'High card promesse' vs better distribution of hands

[Romain672]

Hi,
Where would you put the hands A4/A3/A2/JT initially at 6 players preflop, and where would you put the hands QJ/QT at 5 players preflop?

Please answer, then read the second post, thanks

[Romain672]

This question is to know what should be advised for new players (what should be wroted at the top of the wiki page), which potentially would goes into higher tables later on (if you ask them contradictory things there, the transition will be difficult).
It should work too for lower elo table.

The only difference is with hands: A4/A3/A2/JT at 6 players. Ask yourself where would you put them then read the following.

So we got two conflicting conventions:
- 'high card promesse' which at 2 cards / 6 players tell an information about your highest card depending of your first chip taken preflop:
6: pair or A
5: K
4: Q
3: J or T
2: 9 or 8
1: 7 or less
- respecting that the same amount of players will goes for every chip:
6: pair or A
5: A4 or A3 or A2 or K
4: Q or JT
3: J or T
2: 9 or 8
1: 7 or less

Note that those are already simplified tables.

The same problem occurs with QJ and QT at 5 players.

[kostinen]

I didn’t read yet the second post.

Those are “in betweens hands” that I usually slow play on preflop, waiting for the teammates moves before filling the gaps.
For example with A3, if quickly someone take the 6 and another one the 5, I know im probably between them. Then I take the 6, put it immediately in the middle and take the 5, to show my strength and let the initial 5 take the 4

[kostinen]

This question is to know what should be advised for new players (what should be wroted at the top of the wiki page), which potentially would goes into higher tables later on (if you ask them contradictory things there, the transition will be difficult).
It should work too for lower elo table.

The only difference is with hands: A4/A3/A2/JT at 6 players. Ask yourself where would you put them then read the following.

So we got two conflicting conventions:
- 'high card promesse' which at 2 cards / 6 players tell an information about your highest card depending of your first chip taken preflop:
6: pair or A
5: K
4: Q
3: J or T
2: 9 or 8
1: 7 or less
- respecting that the same amount of players will goes for every chip:
6: pair or A
5: A4 or A3 or A2 or K
4: Q or JT
3: J or T
2: 9 or 8
1: 7 or less

Note that those are already simplified tables.

The same problem occurs with QJ and QT at 5 players.

Firstly, I must say that I don’t have much experience of this game. I’ve only played about sixty games over the last few days. Nevertheless, I’d like to offer my opinion on this very interesting topic.

I only play with 6 players in ‘beginner’ mode, and I’ve often found that a very big part of a successful round is decided pre-flop. In particular, the order of each player’s high cards is crucial. That’s why I thought it was confusing that certain values were shared between several groups (A between chips 5 & 6, J between 3 & 4, 7 between 1 & 2).
In this regard, I find the ‘high card promise’ proposal, as described, very interesting and I prefer it over the classical convention.

-----

To reinforce and illustrate my interest in this approach, I’m going to share with you how I usually deal with the pre-flop.

1. I play my pairs (chip 6) and 4x- (chip 1) immediately

2. I play 'very quickly' my A7+ (chip 6), Kx (chip 5), Qx (chip 4), Tx (chip 3), 8x (chip 2) & 65- (chip 1)

3. For the other combinations – i.e. Jx, 9x, 7x – I hold back a little, as I wrote in my first post. They can then fill the gaps left by the other players.

I believe that if this convention were adopted, there would no longer be any issues with the incorrect sequencing of high cards. Apart from the lowest ones (from 6 to 3), but these have a slightly lesser impact:
- either the board offers low cards and the hits allow potential errors to be corrected
- or the board contains high cards, in which case the player’s highest cards no longer matter.

-----

In conclusion, I fully identify with this approach of maximising the chances of arranging the high cards in the correct order, and I think there are areas worth exploring in this direction to be better at this game !

[PseudoPserious]

This is an interesting thought. My gut reaction is that I don't like it like that but I'm struggling to articulate why. Here's me thinking out loud about it ...

1) Why choose that convention? It seems like several conventions could be equally reasonable for 6p, perhaps such as:
6 = pair
5 = A
4 = K
3 = Q, J
2 = T, 9
1 = 8 and lower
Given that, how do you coordinate with people who may be playing different conventions? Would you be allowed to talk about what conventions you're going to use before grabbing the first chip? Would you rely on an external source like the wiki to coordinate the conventions for you? Would you just accept a high risk of failure on the first heist and afterwards ask "hey, what did you mean by that white chip grab?"

2) How does this translate to lower player counts? The number of differentiating bits is smaller so you can't be as granular with your signals. Granted, this game gets so much easier as you go lower in player count, so maybe that isn't an issue.

3) Why stop with only signaling your high card? You could extend this convention by saying that after you signal your high card, you have a second round of signaling where you signal your low card. (Pairs could signal the relative strength of the pair instead.) Then, post-flop, you have a round signaling the hand rank:
1 = high card
2 = one pair
3 = two pair
4 = trips
5 = straights, flushes
6 = boats+
At 4p+, you could even use binary to communicate the exact values of both of your cards (oh, but now we've started the Big Endian vs Little Endian debate).

At some point, an artificial signaling convention robs the game of its fun. I think obviously the binary convention does that. I think reasonable people could disagree how where exactly that line would be drawn.

4) I think this convention might be a little more brittle in the face of the two challenge cards that lock the lowest and highest chips than the distribution one, but not having played with it maybe it works just fine.

My personal preference (and it's just a preference) is that the white chip grab shouldn't be prescribed. The distribution-based scheme is a very good approximation for the first chip grabbed, but once someone has grabbed a chip, I think the question should be "what chip value is most likely to be correct for my hand given all of the new information provided?" Maybe that's the value off of a chart, maybe it isn't.

[Romain672]

1) About pairs, they usually can easily classify them post flop. You regularly can deduce someone got a pocket pair (especially if there was some fight preflop, per example if an ace come and they take a medium chip).
And two pockets pairs can easily classify them if another player got a pair between those two pocket pairs.
And they are far rarer in probabilities. The top 16.67% of hands will make A5 being between 6 and 5. So by giving a whole chip for pair, you make all non pair hand much harder to classify, and I'm convinced it's not worth it.
Though, about putting pairs in all chip, I have no opinion, just most players put them at 6, so I follow them, it seem both options have upsides and downsides.

About coordination that's why 'high card promesse' is mostly only talked about in higher table, where people debrief after game, and look at every clue they can get about everyone.
But so having a more probability based table (like making A4/A3/A2/JT being in a weird position, is more versatile (atm in the wiki page, I didn't ranked those four hands).

2) After asking someone which play with 'high card promesse', they tell me that it's worst at 5p. Mostly because Queens are in a weird position, and need to be added one way or another: pairs A / K / Q J / T 9 8 / 7. You end up with chip with kings having really few hands.

3) I fully agree with you, you explained my position very well. One counter argument is that the more you play with the same player/the same community, the better the players become. And so any good players which got something out of place should slowly change, and any habbits should become more and more known.
But personnally I like to said that I try to put myself at the right position while giving the lowest amout of information possible about my hand. In 98% of cases that change nothing and I still play 'normally', by trying to know my exact position, but in some cases (mostly when I pick last), per example if I'm between 4&5, and everyone else picked 12346, then I would not pick 4 then 5, I would pick 5 directly. And so others would not know if my hand is a very high 4, or if I was late and I'm just 5.
And personnally I talked about it in another subject, but I like putting the hands like Q2/Q3/Q4 (kicker of 2/3/4 doesn't matter unless there is two of them on the board) played like J9. And the higher connectors like JT played like Q5. That make the differenciations between Q3 & Q6, and JT from J8 way more obvious. And if any card between Q/J/T/or the low kicker come in the board, then someone will hit a pair and you will be fine. And if no one touched anything, you need to correct your position river. But all of that while I still believe personnally is good, has the 'upside' of adding more chaos to the game, and make conventions less effecient.

x) One of the reason why this convention come back is that if two players Alice and Bob fight for 6, and at the same time two players Cathy and Donald fight for high 5, you could end up with Cathy taking 4, and Donald taking 5 and waiting.
Then finally Bob abandon, let Alice have their 6, and pick their 5. If Donald play well, they will not ask 5 anymore, but now how strong is Cathy's hand? Does she pick 4 because she saw the fight between Alice and Bob and show strength, or does she goes down because she is weak?
And now Emily after their break come back, and oh she is 4. She doesn't read the logs, and just take chip 4, to tell their ranking. But is she a strong 5 and assume she is above Cathy and Donald, or is she just a 4?
To know that, Cathy decide to give a call to Emily: she take token 5, put it back in the middle, and take Emily's 4 to show to Emily that she was initially 5, and it seem Emily should take a lower token.

All of that is working only if you put some value on the initial chip taken, and you can give call to others depending of your first chip taken, whatever you use strict conventions or not.
If you start to put lots of value on what happenned before, you ask for everyone included those which are late, to look at the whole log, before taking their first chip, which just seem so much worst.

[FSKFSK]

There is no universal answer. One round, everyone can have trash and a King winds up with the 6. Another round, three people might have pocket pairs and Ax winds up with the 3.

Most of the time, an Ace will be a 6 or 5, but it really depends on what other people are dealt.

[Romain672]

I think you missed the word 'initially' on the first post.
You don't know what others have initially post flop, and the first chip you take give lots of informations whatever convention/feeling you are using.

Let me rephrase with an exemple, two people fight for 6, then one take 6 the other 5. Your hand is KJ. What are you doing?

[FSKFSK]

If I have a King and two people are fighting for the 6 before I do anything, I grab the 4.

If there's a convention "If your hand is in X range you must grab Y chip before doing anything else.", then they might as well update the game to display what bucket your hand falls into before the game starts.

When I have a middling hand, I wait to see what everyone else is doing before acting. If I have something obvious (two low cards, pocket pair), I grab the 1 or 6 quickly.

You don't just signal with the chip you grab. You also signal with how quickly you do it.

[Tuut Tuut tis Luut]

Hi,
Where would you put the hands A4/A3/A2/JT initially at 6 players preflop, and where would you put the hands QJ/QT at 5 players preflop?

Please answer, then read the second post, thanks

Ace-low I would start by taking the highest (6) token. But would not fight for it if taken away. If 6 is already taken, I would steal it once, and maybe offer to return it.
You would not steal the 6 without At least an ace, so anyone fighting for that 6 likely has the higher hand over my low kickers.
Strealing once shows I have an ace, and should only be taken back with a high kicker or pair.
JT I would wait to see others take tokens first. But would aim for 4/6 initially.

QJ/T I would start at 4/5.