Seeking playtesters: Awesome new No Limit game

Yo, this is for everyone who keeps reading this thread since the beginning. This thing shows that all the TSP game rules (+more) are coded in the deck of cards and its design. It means that I've been looking for these rules and holding them in my hands all the time for 18 years, not knowing about it until now:

What is the % chance that Phil Ivey reads this thread ?

I'm posting this because watching this conversation (February 28th 2025) was the key moment for my work on a new NL poker variant. That's probably why I treat this game different way than my other projects. It can really speak through me, but I think that's only because it hasn't been played yet.

jfc its just getting worse

Looks like it will take ages to playtest this great game. I posted a thread in the NVG sub-forum asking for clues how to contact any professional poker player and ask for opinion. And in the 1st post I read:

How do you know that ? Have you talked to them ? Besides, I just want a pro to take a look at the rules, not play it.

This thread ("Seeking playtesters... ") didn't prove anything except that some people are interested in playing it and some people aren't. It also proved some people have problems with understanding very simple rules because their pride forbids them to read them more than once.

No way, Mr Ambassador.

I'm posting my reply here, because the thread was immediately deleted after Slugant's post.

When this semi - humorous threat towards me in person, by "Ace upmy Slv" appeared in NVG, there was absolutely no problem with it, it wasn't deleted.

And when I posted a thread today to ask how to contact any poker pro because the new game is very complex, mentioning that I talked to Phil Ivey once in the past (which is true), it was immediately deleted.

No comments. You'll know what to think about it all.

I am skeptical regarding your game even if you might be onto something.

The early exchanges would be near meaningless when you are many players due to all community cards being likely to be replaced.

More players would also increase the advantage of going later.

I spent some time thinking about this but i think you have to throw the hole idea into a bin, didn't find any way to turn this into a great game.

Ok, thanks for your constructive post.

All community cards will never be replaced, since only 3 of them can be. If you meant "all three", well every time a new card is placed you never know if it's gonna stay or not. Secondly, all opponent replacements tell you something about his/their cards. So even if the cards won't stay, they still give info about his range and intentions, plus lead to a certain chain of events (like in chess).

Ok, you may be actually right on this one, but ...

... I was thinking about this yesterday and it turned out that there might be 1 new rule that the game is currently missing. I found the rule, it gives more balance and decreases the late position advantage significantly. Here it is:

NEW RULE: After the activation of the last 3rd slot, only 2 of 3 active slots can be used for further card replacement.

This rule would very often (in the most common scenarios) cancel the advantage that the last player to act would had without the new rule.

I think this fixes about 90% of the problem. Early position players often choose more slots that will be active, so these two factors combined seem to pretty much cancel the advantage that last player previously had.

So cards for 3 spots will be basically doomed when there are many players due to them being replaced over and over.

While the earlier rounds will still have come impact it will not be much.

I did make a less flawed game but even that has issues for 3+ players:

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/21/ot...

ITryDeuces

I think that maybe your game is too complicated for many poker players to bother to learn, let alone study.

Christmas is just round the corner, so is there a way you could tweak it a bit and turn it into a stand alone packaged board game for a greater set of players, the board gamers, who look for and like to try out such new ideas? You could self-publish, and then, when it becomes as big as Monopoly or Cluedo, perhaps it would eventually move into the poker world, per se?

Even if many players in the hand, every card put on the board still matters, because it influences the next card. This all creates a chain of events (reason >>> consequence). It's like playing two games simultaneously. Each of two games goes its own path, but they meet or interfere at 4 points (or stops) where you have to estimate the current strength of your hand.

1) This game becomes very complicated only if you're planning long run profits. If you want to play just a few sessions occasionally, you can simply just trust your instinct, assuming you played a lot of poker before.

2) Real money factor is something I could never resign from. It gives the game some sort of gravity and works also as a certificate that the rules are indeed mathematically valuable.

It's not actually particularly complicated but you want very stupid people to play it and lose money if you are going to make money from it.

It's also about people being familiar with NLHE and learning a new variant takes effort.

1) Well, card replacement is all about ... replacement. You get closer, closer and closer and finally you get the full complete board in betting round 4. Nothing wrong with it. Having two permanent cards which stay untouched is enough.

2) The game is "flawed" only when it's mathematically or logically incorrect. My game TSP is mathematically and logically 100% correct. Maybe it's boring or easy to solve or too random or complex, we'll never know that until playtesting. But it's never "flawed" as you said.

I just took the deck of cards a while ago, after a 3 days break (I was busy working on some other thing) and I started to believe in this game again. I wonder if there is anybody else who did take the cards at home to check the game. We would have more positive flow in this thread then. Having 5 + 5 cards with interaction is a lot of information to handle, so you'd have to be a math genius to visualize possible scenarios in your mind without taking the deck.

And I think you should take a deck of cards first to judge this game.

There is no point in wasting time on that if you can see flaws without having to actually play the game.

both your games are terrible /

I tried fixing the concept but the end result was rather lame and not very interesting.

Oh well, that's too bad.

Slugant:

He's not only a poker community ambassador, but also an independent critic and a fair judge.

Let's just be thankful for his arrival.