Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: poker and bluffing

Author:David McCusker
Posted:9/28/2000; 3:36:11 PM
Topic:poker and bluffing
Msg #:21826 (In response to 21825)
Prev/Next:21825 / 21827

All your suggested guidelines sound great to me. They even sound more useful for positive actions than what I suggested.

Jim Lyon: In Poker and Bluffing, David McCusker talks about playing the discussion group game to win.

That would be a reasonable presumption if my goal was winning. But my goal is actually more avoidance of losing. Why that is necessary is hard to describe. But it's a result of interacting with other folks who seem steadfast in winning intellectual counting coup games. What I described was a defensive algorithm which stymies folks who play childish dominance games, because they can't get satisfying leverage.

I wish I could say I never play counting coup games, but in practice one's behavior is generally seen in the context of the ideas of folks interacting around oneself. If they are playing counting coup and you talk to them, then you are too willy nilly, unless you try to fubar the game (which is fun, so please try it at home).

The algorithm I described is an anti counting coup strategy. It slowly winds down the payoff for folks playing the game. This should be mixed with normal rational discourse, using guidelines like those you described, so folks might substitute that for their silly dominance games.

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