Duplicate Poker - Reviewed - No Skill Required

Duplicate Poker is touted as a skill-based form of our favorite game. After testing, I have come to the conclusion that less skill is required to play this form of poker than traditional forms of poker.

GAME DESCRIPTION:

You are primarily playing against another player who is assigned the same seat number as your seat number, and is dealt the identical cards that you are dealt.

Each deal and hand is duplicated on each table. After each hand, all players restart with the same number of chips. There is no chip accumulation - only point accumulation.

The concept is that the best poker player will be able to accumulate a greater number of points than his counterpart located at another table, within a specified number of hands.

While the concept is interesting, it breaks down in real play.

FATAL FLAWS:

Duplicate Poker does not take into account the various player styles that change the dynamics of a table, nor does it take into account the skills required to play a short, medium, or large stack.

Fatal Flaw 1 - Player Styles:

You cannot duplicate the player styles at each table. Your counterpart could have extracted more chips from loose players sitting at his table than you could have with the same hand from the rocks sitting at yours.

My exposure to Duplicate Poker leads me to believe that the tight aggressive style might not be the best for point accumulation. Winning a big hand here and there may not allow you to accumulate enough points to remain in the game when compared to the maniac who only needs to get lucky a few times to build points. The maniac has no fear of being knocked out based on his betting, (chips levels are reset after each hand), but if he gets lucky early on, you must become the maniac at the table just to catch up. Remember, the game ends after a pre-determined number of hands.

Fatal Flaw 2 - Point Accumulation:

If you know that your counterpart sitting at another table has accumulated a large point lead, one that might be hard to catch up to, then the balance of your play becomes an all-in strategy with no skill involved. You will depend solely on luck to catch up. You will likely have callers with any two cards from any player sitting at your table who are also significantly behind. Since the game ends after a specified number of hands, your survival no longer depends on how skillful you are at playing your chip stack. The only variable that matters is point accumulation.

Duplicate Poker in its current form is not a skill-based game.

A possible fix to an interesting concept:

Eliminate the point accumulation method of scoring. Replace it with the more accurate chip accumulation method. If a player makes a bad decision and loses chips, the winner should retain the chips won and the loser should lose the chips lost. If a player gets knocked out, the dealer can still deal the duplicate cards to the empty seat. Another potential adjustment is to play in a shootout format. The top 3, 4, or 5 players from each table advance.

Eliminate the predetermined number of hands played so that a skillful player who has become short stacked has the potential to come back. While blind increases have a similar effect on a short stack as a short pointed player has in duplicate poker, the fact that a player can win chips and remain in the game, gives the chip-accumulation method a skill edge when compared to the point method used with predetermined hands.

Duplicate Poker may be more valid if played in a limit format, but as we all know, limit and no limit are two different games!