And I say that you can.

> You said "you can't call it poker" with a tone of an authority.

This is a misquote, if I ever saw one.

What I've actually written (emphasis added): "I also don't think this can be called Poker, really."

In other words, this is my personal line of thought, with the argument given in the next sentence, and "really" means "to some extent it can, but not to the full".

Refrain from using quotes unless you are actually quoting something that someone has said word for word. One good aspect of quoting the actual words someone has said is that it can act as a sanity check against potential misinterpretations you might have made.

The actual quote, word for word is "I also don't think this can be called Poker, really."

There is nothing suggesting a tone of authority, on the contrary this is someone explicitly sharing their own opinion on the matter.

This misses the information your secret hand gives you about the other player's chances. In poker if I got an Ace in my hand the chance of the opponent having an ace lowers.

If I got somebody wearing a black coat, this has no impact on the chance of my opponent having a black coated passenger.

“Poker is a family of _comparing_ card games in which players _wager_ over which hand is best according to that specific game’s rules.”

— [WikiPedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poker)

I don’t think I would have gone for that definition, but now that I see it, it sums up everything I’ve ever known “Poker” to be. The game is won by comparing cards you have left (meaning that Rummy, Go Fish, or Bridge are different), and there’s a wager about the game (possibly just bragging rights if not playing for money).

I totally agree, but I stand by the opinion that imperfect-information bit is so essential that it's simply assumed (it's, naturally, not specific to just poker card games, though). If you come to the table with your own stack of cards to draw from, it's very likely going to end badly for you, depending on how transparent you're with the matter.

The other day I was playing a game that let me project fire from my finger tips and fly. It was a lot of fun, but in reality it made no logical sense...

> The most obvious issues with...

... your comment is that you're trying to analyse everything instead of just having fun. Not everything is a math' problem. It's OK to have fun things that don't make sense. I don't think the author is trying to create a perfect gaming experience. I think the author is just trying to have fun.

I'm just pondering on how to change the game so it becomes more fun for me. Coincidentally, I know I can have a great time playing a game commonly known as Poker, so it's natural to compare the two.

I also expect HN to have lots more people interested in game theory and game design than any random place so it seemed appropriate to share and invite people to throw ideas about (which is also kind of fun).

Let's have fun any way we can!

I was waiting for the author to discuss actual strategies, like subtly herding new passengers toward a seat, sitting in your own row so you can get up when the right person comes along and graciously offer them your seat, saying "I think there's some spilled Sprite there" if the wrong person attempts to sit down (only if there are plenty of seats left, of course), etc.

Other ideas?

I made a more poker-esque game that doesn't require any dice or other materials, cause my friend and I were waiting in line forever somewhere. You play as a buyer haggling with a seller over some shiny vase. Each player establishes a secret random number*, being the max the buyer will pay (demand) or the min the seller will sell for (supply). Then they haggle, then they win the difference between the agreed-upon price and their secret number. Or, either can kill the deal at any time, and both are penalized based on their secret number**.

It's limited info, random, there are weak or strong starting positions, and you can bluff. Tournament style might be interesting because of the Prisoners' Dilemma. But I gotta say, it's a lot nerdier than this subway game.

* Both think of two numbers 0-50 and only say one aloud. Add the other person's number to your secret one and mod by 50. Then buyer adds 50.

** Seller penalized N, buyer penalized N - 50 iirc.

This actually increases their chances, because they can pick the same seat.

Discard any hands where you pick the same seats, at the end.

You can also play actual poker like this. Each player writes down random numbers 0-51 in predefined order. You reveal some of those numbers to the other player who adds their own number mod 52 to get their private hand. You all slowly reveal both numbers for shared cards. If one of your cards matches the shared card you have to start over, same deal if at the end multiple players end up with the same cards.

It’s a slow process, but when the goal is wasting time and you don’t have cards it’s a poor substitute.

Fair enough. My mistake.

Poker is not a card game, it's a betting game with imperfect information. This has no betting round so it is not poker.

You can fix this by allowing each stop to be a round of betting.

Without the iterative rounds of betting, raising and folding (which require imperfect information) it isn't poker, it is only a luck contest using poker-like combinations.

From a ludology perspective poker definitely is a card game. With the cards leading to various dynamics.

I was definitely thinking along the spilling fluids strategem. Coughing without covering your mouth, playing obnoxious music, making unnaceptable agist comments...

As for enticing the desired people, perhaps carry lots of baggage to fill the spaces around you and selectively offer to remove them when people come aboard

... I was harsh then. Sorry.

You can call all Fizzy soft drinks coke, at that point you're relying in shared context to make it work, not in hard definitions

The betting aspect features in the short mockumentary film from which this comes: Tube Poker (2005) by Simon Levene.

- https://www.simonlevene.com/portfolio/tube-poker

- https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0818537/