BOOK 2 · PART I · PLAY · STUDENT CHAPTER
The Standard Table: Nine Robots
One Sushi Menu lineup that every class can share. Nine robots, from the one that never folds to the one that almost always does, plus a pair of twins built to settle an old argument: Sklansky or the Wizard of Odds?
Why everyone should play the same robots
If every student builds their own table, every student's results are about a different game. Nobody can compare notes. Put everyone at the same nine robots and the class becomes one big experiment: thirty journals about the same opponents, and thirty games' worth of hands to settle questions that one game can't.
That's the same idea the backroom tournament used: hold everything the same except the thing you want to learn about.
The lineup
| ROW | PL1 | PL2 | PL3 | PL4 | PL5 | PL6 | PL7 | PL8 | PL9 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
HOUSE BOTS | |||||||||
| Play against Robot Player: Pbot | □ | ■ | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
| Play against Robot Player: Sbot | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
| Play against Robot Player: Ubot | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
| Play against Robot Player: Dbot | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
STARTING HANDS: SKLANSKY | |||||||||
| Open/w sklansky1 | □ | □ | ■ | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ | ■ |
| Open/w sklansky2 | □ | □ | □ | ■ | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
| Open/w sklansky3 | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ | ■ | □ | □ | □ |
| Open/w sklansky4 | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ | ■ | □ | □ |
STARTING HANDS: WIZARD OF ODDS | |||||||||
| Open/w OddsWiz1 | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
| Open/w OddsWiz2 | □ | □ | □ | □ | ■ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
| Open/w OddsWiz3 | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
| Open/w OddsWiz4 | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ | ■ | □ |
THE TURN TEST | |||||||||
| Turn/w Any Incr | □ | □ | □ | ■ | ■ | □ | □ | ■ | □ |
| Turn/w 30% Incr | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ | ■ | □ | □ | □ |
| Turn/w 2pair+ | □ | □ | ■ | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
| Turn/w Strt+ | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ | ■ | □ | □ |
THE RIVER TEST | |||||||||
| River/w Any Incr | □ | □ | □ | ■ | ■ | □ | □ | ■ | □ |
| River/w 50% Incr | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ | ■ | □ | □ | □ |
| River/w Strt+ | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ | ■ | □ | □ |
| River/w Flsh+ | □ | □ | ■ | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
The standard table, ticked. Player 1's column is empty on purpose.
| PLAYER | TICKED | IN PLAIN WORDS | SHOULD PLAY LIKE |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nothing | Calls every hand all the way to the end. Never folds. | Calling station |
| 2 | House bot: Pbot | A built-in robot: a former cheating house bot, blindfolded and rebuilt with an AI-suggested rules strategy (see Meet the Robots). | Learn it by playing |
| 3 | Sklansky 1 · Turn 2pair+ · River Flsh+ | The tightest Sklansky list, then needs a big hand to keep going. | Rock |
| 4 | Sklansky 2 · Turn Any Incr · River Any Incr | Opens with the Sklansky 2 list; stays in whenever its hand improves. | Twin A |
| 5 | OddsWiz 2 · Turn Any Incr · River Any Incr | Opens with the OddsWiz 2 list; stays in whenever its hand improves. | Twin B |
| 6 | Sklansky 3 · Turn 30% Incr · River 50% Incr | Opens with the Sklansky 3 list; needs its hand to climb the ladder on each street. | In the middle |
| 7 | Sklansky 4 · Turn Strt+ · River Strt+ | The loosest Sklansky list, then needs a straight or better to keep going. | Loose early, tight late |
| 8 | OddsWiz 4 · Turn Any Incr · River Any Incr | The loosest Wizard of Odds list; keeps going whenever its hand improves. | Loose all the way |
| 9 | Sklansky 1 only | The tightest Sklansky list, then no test on the turn or river: once it opens a hand, it calls to the end. | Rock before the flop, Station after |
You sit in the tenth seat. Players 3 and 8 are the two ends of the scale. Players 1 and 9 show what happens with no bar at all. Players 4 and 5 are the experiment.
The twins
Sklansky and the Wizard of Odds rank starting hands differently. Players 4 and 5 are identical in every other way: the same turn test, the same river test, the same table, the same cards. So any difference in how they do comes from the one thing that's different: which school chose their starting hands.
One game won't settle it. A hundred hands is mostly luck, and the twins sit in different seats. But a class of thirty, each playing the standard table, gives you thousands of hands. Add up how the two twins did across every student's game, and luck starts to cancel out.
At the table
- Open the Sushi Menu and copy the lineup, column by column. Check it against the grid before you start.
Done when: all nine columns match. - Write a prediction for each player: will it fold a lot, a little, or never?
Done when: you have nine predictions. - Click Let the Battle Begin. Play as many hands as you like, keeping your hand journal. Write down the game number.
Done when: you've stopped and seen your results. - In Game Review, check your predictions. Then write down how many chips players 4 and 5 each finished with.
Done when: you've added the twins' numbers to the class tally.
Try it yourself first
- Which player should reach the river most often?
- Which should fold most often before the flop?
- Your game ends with Twin A far ahead of Twin B. Does that prove Sklansky is better?
ANSWER KEY
- Player 1. It never folds, so it reaches the river every time a hand gets that far. Player 8 comes next: the loosest Wizard of Odds list and an easy test on every street.
- Players 3 and 9. Both open only with the Sklansky 1 list, the tightest one, and fold everything else.
- No. One game is mostly luck. The twins sit in different seats and get different cards. Pool the class's games; even then, say how sure you are.
Written by Kevin Swinson with Claudette, the pen name for Claude, the AI from Anthropic that helped build HoldemRobots.AI. The lineup is a suggestion; any class can adopt its own, as long as everyone uses the same one. Row names are from the Sushi Menu page (betmenuadv.html). The tournament figures are from Backroom Dialog 10.