Balance in Poker

Balance in Poker

1. Notes on balance
   1. Single player games
      1. Pacing
         1. Progression of level of challenge throughout the game
         2. g. leveling up pokemon as you go
      2. Level of challenge to the user
         1. Should remain interesting to the user
         2. Strive for fixed level of challenge, even as player skill increases
   2. Asymmetric multiplayer games
      1. Asymmetric
         1. Users start with different resources/kits
      2. Solutions
         1. Equivalent value
         2. Differing objectives/paths to victory
   3. Balancing strategies
      1. A stronger strategy will become dominant
         1. Leading to lower variant in gameplay
            1. Why include options that suck?
   4. Balancing game objects
      1. Issues
         1. Similar to strategy, don’t want to see OP or underused items
      2. How to balance objects
         1. Transitive
            1. Balance by cost/benefit utility to the user
            2. Everything calculated in relation to some base cost/ratio stat (maybe simplest item in game)
         2. Intransitive relationship
            1. Rock, paper scissors
               1. Each has its relative strengths and weaknesses
         3. Fruity (apples to oranges)
            1. Make their functions entirely different
2. Balance in Poker
   1. Pacing/ Challenge
      1. Poker is a multiplayer game. However, like all of the most popular multiplayer games in the world, players can take on more skilled opponents as their own skill increases, thus providing good challenge if the player can be honest about his or her own skill level
      2. Poker’s level of difficulty is based on the skill-level of opponents, which is most generally correlated with the stakes at which the game is played. But, the correlation is far from perfect.
   2. Starting resources
      1. Poker, perhaps, has one of the most interesting mechanisms for starting balance. Most poker players will tell you that AA is the best starting hand in poker, and that 2-7 is the worst (as 2-3, 2-4, 2-5, 2-6 all have the additional ability to make a straight, five consecutive cards). Given that each player is only dealt two cards, the variance within starting hands is huge.
      2. Two things make Poker balanced in spite of this variance
         1. First is the fact that each victory is not equal. Folding, while leading to you losing that specific hand, can save you a lot of money in the long run.
         2. Second is the idea of the long run. On any given hand or even hours of player, the variance can easily dominate skill. People that are dealt better starting hands (and subsequent flop, turn, and river cards) are very, very likely to end up as winning players during that time. Over months, years, or a lifetime of player, however, there is always a regression to the mean (i.e. the true skill level of the player)
      3. Strategies & items
         1. First, I would like to argue that these two are more similar than they are different in multiplayer games that do not involve pay-to-win/microtransaction ecosystems. If an item has much better cost-benefit than others, than the dominant strategy will revolve around that item.
         2. In the case of poker, this balance question is dominated by strategies. Old school poker thinking dictated that there are multiple ways to be a winning poker player. You can play ‘tight’ or ‘aggressive’, and be a winning player either way. Modern poker theory, however, claims poker to be a “solved” game with a Game Theory Optimal (GTO) way of playing. In practice, no one is able to play completely according to the principles of GTO.

• • • • While this modern GTO thinking calls into question the idea of playing the man, not the cards (i.e. strategize based on your opposition), you will find a healthy variance of playstyles in today’s cardrooms.

1. 1. 1. 1. Because of the difficulty of implementing the GTO strategy (years of studying, memorization), the fact that this optimal playstyle exists is actually not a balance issue. In fact, it further emphasizes the skill component of poker at the top.