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A draft of rules is up at

https://manifold.markets/ChristopherRandles/manifold-plays-poker-buy-in-hand-7

Manifold Plays Poker: Buy in (Hand 7)

Let's play a variation on poker! Like all the decent games of poker, this will be a lot about leveraging luck with strategy and mind games; a perfect match for a place about predictions imo. We're playing a variation based on Texas Hold 'Em specially designed for working on Manifold over a series of markets, but everyone can participate and bet even if they don't buy a hand. See "How It Works" below for more info. This is the central place for info for this hand. New questions will be posted here as we go (if I remember to do so but will try). Resolution of this market This question resolves to the winner(s) equally at the end of the hand subject to adjustments for cheats like pairing and resurrection (no pairing this time). Note that bets here don't determine progression to later betting rounds. Go to the current round's question for that. This market may offer arbitrage opportunities for players' winning probabilities against the current betting round. Current Status Sign up period. Rules may be refined tweeked or even completely changed based on feedback or problems spotted Latest round link - yet to be created Public Knowledge Cards None yet The Audience Not yet dealt Cheats In this hand players and audience members can pay to do "cheats". Cheats can be bought by adding a subsidy in the current betting round and commenting what cheat you'd like or sending me a managram with the same info. Managrams will be added to a prize pool given to the winner(s) at the end. First hand I have dealt so no tournament this time while I see how it goes. I will try to be timely in granting your cheat, but may take up to 12 hours to respond (so plan your cheats accordingly). Menu ~ Call a specific card 50 mana to ask me if it's in the game ('yes' if it's in yet to be revealed flop/turn/river or in a current round player's hand. otherwise 'no' in all other cases) No pairing this hand Card(s) replacement 3 choices: A) 80 mana - replace a card that you choose in your hand, get a random new one; your old card will be declared publicly. B) 40 Mana - replace both cards. C) 40 mana for randomly selected card replacement. Max one replacement per player and only 2 of each type in this hand Join late 100 mana per round deadline missed. This doesn't count round reopenings so 100 if deal betting started 200 if flop market created 300 if turn market created. I'll try to get your hand to you as soon as I can. Note: there's only one late joiner hand! cannot be purchased once we reach the River Resurrect your hand 100 mana per round omitted plus any net negative in the round where they went out. Upon purchase the resurrection will be announced if not requested on relevant thread. Resurrected hands only get half of resolution (other half spread out; so if they win resurrectee gets 50% while 2nd place gets 50%, in 2-way split resurrectee gets 25% other gets 75% etc no further adjustments for pairings as none in this hand). Cannot be purchased once we reach the River. more notes: anyone can resurrect the Audience multiple players can be resurrected, and multiple times if desired. all such use the "(Resurrected)" resolution in whichever questions their individual name(s) are not listed How It Works You can get a hand here by adding yourself to the list (25 Mana cost) If betting on deal has started a single late joiner is possible but see cheats for the fee detail, pay that fee less the 25 for adding name here to claim the late joiner hand which I will try to get to you as soon as possible. If unsure whether there has already been a late joiner please ask. Players who get a hand are welcome to share it, or team up, bluff, obfuscate, and misdirect, whether on the questions, over discord, or wherever they see fit. They're also welcome to bet for or against their opponents! but see rule 5 below for limits on betting for other opponents. After a couple of days, I'll kick off the game with the first of the rapid (~1 day) questions for each of the four rounds of betting (Deal, Flop, Turn, River). I will close each of the rounds the first time at 19:00 UTC. Let me know if I forget to change the close time to that. Minimum mana bet on yes on self minus mana bet on no on self is +10 in deal round or you are considered folded. This increases by 5 with each betting round. You can bet no on as many other players as you like (this pushes your position up so is ok) but you can only bet yes on half of the other players listed for the round. Breaking this rule can result in you being considered folded regardless of your yes-no position on self. If breaking this rule appears to be a minor infraction e.g. 5 or less mana bet on someone it will probably be ignored. If accidental and fixable then I may well allow such a betting error to be fixed and if that is done then not punished by the considered folded rule. Let me know I will try to assess impartially and give ruling. Cut off. 300 mana net yes is always enough to go though on a betting round to prevent it getting out of hand and biggest whale being able to force a win. If at the first close time for the round, total for first + second place in net mana (i.e. mana bet on yes minus mana bet on no) are less than 3 times that for last and next to last place of those that have the minimum then all those with minimum go through to next betting round. This finishes the betting round and next market will be opened. If first +second place net mana bet is 3 times or more than that for last and second last position with the minimum met then the claim gets reopened. Last and second last can either increase their net mana bet to that of second place net mana bet at the first closing time and go through or not do so and go out. Other players can bet with no effect on who goes through as they wish but rule 2 still prevents you betting yes on more than half the players still potentially in. If there are only 2 players that meet the minimum then adding first and second would be same as adding last and second last so we just compare first to last place meeting minimum for the 3 times requirement meaning that if 1st place net mana bet is 3 times or more then the claim is reopened for last place to match first place net mana bet or be considered folded. The Audience Hand works exactly like personal hands, except it: is publicly visible was bought in by me grants tourney points to its biggest supporter (if it earns any) The round questions resolve at the end of the game to the winner(s), equally. If two or more players stick it out to the end I'll reveal their hands, announce the winner(s), and resolve all the remaining questions accordingly. If for whatever reason every player folds at any stage, the win goes to the player who had the highest net mana bet in the previous round. As you might have noticed, the rules of this special variant allow for very mismatched bets by players, so feel free to jump in even if you're intimidated by a whale in the water! They can do their thing, profit by playing market dynamics, and you can still come out on top :) Admins and Manifold staff also have no inherent advantage, so don't be shy! As I'll know all of the cards, I won't be betting or playing in the rounds, and I cannot be bribed to reveal other players' information or tilt in your favor except with official cheats. My house cut is simply the trader bonuses on any questions I make for this, though I'll accept tips for my role as dealer if you're so inclined. Of course, side markets are welcome. Feel free to add them to the Manifold Plays Poker group and comment them here for shared visibility. Side markets:

Let me know if you spot anything missing or needing added or clearer explanation or want to comment on anything you think could be improved.

And do sign up if you are ready to do so.

Leaderboard after tournament

# Name .............. Profit

1 Christopher Randles Ṁ3,237

2 Jason Ṁ2,154

3 Dilon Ṁ1,854

4 NamesAreHard Ṁ1,783

5 Fion Ṁ1,521

6 A Ṁ1,291

7 nickten💙💦🐬Ṁ938

8 Simon Grayson Ṁ395

9 Pat Scott🩴Ṁ263

10 brubsby Ṁ199

11 wustep Ṁ163

12 cloe Ṁ84

13 Benjamin Shindel Ṁ57

14 Floris van Doorn Ṁ48

15 Genzy Ṁ37

16 Schwabilismus Ṁ35

17 Planarian Ṁ29

18 Alex B. Goode Ṁ29

19 Odoacre Ṁ26

20 Nico Terry Ṁ22

21 burkebotBot Ṁ22

22 Gary Macphee Ṁ18

23 Stuart Ṁ14

24 Travis Ṁ12

25 Lordoffatcats Ṁ9

26 Shuf Ṁ8

27 SCyper Ṁ6

28 Michael's Bot LaboratoryBot Ṁ6

29 Cris Ṁ4

30 Emilio Ṁ3

31 Kit Ye Leong Ṁ3

32 Patrick Snow Ṁ3

33 Kenny Silva Ṁ2

34 Alessandro Ṁ2

35 Super Tax Genius Ṁ1

36 Living Weights Ṁ1

37 evergreen Ṁ1

38 Rahul Shah Ṁ1

39 An Ting Ṁ0

40 Joshua Ṁ0

41 Abraxas Ṁ0

42 ToniBrown148 Ṁ0

43 Yves -Ṁ1

44 Anthony Peterson -Ṁ2

45 Primer-Ṁ2

46 Dylan Slagh -Ṁ3

47 Jason Hunger -Ṁ4

48 Johno Pomerat-Ṁ4

49 JD -Ṁ5

So does that make it a good time for me to quit while I am ahead or should we see that losses are only a total of 21 making these very good markets to bet on?

Anyway, hand 7 profits from all markets will be leaderboard after hand 7 vs above after hand 6 and tournament results.

@ChristopherRandles wow! glad to see folks got paiddd to have fun. and lol at NamesAreHard making literally all of that for 4th place in the very first buy-in vs. @Sinclair, whose losses I don't see listed there.

If nobody else is going to offer, I may run a hand or two while Pat is away. I want to take a copy of the leaderboard after the tournament so will wait for last couple of markets to resolve - we might want market on most profit? 1 subtraction is easier than adding up lots of different markets. (Nothing to do with me being top ;) )

Meanwhile feedback time. Any comments appreciated. Please also like responses to indicate whether you would like things to stay or be dropped.

Keep pairing cheat (like to agree)

Drop pairing cheat

Keep resurrection cheat

Drop resurrection cheat (edit typo)

Keep tinkering and alternating mana bets vs chaos UI %

Too many complications from tinkering and alternating mana bets vs chaos UI % so keep things more consistent

@ChristopherRandles That's great you're considering dealing a hand.

Personally I'm not a huge fan of cheats as a mechanic, but I don't have a problem with them. I don't think there are any that I especially like or dislike.

Am I understanding right that "chaos mode" just means bids are based on UI percentage rather than money paid in on yourself? If so, I think it's much better. With the "total YES position" mechanic there was a simple exploit where you just bet YES on everybody so you're not risking anything. I never took this to the extreme, but I did something a bit like it a few times and it does take some of the fun out. (As well as being difficult to see everybody's bids.)

So I don't have a problem with continued tinkering in principle, but in my opinion we've answered this particular question and found that "chaos mode" works better. I definitely think there's room for tinkering with regards to what the cutoff percentage is for progression to the next round.

So far at least 2-1 for continuing alternating mana and chaos UI% so probably mana bet total this time. I was worst culprit for no risk betting and it might be better to get rid of it if this can be done without too much complication. I think I prefer to allow some betting on opponents.

So wondering about / possible tinkered rules:

1. Minimum yes - no mana bet of +10 in first round or you are considered folded. This increases by 10 with each betting round.

2. You can bet no on as many other players as you like (this pushes your position up so is ok) but you can only bet yes on half of the other players listed for the round. Breaking this rule can result in you being considered folded regardless of your yes-no position on self. If breaking this rule appears to be accidental and fixable then I may well allow such a betting error to be fixed and if that is done then not punished by the considered folded rule. Let me know I will try to assess impartially and give ruling.

3. Cut off. 500 mana net yes is always enough to go though on a betting round to prevent it getting out of hand and biggest whale being able to force a win.

4. If at the first close time for the round, total for first + second place in net mana (i.e. mana bet on yes - mana bet on no) are less than 3 times that for last and next to last place of those that have the minimum then all those with minimum go through to next betting round.

5. If first +second place net mana bet is 3 times or more than that for last and second last position with the minimum met then the claim gets reopened. Last and second last can either increase their net mana bet to that of second place net mana bet at the first closing time and go through or not do so and go out. Other players can bet with no effect on who goes through as they wish but rule 2 still prevents you betting yes on more than half the players still potentially in.

   If there are only 2 players that meet the minimum then adding first and second would be same as adding last and second last so we just compare first to last place meeting minimum for the 3 times meaning the claim it reopened for last place to match first place net mana bet or be considered folded.

6. Resurrection seems popular. Last moment remains Price is more complex 100 Mana per round omitted plus any net negative in the round where they went out. Resurrected hands only get half of resolution (other half spread out; so if they win resurrectee gets 50% while 2nd place gets 50%, in 2-way split resurrectee gets 25% other gets 75%, modified further by pairings, etc.)

7. Jury still out on pairing.

8. Max change a card(s) is once per player, cost 30 Mana for changing both, 50 mana for randomly selected card to be changed, 80 mana for player choosing which card to replace.

9. 50 mana - call a specific card. "In the game" response means it is in current betting round players' hands or in not yet revealed flop, turn or river.

10. If I see 'other' or a player that can no longer resurrect at too high a % (or maybe even too low a percentage given public knowledge), I may trade this market to a more sensible level. Any profits I make will go to the pot for the hand winner(s).

11. Late joining fee 100 per round missed.

Does that work? Anyone seeing any problems or have any comments or suggestions? Too much like traditional poker?

For round timing I am thinking 19:00 UTC for the close time. If I reopen before 21:00 UTC then it will run to 23:00 UTC. If I don't reopen by 21:00 then it will run to 21:00 UTC the next day though perhaps if I give notice it is likely then perhaps reopen by 21:30 to run until 23:30 UTC would be ok?

If you think these times are insufficient or awkward for you, let me know what you would prefer.

@ChristopherRandles My yes on the tinker/alternate question was more for tinker than alternate. I think chaos mode has worked better so far but am fine with further experimentation with net mana.

You should probably disregard de minimis YES positions for the 1/2 rule since it can be tricky to cancel out a YES position exactly. Under 5 mana, I'd chalk it up to that rather than manipulation.

@Jason OK noted on tinker and alternate. Perhaps we will have 2 or more chaos modes after this one if people think this isn't fixing problems and/or still prefer chaos mode.

I am not sure what you are saying in second paragraph. Does "for the 1/2 rule" refer to rules 1 and rules 2 or is it referring to position 1 and 2 for rules 4 and 5?

Some thought arising:

If 2 people bet a net +1 on themselves, someone bet +2 then bets of 110 105 100 should the +2 person be considered smart for getting away with not having to increase their position to 105?

If everyone bet +1 it would seem like a boring hand?

vs

Maybe 10 + 20 + 30 +40 is too steep an amount?

I should have said if 3 or more all bet the same then all 3 have to increase their position to the amount of second place net mana.

I don't follow your comment. Mana bet on yes minus mana bet on no strongly discourages sometimes betting yes and sometimes betting no particularly at low% chance. Eg bet 10 at 10% gives you a position of 100 to cancel this out you bet 90 no at 10%. While it has cancelled, your net mana position is -80 making it harder (but not impossible to qualify for next round once you have bet no. I don't see what you are saying with disregard de minimis limits. I see this as desirable - you can do it to mislead people but it could well cost you.

@ChristopherRandles change card cheat is ridiculously cheap at 30 mana to swap whole hand! dang I'd buy that every game. also, do you have a system for drawing extra cards after the game starts or are you using deck.of.cards like I was and pre-drawing everything?

@Stralor I'm also curious, what's this "safe" play that Fion mentioned? How does the math work out betting YES on everyone?

@Stralor I felt swapping one card of your choice was a very powerful improvement to someones' hand so I wanted to make that more expensive but also offer cheaper options. Changing one random hand for another random hand might well give you a worse hand but that is less likely if given a very poor hand the first time. I am not sure I have got 30 and 50 mana prices right though, perhaps both should be 40 or ... ?

I was going to use deck of cards like you. If 8 players and 1 late sign up possible, I was going to draw 9 hands then flop turn river and then 18 more cards to be used in sequence for replacements. I have yet decided on details whether I would 1) (easiest) just inform player of the card(s) without any card images or 2) have 18 separate images so if whole hand replaced get 2 images rather than one image of two cards or 3) somehow have some images of pairs of cards and some images of single cards. 18 single cards and 17 pairs seems like it would be a major pain. Keeping the number of images lower would be sensible to reduce image work.

I was thinking if lots of people want to improve their hand with card exchange then it seems everyone should be able to do so once to keep it fair. OTOH later is better so you don't discard a card that later turns out to be useful so if there is limited number you have to judge when to do so such that the opportunity doesn't disappear. Maybe to limit image work max of 2 full hand replacements, 2 chosen card replacements and 2 random card replacements in the game only one exchange per player is more sensible?

@ChristopherRandles Sorry, was on mobile. I meant the "betting yes on more than 1/2 of hands is an autofold" rule. I was pointing out that extremely small positions are likely the result of someone trying to zero out a prior position (since you cant sell out a multiple choice position the normal way) rather than an attempt to manipulate.

@ChristopherRandles I like the cheap whole-hand exchange, at least early on. The truth is that most poker hands suck, and this is more exciting if we have ~3-4 people who have interesting hands rather than Mr. 7/2 off-suit folding immediately.

@Jason I guess call-a-card is relatively expensive when you can get reliable but random info by redraw

@Stralor less so now that it's limited to active players' hands

@ChristopherRandles The Audience seems underpowered. I think this is mainly because the other players know its hand, and would be unlikely to bid aggressively when they knew they were drawing dead. Thus, the fact that players are bidding up against the Audience suggests that they know they have a better hand.

I'm not sure how to balance this, but am wondering if the Audience should be dealt three cards, one or more of which is face-down and not revealed until the end of the hand, to compensate for the disadvantage of other players having extra information on its hand composition. 

@Jason good idea!

>"Thus, the fact that players are bidding up against the Audience suggests that they know they have a better hand."

Yes, having had K10 vs audience K5 in last hand with 10 in flop I was happy to bet against audience knowing that if other players forced it through then I would beat that hand and not lose mana on the no bet on audience. But this seems more based on chaos mode betting and less to this mode?

In mana bets with only yes mana for audience counting, it is easier for audience to be forced through and difficult to impossible to stop that if other players want it to go through. Problem seems to be, when would other players want it to go through or not here? If the audience has a better hand than you, do you fold and lose interest in hand because you are at info disadvantage to remaining players rather than betting on audience to win?

If you have better hand then you make mana by betting against audience knowing you won't lose that bet.

So either way. you don't bet on audience.

Giving audience a worst single card replacement or even as suggested any/best two of 3 cards one blind until end makes the audience more likely to win. While this advantage and more uncertainty may help, does it change that no-one wants to bet on audience whether they are better or worse than audience? Not sure, maybe. Guess give it a try.

@ChristopherRandles you don't have to run the audience hand at all if you don't want to. I think it's a fun experiment and we seem to like it even if it goes poorly, but the whole point of the audience is that it's a way for non-players to get involved, just like the late joiner hand. so far, that hasn't happened, but maybe because it's had mediocre hands?