Episode 135: Alex Weldon

17 thoughts on “Episode 135: Alex Weldon”

1. Here’s the follow-up article I wrote about Duck Flush (the triple draw variant we discussed in the interview).

   http://www.parttimepoker.com/duck-flush-a-hot-new-game-for-high-rollers

2. Oh yeah, thanks. I added this to the main post. And thanks again for making time for us!

3. Great interview.

   Duck Flush sounds like the 21st century version of the old Jacks Back (5-draw, one joker, Jacks or better to open, if no one opens 2nd ante and game switches to A-5 Lowball). I can remember long argument with my Dad when I was a teenager about whether to open a hand like AA247 when folded to you in various position.

4. Great interview. I enjoy playing many of these types of games. I remember play testing a pretty good game at a convention once with the designer and enjoyed being able to give him feedback about it.

   Nate – great game for discovering hidden information based on clues is of course bridge, but what about Stratego? My brother and I used to love playing that game when I was about 10.

   • Good call on Stratego. I think it’s a wonderful game, and one that also has just about the right amount of luck (the sort of luck that lets an inferior player win sometimes and also the sort of luck that makes things more interesting). I remember enjoying it when I was 10 or so, and I still enjoy it now.

5. Very interesting conversation. Alex piqued my interest in his other writings. Well done.

6. Thank you for having Alex Weldon as your guest in this week’s podcast.

   In addition to being a super interesting interviewee, he has helped my poker game through his contributions to the pokerforms.org float the turn forum.

   Although we haven’t met in the flesh, it was a thrill to hear him speak to game design and related poker topics. I’m hoping we meet some time to go and play at Playground the next time I pass through Montreal (which doesn’t happen often enough).

   Keep up the good work, guys.

   • For sure, hit me up on Twitter next time you’re in Montreal and we can meet up at Playground, assuming it fits my schedule. Failing that, I’m in an easy part of town to get to, so if I can’t make it out to Playground but you want to say hi and talk poker, we could figure something out.

7. A really excellent episode this one, and insightful and thought-provoking throughout, from the opening discussion about range construction to the more broad-ranging discussion about games with Alex. As someone who primarily listens to the podcast for the poker content I must admit that I don’t always get so much from the episodes that veer away from that, but this was a definite exception to the rule (albeit probably by engaging the same bits of my brain that are engaged by poker!).

   I really liked Alex’s characterisation of hold ‘em as (at least in some respects) more interesting than games like Omaha or lowball variants because the different types of hands have more distinctive ‘personalities’. As someone who has played pretty much all the most common poker variants at some time or another, I find myself constantly returning to hold ‘em as my default game (and not *just* because it’s so much easier to find a game), and I find it inherently more interesting to study than pretty much any other variant. I’ve never thought of it in that way before, but I now wonder if the diversity of hand “personalities” is at least part of its appeal.

   Alex, if you are reading this, I was wondering whether – as someone who has obviously put a lot of thought into game design and who has an excellent feel for what makes a good game – you have ever put any great thought into devising a poker variant of your own? It strikes me that someone who knows a lot about poker and who also has a great theoretical knowledge of games in general would have a pretty good shot at coming up with interesting new variants.

   • I’ve actually designed many variants over the years, but unfortunately don’t have much chance to test them. The thing about poker, as we all know, is that you need to be playing for real money in order to get people to play properly, but for some reason it’s hard to convince people to play your newly-invented poker variant with you for money when they know that game design and poker playing are two things you do professionally. 😉

     I wrote a fairly lengthy series of articles for PartTimePoker specifically about the challenges of designing good variants. Here’s the first part of the series – http://www.parttimepoker.com/challenges-of-innovation-pt-1-how-games-evolve . If you follow through to the end of the series, I finish up with three example variants which I think should play pretty well, though like I said, finding people to test them with is tough.

     Here’s a simple Hold’em variation I’ve thought of recently: “Thirty-One Hold’em”

     It’s played exactly like NLHE except that the final number of community cards is variable. After the flop, you have a series of one-card streets similar to the turn and river in conventional Hold’em. Rather than always having two such streets, however, you continue having additional cards and rounds of betting until the board totals 31 or more, with face cards counting as 10 and Aces as 1.

     E.g. if on the turn the board is KQ8+6 that’s 34 so you’ll go to showdown after completing the betting, with no river. On the other hand, if you get to the river and it’s 653+3+A, you’re only at 18 and you’re guaranteed at least two more rounds of betting before showdown.

     There are of course a lot of implications of this rule, in terms of the properties of starting hands and various flop textures, as well as in drawing equity, implied odds, and other things. I’ll leave it to the reader to work out what those implications are, but I think it would probably turn out to be a very challenging variant.

     • Is part of the idea here to even out the preflop hand strengths (because weaker hold’em hands connect with small boards, so can be value-bet for more streets)?

       Interesting idea.

       • Yes, and also just to give hands more “personality.” E.g. broadway hands are probably still playable, but they’re now even more small-ball oriented than before, while small suited Aces are even more speculative.

         Another difference is to create a much wider spectrum of drawing odds. A5hh on 237hh is a very different draw than AKhh on QJ8hh.

         Finally, it makes bet sizing and decisions to call down or run multi-barrel bluffs more complicated, because you don’t always know exactly how many more betting rounds there will be.

         If you want it to be extra-complicated, play Pot-Limit and deep stacked.

8. Also, with regards to the point made right at the end about the poker media having a responsibility to report the “dark side” of poker rather than just being a PR wing that is always looking out for the good of the game – I actually think this is very much a false dichotomy.

   Exposing scandals in the game is not only ethically correct and what any good journalist should be seeking to do; it is also very much for the good of the game and in the game’s best interests for it to be done. Prospective players who read about things like this will at the very least least learn quickly that there a code of ethics exists in the game, it is expected to be adhered to, and it is enforced by way of public shaming and disapproval when this code is breached. That ought to increase, rather than decrease, the confidence of new players that they are playing a game that has integrity and honesty.

   Of course, it’s also quite possible that revelations of this kind will put off some people for sure, but how many more people would have been put off the game forever, and how much confidence would have been lost, if they’d dabbled in it for a bit and then discovered that there were various ethical violations in the game that were just swept under the carpet for PR reasons?

   In the long run, it is clearly better for the game if these things are rooted out and exposed – not only will it make the game healthier and more ethical, it will also give it the appearance of being healthier and more ethical (and, not incidentally, will be doing so honestly). Anyone who claims otherwise, and who claims that things should be swept under the carpet for PR reasons, is either very stupid or very disingenuous (and probably entirely self-serving with it).

   (I realise I’m preaching to the converted here, but worth reiterating nonetheless, I think.)

9. My son (5 1/2) loves a game called Love Letter. It’s a game with a really small deck, where the goal is to have the highest card at the end of the round. Rounds are really short – between 1 minute and maybe 5, and it’s the first to win between 5 and 7 rounds, depending on the number of players. There’s strategic depth, but not too much – you can deduce your opponents’ cards based on their actions over time, so you have to pay attention and make deductions, plus there are also decisions to be made. Because the game space is quite small, you encounter situations quite regularly and can learn from them, and it’s got enough strategy to be enjoyable but not too much to confuse.

   Great interview.

   • Yeah, Love Letter is a great game for its length/complexity. There are a lot of great minimalist games like that coming out of Japan these days. Check out Oink Games for instance: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamepublisher/22649/oink-games

     I haven’t tried “In a Grove,” but it seems like another good game for poker players.

10. This was excellent, thank you!

11. Nate check out Coup. It’s great and cheap, an excellent party game. It says ages 10+ but it’s still worth looking at.

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