We only announce the winner of the biggest pot. If there is a side pot with a different winner, that wont get called out, but the money should all be in the correct place. You can get into some crazy sidepot situations and we didn't want to spend 10 minutes calling out a bunch of names when the pot resolves, so we took the shortcut of just announcing the winner of the big $$$
This actually creates some problems in some situations. Suppose the following (ignoring blinds in this example to make the math easier):
You're almost out of chips at the beginning of the hand, and you go all in with $500. Max sees your $500 and raises $5000, and Strong Bad calls the $5500. After the flop, Max bets another $5000, and Strong Bad folds. So, Max will win the side pot (now $15000). After all the cards are dealt, though, in a rather suspenseful and dramatic-looking showdown between you and Max, it turns out you win the hand and the main pot. However, because Max won the really big side pot, it announces that he's the winner (which would normally mean that you're out, but in this case you actually tripled up).
I'm fairly certain that 95% (or more) of the complaints you all are getting about the game picking the wrong winner of a hand is related to announcing the winners of side bets. Fix the winner announcement problem and you solve all those other problems.
Seriously, it wouldn't be that hard to go through and announce the winner of each side pot and have them rake in some chips as it goes through. "Max wins the side pot!" or "Tycho wins the third side pot!" or whatever. Even if the same character wins more than one side pot, just announce each separately. It's also more fun, because each winner gets to give some snide remark when they grab their chips.
I had a slight issue with a rule that doesn't seem to be covered here (although it could potentially be related to some of the unexpected wins described)
In Hold 'em, the winner is the player who can make the best 5 card hand out of the 7 available. However on one particular hand the game awarded a winner when it should have been a split pot.
I can't remember the exact cards but it was something like this:
Table: 6, 6, 10, Q, K
Me: 10, 4
Heavy: 10, 9
So, we both have two pair. The game awarded Heavy the win, presumably due to his 9 kicker - but the 9 and my 4 weren't in the final hands. We both had the same best 5 cards: 10, 10, 6, 6, K. If there are better cards on the table then the kickers aren't used.
From what the moderators are saying it doesn't sound hugely likely these rules issues will get fixed but has anyone else seen this?
Sometimes kickers are used to determine a tie when two players have the same hand. Just sayin'.
Sometimes kickers are used to determine a tie when two players have the same hand. Just sayin'.
Cards that don't wind up in the five-card hand assembled from your hole cards and the board are not considered kickers. In the previous poster's example, both players had the same two pair, with the same kicker being the high card from the board. (The previous poster shouldn't have described the Heavy's hole card as being his kicker, because it isn't.)
My question would be, did it announce the Heavy as the winner, but then split the pot anyway? Or did it actually give him the whole pot?
I actually had a problem when I went to the menu during the card dealing. After I can back I realized I only was given one card, a queen. Mind you I never actually played the hand but it was weird that I was only being shown one card so I ended up folding. I wish I had screenshot it but I figure it was a random fluke, but i'll mention it here.
Sometimes kickers are used to determine a tie when two players have the same hand. Just sayin'.
Yes, but sometimes the kickers come from the board and the kicker in your hand doesn't play. In serializer's example, both serializer and the Heavy would have TT66K. Neither the Heavy's 9 nor serializer's 4 even come into play. Now, if one of them had an ace, that would play, because it beats the king on the board.
As for whether this actually happened as described... no idea. I've seen somebody on the Steam forums complaining about the opposite "problem", where they didn't realize that their kicker doesn't play. So I would guess that it does in fact use the board cards for kickers properly.
Sometimes kickers are used to determine a tie when two players have the same hand. Just sayin'.
Yah, I understand the rules (as explained in my post). Read again You don't always take the kicker into account, for instance in the situation I outlined, where you can make a "best 5" cards without the kicker.
To really simplify things, let me boil it down to a really obvious example;
Cards on the table: Four aces and a King.
Cards in your hand: a two and a three.
Cards in opponent's hand: a four and a five.
Who is the winner? There isn't one - it's a split pot, because you both have the "Four aces and a King" as the best five cards you can make. The cards in your own hands just aren't used.
Edit: furrykef probably explained it more succinctly
I respect your position as a moderator, but I have to say I have two issues with this.
1) How do we know they are properly evaluating the merits and demerits of implementing the rule in a patch if we don't discuss them openly? I mean no offense to the designers' intelligence here, but that this issue occurred in the first place tells me that it should be explained.
2) This thread is called "Poker rules issues in game" -- i.e., how PNatI fails to implement the rules of poker properly. Since we're discussing a rule that it fails to implement properly, I think this discussion is very on-topic. If we don't discuss stuff like this here, then what's this thread for?
Fair call.
It just looked like the 3 of you were heading off on a tangent and arguing with each other, rather than addressing the situation in the game. You really need a Telltale employee to step in and comment on the situation you're discussing, or else the 3 of you could have carried on all night.
One of you three had conceded in the end, but carrying on wasn't going to fix the situation in the game. I've seen enough discussions of this nature take a turn for the worst, so I hoped to temper the discussion so that that sort of direction was less likely.
It's all worked out great, you guys made a few more good points. Everyone's aware of the situation, and nothing got out of hand. There are a bunch of new posters here, and while us mods (well, it looks like I'm the only one who's been on for a while) can second guess the intentions of a lot of the people who have been around a while when a fast-posting discussion erupts, we need to have a slightly more cautious outlook when it comes to new posters. Especially during the huge spike in traffic that comes with a new release.
Ok, what the hell is a side pot and what causes it to be made?
Side pots occur when at least one player goes all in. That person ha bet all their money. After everyone has finished calling the bet, any player who wishes to raise from that point onward puts that money- automatically- into a side pot. The person who went all in, if they had the best hand wins the initial pot ONLY. The side pot (or pots, if several people go all in on different bets) goes to the person who had the best hand after that one.
EX:
Player 1 100$ (A, A)
Player 2 1000$ (9, 10)
Player 3 1000$ (2, 4)
At some point in the game, Player 1 goes all in. Afterwards, Player 2 and 3 continue to bet. and the rest of the cards are turned over. In the end:
(A, A, 6, 7, 8)
Player 1 has four of a kind and wins the main pot. Player two has a straight and wins the side pot. Player 2 has probably won more money than 1 (side pots can get larger than the initial one) and will be declared the winner. But Player 1 will still get the main pot and stay in the game.
I've experienced what looks like a problem to me : at some point, the game stopped asking me what I wanted to do, but as I never folded, I was still in.
When it came to showdown, I did not get the pot, presumably because the game considered I was out, even though it stated that I got 2 pairs. Strong Bad got the pot. Is there a problem here? =s I don't remember all the details about the current state of the game, though.. I'm kinda new to playing poker actually, maybe I missed something. Thanks a lot.
I've experienced what looks like a problem to me : at some point, the game stopped asking me what I wanted to do, but as I never folded, I was still in.
-img snip-
When it came to showdown, I did not get the pot, presumably because the game considered I was out, even though it stated that I got 2 pairs. Strong Bad got the pot. Is there a problem here? =s I don't remember all the details about the current state of the game, though.. I'm kinda new to playing poker actually, maybe I missed something. Thanks a lot.
The game stopped asking you because you were all in. And I'm assuming you were still in the game after that hand, because you won the pot. However Strong Bad won the side-pot and that's the one the game announces.
Um, last time I checked, NeatNit, a player who folded cannot win a pot.
This sounds very similar to a well-known bug that Telltale Texas Hold'em has. I'll be very disappointed if I find that this bug does indeed exist in this game...
By the way, regarding the side pot confusion: I know Telltale has said that it works the way it does to speed up the pace of the game and to keep things simple. But I have to ask, Telltale... was that minor convenience really worth the massive PR hit you're taking from people who don't understand what's going on? Sure, I understood what's going on from the beginning because I've played poker a lot, but a lot of people here aren't hardened veterans, and many of them are thinking "Pair loses to two pair? This is BS. I'm never playing this @#!!* again." No doubt you're hearing a lot of people complain, but the number of people who silently get frustrated and give up is surely even greater.
To put it succinctly: the cure is far worse than the disease.
By the way, regarding the side pot confusion: I know Telltale has said that it works the way it does to speed up the pace of the game and to keep things simple. But I have to ask, Telltale... was that minor convenience really worth the massive PR hit you're taking from people who don't understand what's going on? Sure, I understood what's going on from the beginning because I've played poker a lot, but a lot of people here aren't hardened veterans, and many of them are thinking "Pair loses to two pair? This is BS. I'm never playing this @#!!* again." No doubt you're hearing a lot of people complain, but the number of people who silently get frustrated and give up is surely even greater.
To put it succinctly: the cure is far worse than the disease.
I agree! And as emtwo stated earlier, at most you'll have 4 pots to announce. Why not just give us the opportunity to skip the announcements if we want?
The game stopped asking you because you were all in. And I'm assuming you were still in the game after that hand, because you won the pot. However Strong Bad won the side-pot and that's the one the game announces.
I think the little winky face means that was sarcasm. But I could be wrong.
I agree! And as emtwo stated earlier, at most you'll have 4 pots to announce. Why not just give us the opportunity to skip the announcements if we want?
That's an option Iwant. I get tired of right clicking past him.
Also would be cool to be able to mute certain players, but that's for a different thread.
I wonder if I can replicate this weird happenstance. I had a round where someone with a King High beat someone with a pair of something (can't remember what it was.) Is there any time in poker where a high card can beat a pair?
Is there any time in poker where a high card can beat a pair?
No, that's just yet another instance of the side pot confusion we've been talking about. The second-best hand will win a side pot if the winning hand is not allowed to contest the side pot. If this side pot is larger than the main pot, then, for some strange reason, the game announces the side pot winner as the winner of the hand, but the main pot and side pots are still awarded correctly to the respective players.
If Telltale decided there's only time to announce one winner per round, it would be better if the game just called the one who, y'know, actually has the best hand; regardless of who is in what side pot, I mean. There would be a lot less confusion that way.
ok playing the game about to take out the heavy we both go all in i have pair 5 he had a 2 4 i had 5 6 the flop was K 5 10 8 7.
can some1 tell me how he won and another one was 2 full houses both the same but one person takeing more of the pot??
Has anyone ever experienced the situation where a player with 0$ would still stay at the table for several rounds, being given no cards, only staring at other players...?
I should add that Max and Tycho should have left the game together, but for some reason Max is still here. Also, the side-pot displayed on the screen comes from the previous round. It looks like that Max is waiting to be awarded the side_pot, which may happen the next time a round involving the side-pot occurs, I don't really know as it's my current game... What do you think about it?
@Phil, When you go all in, you get unexpected results called due to the side pot bet, though everyone gets the correct amount of winnings. Have a look through this thread and you'll see some better explanations of what's happening.
Did Max only put in $400, or was that the amount he raised after checking you? (as in, when he "raised $400," to your $5000 bet, did you see $5,400 disappear from his chipstack?)
Yes, 5400 came out of his chipstack, meaning he called the 5000 and raised 400 more. This is not a legal bet. The raise must be at least the amount of the previous bet, meaning his options in that situation is to call 5000, fold, or raise to at least 10000. Raising 400 more in that situation is nonsense.
In no-limit hold 'em, players may bet or raise any amount over the minimum raise up to all of the chips the player has at the table (called an all-in bet). The minimum raise is equal to the big blind. If someone wishes to re-raise, they must raise at least the amount of the previous raise. For example, if the big blind is $2 and there is a raise of $6 to a total of $8, a re-raise must be at least $6 more for a total of $14.
It looks like that rule only applies to reraises, not regular raises. Didn't you say Max raised 400 over your initial bet of 5000? That would still be legal, provided the big blind was less or equal to 400.
My poker name doesn't change (strange in my opinion), some graphics problems (chips staying in the middle of the table for no good reason) some blinds and pot issues ( doing all-ins larger than your opponent might result in losing all the money). These are the main problems I found.
It looks like that rule only applies to reraises, not regular raises. Didn't you say Max raised 400 over your initial bet of 5000? That would still be legal, provided the big blind was less or equal to 400.
We've already discussed the subject to death in this thread. Robert's Rules of Poker (which is the most popular rule set, but this particular rule is observed in virtually all rule sets) says it applies to any raise. It's item #6 under "betting and raising" on this page.
I'm editing the Wikipedia article to match the standard rule.
Good catch, I cant believe nobody saw this! I am fining myself $10,000. I hope we get a chance to fix that, we will see. Not really up to me unfortunately.
Given that this thread is full of bugs i reported when TellTalePoker first launched in '05, i wouldn't get super excited about your time frame.
Sounds like the same issue I had, where 6 cards are being taken into account to decide a winner...
How is that even possible? There's no such thing as a hand made up of six cards. Did someone get a six of a kind?
*edit*
Oh I see what you mean, two hands the same, but it appeared to use a sixth card kicker? More than likely there was a side-pot. I've played through about 10 tournaments, and I haven't encountered any of these issues people are reporting. I suspect a lot of these bug reports may stem from a misunderstanding of poker rules.
I've played through about 10 tournaments, and I haven't encountered any of these issues people are reporting. I suspect a lot of these bug reports may stem from a misunderstanding of poker rules.
All the "pot goes to wrong player" reports come from a misunderstanding of the rules (granted, the interface makes it very easy to misunderstand what's going on). The issues with raising less than the minimum and with the blinds/betting order being incorrect when heads-up definitely do exist and are definitely not misunderstandings of the rules.
Oh I see what you mean, two hands the same, but it appeared to use a sixth card kicker? More than likely there was a side-pot. I've played through about 10 tournaments, and I haven't encountered any of these issues people are reporting. I suspect a lot of these bug reports may stem from a misunderstanding of poker rules.
Well, I'm absolutely certain there was no side pot in this case. I play poker most weeks with a bunch of friends so I would kind of notice if that was the case. I totally concede I could have just misread the hands, but I'm fairly certain it's happened more than once. I'll keep an eye out and try to get a screenie if it happens for definite.
I think a major problem is perhaps that when the winners are announced, the final cards only seem stay on the screen for a couple of seconds, so it can be hard to look at all the cards and check whether the winner was correctly called. It might be easier if the cards stayed on the screen until "Deal Next Hand" was clicked, then there'd be time to double-check whether rules were being honoured!
All the "pot goes to wrong player" reports come from a misunderstanding of the rules (granted, the interface makes it very easy to misunderstand what's going on). The issues with raising less than the minimum and with the blinds/betting order being incorrect when heads-up definitely do exist and are definitely not misunderstandings of the rules.
I agree most or all cases are down to this, but compounded by the cards not remaining on screen. As someone who has played quite a bit of poker, I'm still not able to read all the hands that fast every time. I can only imagine how difficult it could be for a total novice to understand what's going on! At least when playing in RL, someone who's fairly new can say "hold on, why did that person win?" and everyone can stop and explain the hand that just happened.
I had an issue where it was just Heavy and I. The cards on the table made a straight of spades (pardon my lack of poker terminology) that had an Ace in it. Heavy had nothing in his hand, and I had an Ace. The game automatically assigned my hand to be a pair of aces while Heavy got a straight. And, before you ask, no, there was no side pot. Anyone else experience something like this?
I did lose a pot as well, when me and Heavy both had the same full house, but he had better hole cards (that didn't come into play and shouldn't matter). There was no side pot.
On the other time we had identical hand again, this time three of a kind with shared kickers, the pot was split between us.
Comments
If there is more than one pot going, this is possible. They only announce the winner of the largest pot- but you still won some money.
Next time this happens, look at your chip count. It should still increase.
This actually creates some problems in some situations. Suppose the following (ignoring blinds in this example to make the math easier):
You're almost out of chips at the beginning of the hand, and you go all in with $500. Max sees your $500 and raises $5000, and Strong Bad calls the $5500. After the flop, Max bets another $5000, and Strong Bad folds. So, Max will win the side pot (now $15000). After all the cards are dealt, though, in a rather suspenseful and dramatic-looking showdown between you and Max, it turns out you win the hand and the main pot. However, because Max won the really big side pot, it announces that he's the winner (which would normally mean that you're out, but in this case you actually tripled up).
I'm fairly certain that 95% (or more) of the complaints you all are getting about the game picking the wrong winner of a hand is related to announcing the winners of side bets. Fix the winner announcement problem and you solve all those other problems.
Seriously, it wouldn't be that hard to go through and announce the winner of each side pot and have them rake in some chips as it goes through. "Max wins the side pot!" or "Tycho wins the third side pot!" or whatever. Even if the same character wins more than one side pot, just announce each separately. It's also more fun, because each winner gets to give some snide remark when they grab their chips.
Sometimes kickers are used to determine a tie when two players have the same hand. Just sayin'.
Cards that don't wind up in the five-card hand assembled from your hole cards and the board are not considered kickers. In the previous poster's example, both players had the same two pair, with the same kicker being the high card from the board. (The previous poster shouldn't have described the Heavy's hole card as being his kicker, because it isn't.)
My question would be, did it announce the Heavy as the winner, but then split the pot anyway? Or did it actually give him the whole pot?
As for whether this actually happened as described... no idea. I've seen somebody on the Steam forums complaining about the opposite "problem", where they didn't realize that their kicker doesn't play. So I would guess that it does in fact use the board cards for kickers properly.
Yah, I understand the rules (as explained in my post). Read again
To really simplify things, let me boil it down to a really obvious example;
Cards on the table: Four aces and a King.
Cards in your hand: a two and a three.
Cards in opponent's hand: a four and a five.
Who is the winner? There isn't one - it's a split pot, because you both have the "Four aces and a King" as the best five cards you can make. The cards in your own hands just aren't used.
Edit: furrykef probably explained it more succinctly
Fair call.
It just looked like the 3 of you were heading off on a tangent and arguing with each other, rather than addressing the situation in the game. You really need a Telltale employee to step in and comment on the situation you're discussing, or else the 3 of you could have carried on all night.
One of you three had conceded in the end, but carrying on wasn't going to fix the situation in the game. I've seen enough discussions of this nature take a turn for the worst, so I hoped to temper the discussion so that that sort of direction was less likely.
It's all worked out great, you guys made a few more good points. Everyone's aware of the situation, and nothing got out of hand. There are a bunch of new posters here, and while us mods (well, it looks like I'm the only one who's been on for a while) can second guess the intentions of a lot of the people who have been around a while when a fast-posting discussion erupts, we need to have a slightly more cautious outlook when it comes to new posters. Especially during the huge spike in traffic that comes with a new release.
Yeah, I had a similar thing happen to me, except it was with me and Max and Max "won".
Side pots occur when at least one player goes all in. That person ha bet all their money. After everyone has finished calling the bet, any player who wishes to raise from that point onward puts that money- automatically- into a side pot. The person who went all in, if they had the best hand wins the initial pot ONLY. The side pot (or pots, if several people go all in on different bets) goes to the person who had the best hand after that one.
EX:
Player 1 100$ (A, A)
Player 2 1000$ (9, 10)
Player 3 1000$ (2, 4)
At some point in the game, Player 1 goes all in. Afterwards, Player 2 and 3 continue to bet. and the rest of the cards are turned over. In the end:
(A, A, 6, 7, 8)
Player 1 has four of a kind and wins the main pot. Player two has a straight and wins the side pot. Player 2 has probably won more money than 1 (side pots can get larger than the initial one) and will be declared the winner. But Player 1 will still get the main pot and stay in the game.
I've experienced what looks like a problem to me : at some point, the game stopped asking me what I wanted to do, but as I never folded, I was still in.
When it came to showdown, I did not get the pot, presumably because the game considered I was out, even though it stated that I got 2 pairs. Strong Bad got the pot. Is there a problem here? =s I don't remember all the details about the current state of the game, though.. I'm kinda new to playing poker actually, maybe I missed something. Thanks a lot.
Strongbad won with 2 pairs vs Max with a pair of aces.
Somehow I won the game, and the two were eliminated?
This sounds very similar to a well-known bug that Telltale Texas Hold'em has. I'll be very disappointed if I find that this bug does indeed exist in this game...
By the way, regarding the side pot confusion: I know Telltale has said that it works the way it does to speed up the pace of the game and to keep things simple. But I have to ask, Telltale... was that minor convenience really worth the massive PR hit you're taking from people who don't understand what's going on? Sure, I understood what's going on from the beginning because I've played poker a lot, but a lot of people here aren't hardened veterans, and many of them are thinking "Pair loses to two pair? This is BS. I'm never playing this @#!!* again." No doubt you're hearing a lot of people complain, but the number of people who silently get frustrated and give up is surely even greater.
To put it succinctly: the cure is far worse than the disease.
I think the little winky face means that was sarcasm.
I agree! And as emtwo stated earlier, at most you'll have 4 pots to announce. Why not just give us the opportunity to skip the announcements if we want?
You are correct, thanks for answering. Have fun!
That's an option Iwant. I get tired of right clicking past him.
Also would be cool to be able to mute certain players, but that's for a different thread.
can some1 tell me how he won and another one was 2 full houses both the same but one person takeing more of the pot??
would like answers to these
Has anyone ever experienced the situation where a player with 0$ would still stay at the table for several rounds, being given no cards, only staring at other players...?
Pic here
I should add that Max and Tycho should have left the game together, but for some reason Max is still here. Also, the side-pot displayed on the screen comes from the previous round. It looks like that Max is waiting to be awarded the side_pot, which may happen the next time a round involving the side-pot occurs, I don't really know as it's my current game... What do you think about it?
Yes, 5400 came out of his chipstack, meaning he called the 5000 and raised 400 more. This is not a legal bet. The raise must be at least the amount of the previous bet, meaning his options in that situation is to call 5000, fold, or raise to at least 10000. Raising 400 more in that situation is nonsense.
Here's a link and quote from wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_hold_%27em#Betting_structures
I'm editing the Wikipedia article to match the standard rule.
Sounds like the same issue I had, where 6 cards are being taken into account to decide a winner...
Given that this thread is full of bugs i reported when TellTalePoker first launched in '05, i wouldn't get super excited about your time frame.
How is that even possible? There's no such thing as a hand made up of six cards. Did someone get a six of a kind?
*edit*
Oh I see what you mean, two hands the same, but it appeared to use a sixth card kicker? More than likely there was a side-pot. I've played through about 10 tournaments, and I haven't encountered any of these issues people are reporting. I suspect a lot of these bug reports may stem from a misunderstanding of poker rules.
Well, I'm absolutely certain there was no side pot in this case. I play poker most weeks with a bunch of friends so I would kind of notice if that was the case. I totally concede I could have just misread the hands, but I'm fairly certain it's happened more than once. I'll keep an eye out and try to get a screenie if it happens for definite.
I think a major problem is perhaps that when the winners are announced, the final cards only seem stay on the screen for a couple of seconds, so it can be hard to look at all the cards and check whether the winner was correctly called. It might be easier if the cards stayed on the screen until "Deal Next Hand" was clicked, then there'd be time to double-check whether rules were being honoured!
I agree most or all cases are down to this, but compounded by the cards not remaining on screen. As someone who has played quite a bit of poker, I'm still not able to read all the hands that fast every time. I can only imagine how difficult it could be for a total novice to understand what's going on! At least when playing in RL, someone who's fairly new can say "hold on, why did that person win?" and everyone can stop and explain the hand that just happened.
Maybe he had a spade in his hand that gave him a better flush? It's impossible to tell what happened if we don't have a screenshot...
On the other time we had identical hand again, this time three of a kind with shared kickers, the pot was split between us.
Max own against my Straight with a Pair of Jacks. And to add insult to injury, Tycho won against my Pair of Jacks with a Straight (which is legit).