Psychic Poker Thursday, Jan 18 2007
Poker Chat 10:00 am
OK, this seems to me to be a no-brainer but I’ve got to pose it anyway. An interesting friend of mine named ‘Dave L’ asked the following (I’ll be paraphrasing):
Texas Hold’em: If you were psychic and had the ability of either knowing 1 of your opponent’s 2 hole cards or knowing what the river card is going to be, which would you prefer to know?
January 18th, 2007 at 1:48 pm
Hole card, I think. Knowing the river would help you a lead on knowing if you were going to have an unbeatable hand, but knowing a whole cards would undermine their abiltiy to bluff.
January 18th, 2007 at 8:38 pm
Hole card for sure.
If I’m still in at the river, I’m playing against what I think is the best possible hand that my opponent could have. (This depends heavily on my read of the player). I think I have him beat, or have better odds of winning after the river than he has (or possibly that I can scare him off).
If I can see one of his hole cards, I greatly improve my ability to do that.
January 18th, 2007 at 8:41 pm
(hit submit too too early)
All seeing the river tells me is what my final hand will be. What matters is how my final hand compares to my opponent’s final hand (again, assuming I’m not trying to bluff myself), and knowing one of his hole cards tells me a lot more about that than knowing the river does.
January 19th, 2007 at 10:11 am
I agree. Hole card. Knowing the river can be very misleading and set you down the wrong path. Knowing a hole card allows you to tailor your betting strategy which is way more important…even if you see the ‘wrong’ card in his hand.
January 19th, 2007 at 10:12 am
My intuition told me hole card when I started thinking the other way around. I would rather my opponent know the river card before having him know one of my cards. It seemed too invasive to me.
January 19th, 2007 at 10:13 am
If I were psychic, I would use my powers at the roulette wheel. Easy money baby!
January 19th, 2007 at 11:12 am
Hold card for sure. As others have already pointed out, knowing the river will only tell you if you have a strong hand. Knowing what your player has is going to buy you a lot more in the long run and allow you to play slow or hit hard.