[Closed] Games to improve your recognition of patterns

You got to make the conection beetwin what you were doing and poker - there's where the power is.

Anyone who comes close to mastering anything can do that. If you master something, you start seeing the paterns and you begin to have a mental model of the system - when you start playing poker you already have a winning structure on which to put new content and adapt.

And if you like/love poker as a game, that's awesome. Just imagine playing poker like a game of starcraft or as an RPG... that you wouldn't depart of it for hours/days, all you do is play and love it. For most it would be a completely different game.

snakes and ladders

I think that the fact that there are a large amount of poker players who are former gamers is more related to the personality of such people which simply attracts them more to poker, rather than that their playing games actually has some sort of positive effect on poker. Honestly I really doubt having a high APM is helping your poker game much.

I spent pretty much my entire teenage life playing games like Ultima Online, and more recently I played Warcraft 3 and also fighting games at a very high level. I really don't think any of these helped me as a poker player, but actually the reverse would probably be true if I was still playing games now. I remember going on "tilt" and being unable to win against people I knew I could beat, but I was unable to identify it as such at the time and had no idea how to deal with it. I think what always kept me from being one of the best was this mindset issue.

Looking back at it now I half-regret wasting so much time on games, but I suppose I did have lots of good times and actually did meet a lot of people.

Anyways thats just my 2 cents.

You can play snake on Youtube. Press and hold left key, then press up or down key.

Here you can play with black background and Super Mario tune.

Being a gamer looking to turn poker pro right now. I would say that FPS have helped me in getting a better poker mindset. I remember back a few years ago playing counter-strike: source, I would start recognizing patters of opponents, often certain players would go the same way every time, either they preferred that path or they were just doing it subconsciously.

Also much more recently I had started to lose my patience at the tables due to hitting a bad streak, often in the past when this happened I would more or less self destruct and turn what could be a 2 or 3 day bad streak into a few weeks. This time however I went back to online FPS, this time Team-Fortress 2 (yes I'm a fan of valve and steam). Nothing will help you become more patient then spending time with terrible online players who like to mic spam and trying yourself to not get upset.

There are also the games that have poker built in, Puzzle Pirates (and I know it looks like a kids game, trust me, its not) is one game that has such features. Admittedly the players at these tables are rarely better then most fishes that you will see at tables, but you can still work on your basics.

Now, could I have developed these same skills/assets at the poker table, yes. Could it have been done easier in either medium, debatable. The point is that the online games can help you have some skill transfer to poker, at least online poker. I think the biggest drawback would be that you don't build multiple skill-sets while gaming (for most games at least), however the biggest advantages may be that you can start playing video games at any age, you can only start playing poker at 18 to 21 depending on your residence, also video games will only cost you a specific amount of cash, learning the same skill-sets in poker might cost you hundreds or thousands of dollars.

I think nearly every game can teach you something that will help your poker skills, but very few of them can teach you a lot about poker, and that´s simply because poker is absurdly more complex than most games. Poker embraces the skills needed for chess, sc and wc, and still demands a lot of others. That´s why it is such an unique game.

Now, there is one game I know that really can help a lot with poker. I mean, A LOT. It is a very popular game in Brazil and in Spain (I think.. o.O). I´ve mentioned it before somewhere in the forums.. it´s called "Truco".

Almost everything you´ll find in poker is there: hand ranges, bluffs, slow playing, reading opponents, trapping, long and short term planning, tilting, trying to keep cool... and specially a whole lot of pattern recognition. That´s why it´s so useful to poker.

It is a very fast game and very, very fun to play. People play it a lot at parties, for example. Also, since it is a game played 2 vs 2, in partners, it requires a very sincronized sense of teamwork.

If you guys want, I can write a thread teaching it. It´s not so hard to learn, but it´s very difficult to master. Anyway, IMO it´s a perfect hobby for poker players, since it´s a fun way to spend time, playing it drunk with your friends, while still practicing poker skills.

Being an online PC FPS gamer since about 2002, having played 90% of that time on the original(and best) version of Counter-Strike. It's kinda stupid when someone earlier said that there's no thinking involved. To this day I remember a single kill I got in a public server in 2003 where I outgamed the opponent pretty hard. Yes a bit sad

During the summer there was a summer cup on theSGL, my team had a game against a team that would be something like 65% favourites to win. We played best of 3 maps where either team picked one map each and, if required, a 3rd map would be played. On the dust2 map, a CT(police lol) sided map we had to win to stay in it. So one round when we're supposed to save our money for the next round to all buy then I made "a mistake" by buying up an AK(47, not bigslick!) and armour. We rushed towards the smaller bombsite because past experience has taught us, there is only 2/5 "policemen" there. If we win this round, we seriously damage the money of the opposite team and pretty much we take command of the map. The said round is below

So, yes there is a lot of thinking when it comes to playing CS and FPS in general. The only "downside" to CS is that it's a team game(5on5) and hence you need your whole team on to practice etc. One on one FPS games like quake are also great for "developing" thinking

This is why I like grinding on poker - I spend whatever time decided getting better at the game and don't have to rely on others. Gaming has taught me to analyze my play - I record pretty much every game I play and go over some plays later on to see what I did wrong/right and to make vids like above haha

my 2 cents

btw, it takes a lot more skill to be a good chess player than a good poker player, especially in terms of raw computation.

There is just a lot more $ in poker.

Chess is possibly the greatest game ever.

Originally posted by w34z3l
btw, it takes a lot more skill to be a good chess player than a good poker player, especially in terms of raw computation.

There is just a lot more $ in poker.

Chess is possibly the greatest game ever.

i agree with it takes more skill, but i personally don't think its the greatest game ever. i love snap the most, and rubix cubes too

Originally posted by TobyCS

Originally posted by w34z3l
btw, it takes a lot more skill to be a good chess player than a good poker player, especially in terms of raw computation.

There is just a lot more $ in poker.

Chess is possibly the greatest game ever.

i agree with it takes more skill, but i personally don't think its the greatest game ever. i love snap the most, and rubix cubes too

troll

Originally posted by justkyle88

Originally posted by TobyCS

Originally posted by w34z3l
btw, it takes a lot more skill to be a good chess player than a good poker player, especially in terms of raw computation.

There is just a lot more $ in poker.

Chess is possibly the greatest game ever.

i agree with it takes more skill, but i personally don't think its the greatest game ever. i love snap the most, and rubix cubes too

troll

No no, I respect that. Snap is pretty sick.

But rubix cube.....that's just about re-arranging stickers isn't it?? ♦

rubix cube is all about recognizing patterns!!

Rubik's cube = group theory

Backgammon players seem to do well in poker sor some reason.

SC FTW!

hide and seek

Originally posted by OZSA
lol manu, i wonder in smt, everybody who is around 18-19 or less they pretty much come with "come play HU and i'll show u". how is this stuff called..? whatever.

u really didnt get what i said....look, u play poker 1year and u keep tilting, u tilt lifetime..u play and learn chess good, you learn patience, so you lower ur tilt or make it disappear. alot of players can never stop tilting in poker, no matter how much they play...get it? oh whatever, i have a feeling im posting in vain for ur mentality:)

I haven't read the rest of the thread but i've got to disagree on this front. Just because someone plays chess and is patient is doesn't mean they won't tilt. In fact, there may be evidence to say chess players are at least as likely to tilt. Firstly, poker involves money, that can be taken away from you by luck even if you made the right move. In Chess if you are more skilled than your opponent you will always win, as you said, no luck involved. Now imagine an awesome chess player converts to poker, and learns the game theory perfectly. So they are much better than their opponent, they play a hand perfectly but then lose as their opponent sucks out with a backdoor flush draw. Surely the chess player will be very pissed off that he just lost money despite playing the hand perfectly?

Tilt is nothing to do with patience, tilt is raw emotion overcoming your logical thinking. The way to control tilt is not to be patient, but to learn to override your emotions with logic.

For the record, i'm crap at chess, but I am pretty tilt resistant.

Originally posted by gadget51
Backgammon players seem to do well in poker sor some reason.

I can give you an easy explanation for this "mystery":

Backgammon and poker are very similar in a way both those games are a mix of skill and luck. So, I would say that backgammon player is much more mentally prepared for poker

As far as topic of the discussion goes, I think that any computer game prepares you for the long hours at the display.

I have heard ppl moaning about 8hr MTT's... I have played WoW for 72 hrs straight (yes, I know ppl in Japan have been known to die after just 24 hrs ), so any MTT is a piece of cake for me.