Roshambo

In The Poker Tournament Formula author Arnold Snyder brings a new, simplified way of looking at poker. In the book, Arnold compares poker to the famous game Roshambo, or otherwise known as; Rock, Paper, Scissors. I believe this to be an interesting concept, one that I been wanting to discuss for several weeks now. In the book, Arnold makes claim that for you to win at a poker tournament you need to understand what weapons you have available. When you look at poker, look at it as a game of roshambo. For those of you who may have forgot, roshambo is a game of three weapons; rock, paper, and scissors. You and your opponent count to three and use your hand to make a symbol representing one of the three weapons of the game. The following structure determines who wins the round:

• Rock beats Scissors
• Scissors beats Paper
• Paper beats Rock

When you look at poker you can consider that the game has a similar structure. To understand how poker is similar to roshambo you need to understand the three primary weapons you have when you play poker; chips, cards, and position. Now we need to understand the relationship between the three weapons of roshambo and the three weapons of poker. If you consider chips being rocks (easy to remember because you can throw both of them), paper being cards (cards are made from paper), and position being scissors (you can cut any one's action in poker if your in position) you should have no problem figuring out what has strength over the other. For those of you who'd like to see the relationship let's put them into a similar structure as we did with before:

• Chips beat Position
• Position beats Cards
• Cards beat Chips

If you really think about the above three lines it actually makes a lot of scense. If you have enough chips someone playing position doesn't matter, it's harder for him to put pressure on you when you have 10k in chips and he has 2k and in position. However, someone playing their position correctly can make a player fold good hands or good cards before and after the flop. For instance, someone drawing to a flush or maybe has a high pair on a scary board the person in position can charge them to draw if he feels his opponent is weak forcing his opponent to fold with absolutely nothing himself. As well, if you got the goods it doesn't matter how many chips your opponent has your not going to be intimidated. The same player with 2k chips and the nut flush is looking to double through the player with 10k chips.

While there are definitely differences from roshambo and poker, the concept of the two being similar is awesome. Now obviously you can't choose your weapons in poker, it just sort of happens. You might be in position now with a small stack and a few hands later be out of position but have a huge stack. As well, your weapons don't hold up 100% of the time. Whereas scissors always beats paper, someone on the button pushing all in against a UTG limper with pocket Aces, paper isn't loosing (unless he's dealt my Aces in the whole *s*).

I really think this whole concept is brilliant, yet so simple. If more beginner players just realized this sort of relationship they'd strengthen their game almost immediately. Why? Because it's a simplified way of knowing how poker works. Everything we read in poker books can almost be related back to this simple concept of poker being a game of roshambo. We just add more complexity and weapons to our arsenal as we become more skilled at playing the game. But all these extras are still built off the basics of poker; chips, cards, and position.