Poker is a great game. I really don't know why they didn't have multiplayer for it, but I still enjoy this game well enough. People often complain about the game cheating though whenever they lose or do poorly, but some mistakes are just really easily avoidable. Poker is, when you get down to it, systematic and strategic, and I'm just going to touch on a few basic ideas of playing here. Not the rules of course-- for you should already know how to play coming into this game.

I'm not starting with a review of starting hands. One of the things I like to do when I play in real life is pretend to look at my cards, but look for tells instead by observing everyone's reactions to their cards first. Then I play the pre-flop without looking at my cards at all, instead observing betting sizes and position, trying to figure out what everyone's strength is. I then pay attention to my cards when the bet comes around to me. The point of this exercise is to not focus on your cards so much. You're playing the people, and you can look at your cards anytime.

That having been said, the game throws the cards in your face to show you what you have, but the same principle still applies that position and betting sizes matter a lot more than your starting hands. Got the dreaded 2-7 off suit? Who cares? If everyone around you is just matching the big blind, maybe you can steal the pot and bet big. You might be bluffing pre-flop, and they may suspect it, but can they really call you with that wimpy hand of theirs in the small blind position? So let's talk position.

It goes dealer button, small blind, big blind, +1, and then the person right before the dealer is the cutoff. The blinds rotate around clockwise every hand. Being in the small blind is the earliest position after the flop, and it is the hardest position to play. You have to make your checking and betting before seeing what anyone else does, so you have the least information to base a decision of what to do here. Playing in the dealer position is the easiest position to play because after the flop, you get to see what everyone else bets/checks/raises before you have to put any extra money in. Position is information is power.

Whether you are an aggressive or conservative player, you should always try to mix up your play every now and then so that people don't figure you out. For computers, it's still important to mix up your play, but position should always be a heavy factor in deciding to play a silly hand or not. If you are in late position, you can play crappier hands more often and bluff better. If you are in early position, you should try to play crappy hands only very rarely, since if the flop comes down and you completely miss, then it's hard to really do anything. You could bluff, but you'd do that before seeing if the flop hit anyone else.

The number of people is your next consideration. The more people that are at a table, the tighter your play should be, that is, you should bluff less often. Bluffing only works if you can convince everyone else your hand is better than theirs, hence less people makes it easier to bluff (usually, you'll see). Those one on one showdowns with you and that last opponent at the end of the tournament? You are going to get trashy and mediocre hands often and you are going to love it anyway, because your opponent more than likely doesn't have all that much better. Maybe you'll get stung a few times, but it happens.

Also while we're talking about our opponents, what do we see about every character? Claptrap likes to slow play good hands (defer betting by checking and then raising if someone senses "weakness" and bets). Sam is the tightest player and most honest. Now by all means I have not figured everyone out, as the playstyles are not nearly as clear-cut as the first Poker Night at the Inventory. In that game, going left to right got you loosest to tightest play; Max would bluff often while Tycho would raise only when he had something dangerous planned. It's up to you to figure out the tells though, say by watching the reactions instead of worrying about your shoddy 2-10 dealt to you at the beginnning.

This game is tournament structured. I prefer cash games where I can play closer to my own style for longer, but here we are with a few more simple facts of life. If your opponent has a lot of money or very little money, they will be more aggressive, and that's what you should do too. At the start of the tourney, you only have 50 big blinds to work with, so I consider everyone to be maybe just a little bit short stacked. I'm also used to playing poker with more than four opponents, so I consider this table size to be really small. Hence, I find that I am very aggressive at Poker Night 2.

If you have a lot of money, you can afford to bully the other players every now and then. It'll provide cover for you as well when you actually get a nice hand, and the computers may fall into your clutches. Notice how there is no difficulty setting in Poker Night 2. I find the AI to be a lot more dynamic and responsive to your own playing, so if you're always betting huge amounts of money, they will call you (out) at some point suspiciously, even if they have silly hands--and that can work either against or for you, but it's hard to tell when to really let loose. Then again, it's not harder than trying to read real people.

If you have less than 10,000 or so, you are going to be in trouble if you try to play conservatively and wait for a good hand. Those blinds are meant to slowly eat away at your soul chips, and they will. Unlike having a big stack, where you can try to push people out and bust them, here you will need to go all-in often, preferably pre-flop before any cards come out. If you put money in the pot and it gets pretty big, then what money you have left is probably not going to convince a lot of players to fold out (see pot odds), even if you were to go all in. This means if you don't go all in before the flop, and you miss the flop, you will not have much fun trying to bluff your way out, and may have to fold (lose your much needed investment) or roll the dice.

The flop is down 4h, 8h, Ks, and you have A-2 of hearts. The pot is $16,000 and you're in middle position with two other opponents. The person in early position bets $4,000. He had also raised a bit before the flop. What do you do? Maybe this guy has a pocket pair of aces. Maybe this guy has K-Q off suit with top pair. You could very well be losing with less than a 50% or even 33% chance to win. Fold here? Absolutely not. Pot odds tells you that in order to make a call here, you would need to put in an extra 4,000 to match the now 20,000 dollar pot, or have at least 5:1 odds of winning to break even with a call here. Mannn only a ~16% chance needed of winning here? If your opponent had something frightening like pocket kings here, giving him three of a kind, you'd still have a ~25% shot at taking the pot here.

Then there are implied odds. If you're pretty sure your opponent after you will call, then that's a potential of 24,000 in the pot with you needing only 4,000 to call, giving you 6:1 implied odds then. Of course, opponents in the game don't usually make bets that small it seems (though I like to a lot) unless they think you have absolutely nothing and are trying to sucker you in. The opponents, when they bet, will bet big, and pot odds is one of the easiest things to program into a poker AI since it's really just pure math [citation needed]. This is why I play a bit more aggressively in this game, what with the tournament style and all. If you think your opponent has a draw to something cool that will crush your hand, bet big and make it not worth their money. Of course, they may call you anyway, but if they do, then in the long run, they will lose money, and you won't be looking in such bad shape in these tournaments.

Finally, if the computers try to push you around, there's always the possibility of semi-bluffing. Rather than having absolutely nothing, you might have a draw and be willing to make it expensive for them to call you. If they do, you still have tons of outs and might hit them with a big whopper. Do be careful about this strategy when you start playing though, as newbies tend to overuse semi-bluffing and risk too much money than it's worth.

You cannot just bet huge every time you have a good hand. Good computers will fold, and those good hands won't come often enough. When you have a good hand, every now and then you'll want to sucker the AIs in by bidding tiny amounts, or just checking if you are in a particularly early position. Bidding small can either kick people out at low risk to your stack or give a chance for you to prey on the AIs miscalculating their hand. If they think your small bid or check denotes weakness and they decide to raise you, all the better for you then, since you can simply smooth call them and they will be none the wiser to your hand strength. "Why'd he call me when he checked and I put in so much money whatttt?" Slowplaying can be very satisfying, especially in real life when you play against really aggressive players who like to bid a lot. At some point they realize you keep calling their bets and then they realize they have no idea what cards you have, and you're just sitting pretty with a made hand all smug and cool as a cucumber. It's great.

Slowplaying can also suck though if you do it too much though, so betting huge is also cool. Slowplays works best pre-flop when no one knows has any context for what you might have--by context I mean board texture and stuff. Early position slowplays can be great too, but if everyone else checks the bid around, happy to see the next card, that's a lot of money you could lose out on. Early position slowplays may be the easiest to conceal to humans, because playing early position is generally going to be a careful deal anyway, and they won't find anything too out of the ordinary. It's still difficult to play since you have the least information on what everyone could have.

"Ugh the author is finally at the part I care about geez." HEY. Starting hands schlplalpslrting handz. Position, betting, and the other players are going to be the most important part of getting this game down. Why whine about your starter when you could BE SUPER MANLY AWESOME AND WIN ANYWAY. But since we're here, let's talk briefly on this topic we call "hole" "cards" "."

2-7 off suit. Worst starting hand ever. Notice how they can't help each other make straights. Major bummer. 2-3 is better, even though that 3 is pretty small and sad.

A-A in the hole. Best cards pre-flop. Pairs are your friends.

And now time to go through every other hand NO. You have the spectrum, now we'll talk about some general categories of hands and then how it fits in with board texture. Board texture is just what the hell the community cards look like and what ya look at if someone else bids. But I'm getting ahead of myself. I hate talking about starting hands, so I'll leave you with some generic tips that you could've probably google'd instead. Suited cards make your starting hand a lot more valuable than you might think. Connectors with no gaps (consecutive cards) are better than cards further away from each other. Do not overplay boardwalk cards (10 through ace). Especially K-J off suit. If you are about to go bid some exorbitant amount when there are still a lot of players left and you are in early position or something, tone down that bid young man/mam. Suited things make you happy and not having them makes your K-J suuuuuck. Professionals consider K-J off suit to be the most overplayed hand by newbies [screw citations here, I know I'm right along with all them WSOP champions]

Also small pairs are cute. Do not play those because they are too cute and will probably get punched and be sad. I'm half-kidding of course, but even one on one, two overcards to your pair pre-flop is going to be around 50-50. Which is better than poopiness like two over cards to your two dinky cards, which is clser to 65-35 pre-flop. I prefer playing medium pairs much more aggresively though; maybe it's just my preference.

Alright, you ready for this now? Board texture. This is more important than starting hands. What happens when that flop comes down is the undisputed king of cool man. I can't go over every situation or whatever, but here's a few situations to get you started.

--The Rainbow: (3 cards out) No pairs on the board, pretty low cards that can't give anyone a straight right there, no suits matching. If you're thinking of bluffing with a complete miss at this, but someone bids before you, that's a good sign that some goober has actually hit a card and you should get out. If you make something like top pair with some puny kicker and you get huge raise your way, either someone is hoping their middle or low pair holds up, or they have top pair with a better kicker. Which in that case you should also get out. This is a pretty straightforward board to play, you got it or ya don't, and if ya don't and everyone checks it to ya, try stealing the pot with a medium-sized bet, whatever that means to ya.

--Heart Heart Heart: (5 cards out) Flush on the board at the end. Betting patterns are key here. If there's an ace of hearts, when did it appear? It's easy to make it look like you have the nut (best) flush with your bets, but the ace coming out can seriously bolster your opponents confidence. Dunno about the computers though. If you had one heart going into this and people were bidding up the wazoo and you have the top flush--say if you have that last ace, be heartened dude. If you had two and they were small suited cards too, sucks to be you hahaha. And if you had no hearts, what the hell are you doing with your life? Also, instead of letting all 5 cards come out when there were four hearts on the board, why didn't you get more people to fold silly?

--Board Pair(s): (3, 4 cards out) There is a pair on the board with some gratuitous third card. If you happen to hit trips (match one with the pair) then you'll want to hope that third card is a lower value than the paired cards, otherwise if the fourth card matches up and you had bet a careful, calculated amount to get the guy to call, most likely you will have a sad full house to his cooler full house. Regardless of whether you make the three of a kind or two pair on this board, you should bet aggressively to weed out the other players. If someone's calls you, be very wary.

I'm a scrub. For certain I can't play poker all that well. But I'm not a complete scrubby scummy goober hat. Maybe only a half-scrub or two-thirds-scrub of sorts. If you actually read through this whole thing, please take my sincerest apologies and commiserations for having nothing better to do than read some Steam stranger's poorly edited internet remarks. And remember this one important piece of advice: if you go to Vegas and lose a whole lot of money, I ain't liable. Also floss your teeth once a day.

But really, try to use your intuition. I say this is a strategic game, but it's a lot of smaller scale personal tactics and psychology (when dealing with computers, a good amount of that psychology will be making sure you stay level-headed, even in the face of adversity). You will not win every tournament. That would be boring. You can however, come up ahead in the long run. Go watch your stats be happy, if you're into that sort of thing.

Best of luck, and happy poker playing.

-Tom