Gears And Plans

I was playing a board game not too long ago called Tzolk’in: The Mayan Calendar. Its main mechanic is called worker placement. In a traditional worker placement game, you place a token (worker) on the board in a specific spot and you get to take the action or the resources associated with that spot.

There have been lots of games that have used this mechanic in the past and it’s very popular in the designer board game hobby. Because spaces are limited and you can block your opponents, it’s good for people that excel at long-term planning.

Tzolk’in adds a twist which I really enjoy. Instead of placing your worker on a specific spot and immediately taking that action, you place your workers on one of five gears that are attached to a central gear. Each turn you choose whether you are going to place workers on the board or take them off. You can’t both place workers and take workers off in the same turn. Then, once everyone has taken their turn, the central gear is rotated and your workers move along the tracks of the outer gears. They have advanced one space and now, if you decide to take them off, you get to do the action in the space that they have moved to. This is the board game that has most closely hewn to poker skills that I have played and I loved it.

First, it takes a diagnosis of the board and what’s important on it. Each player is given a different set of starting resources and then, depending on turn order, some spaces will be taken in front of you.

Much like choosing your starting hand in poker, your first move in the game can really sink you. If you have a few choices on what you can do in your first turn, you have to be sure you make a good decision that will get you on your way towards reaching your goals for the game. All of your decisions flow from this first one and as you go farther in the game, you may find yourself having to make a decision to help you in the short-term that cuts into your long-term planning prospects. Playing too many hands in a cash game, especially when out of position, is one of the most common mistakes people make and since it’s the first decision you make in a hand, it can compound quickly and cause you to be put in tougher and tougher situations as the game plays out.

Second, it requires short-term and long-term planning as discussed above. Perhaps I need a certain set of resources right now to fulfill a requirement, but it will take me a few turns to get all that I need. Can I find them on a different spot? If so, will that impact the things that I’ve been working towards for a few turns? In poker, this is evident in thinking about future streets.

For instance, let’s say I have a strong hand right now in a pot-limit Omaha game, but many runouts are very bad for me and will cause me to fold or slow down. Perhaps that means it’s a good time to play my hand a little slower than I usually would when I’m certain that I have the best hand because my opponent, whether they have the good draws that can come in or not, will have an easy time getting me to fold.

A good example of this was in a hand of Big O I was playing recently. I had top set and the nut flush draw but no low draw. I was against one opponent and the board had a wheel draw and two flush draws. It wasn’t a great hand to be piling money in with because I thought it likely that my opponent had a very good draw. I bet a small amount as a sort of blocking bet and he called. The river was a bad one for me because the nut low draw became a wheel on the river and I would have folded if he had bet. Luckily for me he didn’t and his second nut low got half the pot.

Finally, you have to take into account your opponents’ actions to figure out what their goals are. Because all information is public, you have a good idea of what strategies your opponents are using and you can try to block their way to them or take a different tactic that you might think is a good counter to what they’re trying to do. Besides the perfect information in Tzolk’in, this is just like reading hands in poker. You try to figure out what your opponents’ ranges are and from their plan an exploitative strategy to maximize your money won.

We can learn lessons from lots of different things when we play poker. I love to play games that have strategic depth and planning because it helps me be a better poker player and Tzolk’in really drives the point home on these three fronts. ♠

Gavin Griffin was the first poker player to capture a World Series of Poker, European Poker Tour and World Poker Tour title and has amassed nearly $5 million in lifetime tournament winnings. Griffin is sponsored by HeroPoker.com. You can follow him on Twitter @NHGG