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A secret poker game you can play on the subway

(experience.prfalken.dev)
298 points oktcho | 4 comments | 18 Feb 25 10:37 UTC | HN request time: 0.71s | source
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ZoomZoomZoom ◴[19 Feb 25 17:39 UTC] No.43104905[source]▶
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.

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kuboble ◴[19 Feb 25 20:24 UTC] No.43107133[source]▶
> . 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

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ZoomZoomZoom ◴[19 Feb 25 20:31 UTC] No.43107240[source]▶
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.
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kuboble ◴[19 Feb 25 20:37 UTC] No.43107336[source]▶
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."

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ZoomZoomZoom ◴[19 Feb 25 20:49 UTC] No.43107468[source]▶
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.

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1. kuboble ◴[19 Feb 25 21:16 UTC] No.43107798[source]▶
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.

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2. ZoomZoomZoom ◴[19 Feb 25 21:47 UTC] No.43108171[source]▶
> 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".

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3. Maxatar ◴[19 Feb 25 22:54 UTC] No.43108807[source]▶
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.

4. kuboble ◴[20 Feb 25 06:53 UTC] No.43111862[source]▶
Fair enough. My mistake.