[HN Gopher] A secret poker game you can play on the subway
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A secret poker game you can play on the subway
Author : oktcho
Score : 155 points
Date : 2025-02-18 10:37 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (experience.prfalken.dev)
(TXT) w3m dump (experience.prfalken.dev)
| tromp wrote:
| > Each type of passenger corresponds to a specific poker card
| value: Child: Counts as a 10 Teenager: Counts as a Jack Woman:
| Counts as a Queen Man: Counts as a King Elderly Person: Counts as
| an Ace
|
| How do you get the players to agree on whether some person is
| elderly or not? Some people look 10 years younger than their age,
| while others look 10 years older. Short of asking people for
| their age, it seems to remain guesswork...
| ziddoap wrote:
| It's not like it's an official competition, and it's (probably)
| not for money, so I imagine you can just wing it and it will be
| fine. If there's a disagreement you just talk it out, which is
| also a good way to pass time on a subway.
| bombcar wrote:
| I'd be more worried about overlap; if there are five women, and
| one is elderly, I'd rather count it as five queens than four
| and an ace.
| motes wrote:
| unless you include Balatro hands where Five of a kind, flush
| five, and flush house are possible hands with some modified
| card decks.
| jbs789 wrote:
| It's not clear to me when or how you "choose" your row of 5. I
| feel dense but I don't think this is described...
| motoxpro wrote:
| Seems fun!
|
| You choose any time to start (mutually agreed upon)
|
| You can choose any row you want. The chance (skill?) comes into
| play in that people can get up from those seats and new people
| can come in. That's why you have to choose an end station. It
| probably wouldn't be very fun for just one stop.
| remram wrote:
| But what's the play?
|
| It seems you don't have any control over the hand, no control
| over the evaluation, and there is no betting either.
|
| Something more akin to bingo, where you call out when a
| winning combination is found, would be a lot more engaging.
|
| Or maybe keep your chosen hand a secret, so you can do the
| normal betting/bluffing/folding of Poker? With the added fun
| that your hand might change over the course of the game.
| latexr wrote:
| Notice the image which says "A pair of aces is a good start",
| because two elderly people are sitting there. Think of it like
| each row being a pre-populated hand (which may be missing some
| cards) based on the people already sitting there. You pick it
| and then the "cards" change themselves between stations.
|
| In other words, you pick immediately once the game starts. Look
| around to see which row you think has the best chance to
| develop into something good by the time you reach the
| designated station.
| permo-w wrote:
| this is a far better explanation than the article
| marras wrote:
| I found myself looking for some rules on how you can
| influence your "hand" - is it "legal", for example:
|
| - to stand in a specific place in order to (subtly) direct
| other passengers into a specific section of the car, or
|
| - to take a seat yourself and give it up to an elderly person
| later on, in an attempt to gain an extra ace ;)
| dbl000 wrote:
| A group of friends and I used to play what we called
| "cheater's poker". There were no stakes expect bragging
| rights, but you were allowed to cheat in anyway what so
| ever. Stacked decks, marked cards, false shuffles etc. I'm
| curious what that would look like in this game and how far
| you could take it before it became socially awkward.
|
| Could you ask a friend/plant to come to a particular
| station at some time and sit in a specific seat to
| aid/hinder a set? Gesturing to someone a specific seat is
| open? How about outright asking someone if they'd be
| willing to sit in a particular spot?
| Aransentin wrote:
| This article has a strong ChatGPT smell. Things like "in the
| world of", "let's dive into", the bullet points, "conclusion"
| section, etc. Anyone else have the same feeling?
| Feathercrown wrote:
| Feels this way to me too.
| Philpax wrote:
| Yep. Read the first few paragraphs and immediately noticed the
| stink. Using it as an assistant is fine, but you really
| shouldn't leave what it outputs untouched, especially when it's
| _this_ obvious!
| cauliflower2718 wrote:
| In section "Works in every major city!", the author mentions
| they are from France.
|
| Given that, it's not surprising that they used an AI to help
| with translation.
| Aransentin wrote:
| Sure, but the structure seems quite ChatGPTish as well, with
| e.g. the bullet points and section choice. You wouldn't get
| that by just faithfully translating a french source text from
| English.
| topherclay wrote:
| You might also note that in their first blog post they use
| the French language convention of puting a space before
| their exclamation marks and in this latest post they use
| the English language convention of no space.
|
| >Now I can update this blog and push to github, instant
| deploy !
|
| vs
|
| >I would be delighted to hear from you!
| pmarreck wrote:
| Why do people care about this?
| untech wrote:
| I got that feeling because of adjectives like "innovative".
| Thought that it might be impolite to imply that in the
| comments, and was relieved that someone already did.
|
| The premise of the article is still interesting.
| ziddoap wrote:
| Is there a list of phrases and words to avoid, to not be
| accused of using AI? It's getting kind of ridiculous what
| people identify an "AI smell". I understand if the word "delve"
| shows up five times in as many paragraphs, I guess, but just
| having a "conclusion" section is a smell now? Using the word
| "innovative" is a smell?
|
| I feel awfully sorry for kids in school these days. Teachers
| must think everything they write is AI, considering they're
| still learning to write effectively and probably like to use
| bullet points, popular phrases like "dive into", and structured
| layouts that include introduction and conclusion sections.
| dbl000 wrote:
| I don't think it's any particular word or phrase that makes
| it seem like AI but instead the overall feel of the writing.
| I can't quite describe it, but it feels like it's been
| sandpapered of any emotion or author's voice and just feels
| banal. Compare the wording and voice in this post versus one
| of the author's earlier ones
| (https://experience.prfalken.dev/english/exercism/) and I
| think you'll see what I mean. Some of this, especially the
| 2nd sentence, just reads with the standard "wall of text
| without substance voice" that I've personally come to
| associate with AI.
|
| As another comment
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43105143) notes, some
| of the author's earlier blog posts use a different style of
| punctuation so I'm willing to bet that they might be using AI
| to help them write or reformat some of their ideas. I don't
| think there's anything wrong with that but without some re-
| edits to the AI text it will take on that distinctly AI tone.
|
| Kids who are still learning how to write still have a
| tone/voice/style that comes across in their writing and I
| think that's the particular distinction being made here.
| savanaly wrote:
| The sad thing is ChatGPT didn't invent that style. That was
| just the way clear, concise writing by skilled writers was at
| the time they trained the model. So now if you are actually a
| skilled writer who tries to convey ideas in a clear, concise
| way, you will appear robotic :(
| mplewis wrote:
| Your writing needs to have flavor and personality, rather
| than reading like a business email.
| zahlman wrote:
| Certainly I've seen elements of this style in pre-ChatGPT
| writing. (Of course, it didn't just invent the style.) But I
| disagree strongly that it's clear, concise or skillful. The
| way that bullet-point lists are used here is highly
| distracting and frankly counterproductive, and a "conclusion"
| hardly seems necessary for a piece that presents the rules
| for a simple game. Entire sentences like "Let's dive into the
| rules and strategies of this captivating game." are pure
| fluff here, too.
| pmarreck wrote:
| FFS. I read it and learned something. Stop jousting windmills
| just because they seem like propellers on warplanes that are
| coming for you. Sometimes they are just windmills.
| zahlman wrote:
| "Learned" what, exactly? Anyone could make up a game like
| this. And it really does read to me (as it apparently did to
| GP) like something even an LLM could make up nowadays.
| tomcam wrote:
| Great thing about the Lexington Ave subway in New York is that
| you can legally gamble with your own money just by setting foot
| on it!
| remram wrote:
| > Selecting a row near the doors can increase the likelihood of
| passenger turnover
|
| I don't think that's true. People get off when they get to their
| destination whether or not it is easy to reach the door, and sit
| in available spaces.
| LelouBil wrote:
| People that only have a few stations to go tend to sit closer
| to doors.
|
| But also, now that I think about it, this may only be caused by
| french metro layouts, I'm from France too and this fact seems
| true to me.
|
| If your train is only a long corridor with seats on the edges,
| the "difficulty" of getting to/from a door is almost the same
| everywhere.
|
| But in the french metro you have foldable seats right next to
| the doors, and groups of 4 seats between doors, and when the
| metro is busy, it's harder to get out of these 4 seats
| groupings.
| ZoomZoomZoom wrote:
| Each card value has the same probability, but subway riders'
| distribution is all skewed.
|
| A way to make the hands fair that comes to me right away is to
| take some unambiguous information about riders (coat color,
| presence of a hat, etc..) and calculate a hash that you can read
| as/transform to a hand. This should transform the distribution to
| uniform, at least to a degree suitable for an occasional play.
|
| Though, this will void the strategical part of the game.
| ZoomZoomZoom wrote:
| The most obvious issues with this is that the game boils down to
| predicting passenger patterns, but you're still just comparing
| two RNGs, which is one of the worst kinds of games. I also don't
| think this can be called Poker, really. Poker is an imperfect
| information game, where your hand tells you _some_ information
| about your opponents ' hands.
|
| It would be interesting to read HN's ideas on how you can
| simulate the shared information part of the game in such a
| scenario.
| dbl000 wrote:
| You might be able to do that with a betting aspect? If you and
| your partner both select two "rows" and keep them secret and
| then after each station you could change how much you're
| willing to stake you get some information based on the bet.
|
| It's an imperfect solution but I still like the premise of this
| game, it just needs to be field tested a bit.
| hsbauauvhabzb wrote:
| Is human behaviour not predicable enough for you? I bet
| passengers are more likely to congregate on the side that the
| door enters/exits, etc
| tetris11 wrote:
| You can definitely select a new hand each station by making
| inappropriate gestures or sounds.
| kuboble wrote:
| > . I also don't think this can be called Poker, really. Poker
| is an imperfect information game,
|
| There is no game of Poker. It is a wide variety of games like
| 5-card draw, Omaha, Texas, studs, Chinese open face poker. Also
| a slot machine where you draw 5 cards or pretty much any game
| that uses classical poker hand rankings is called poker. There
| is also a planning poker.
|
| I think the name is fine
| ZoomZoomZoom wrote:
| The card games listed have the information aspect in common.
| The slot machine is not a Poker, it's a poker-themed slot
| machine and the game people play with it is called losing
| money.
| kuboble wrote:
| Not that I disagree with anything about the nature of those
| games, but your narrow usage of a word poker is wrong.
|
| I even checked the Wikipedia article about Poker and there
| is a quote very similar to my wording:
|
| "Other games that use poker hand rankings may likewise be
| referred to as poker."
| ZoomZoomZoom wrote:
| Well, it's my opinion based on the assumption that
| players used to specific common card games under the
| moniker might be disappointed when a new game with the
| same name lacks an essential component (and it's not
| cards).
|
| Naming things is hard but there's no hard limits for the
| expansive approach, you can call all card games or all
| 5-things-games Poker. Your mileage as to communication
| with other people may vary, though.
|
| Where we're disagreeing is at how we're seeing what's
| conventional.
| kuboble wrote:
| All you say is true. Except in your first post you didn't
| say "I personally prefer a convention of calling only
| those games poker".
|
| You said "you can't call it poker" with a tone of an
| authority.
|
| And I say that you can.
| ZoomZoomZoom wrote:
| > You said "you can't call it poker" with a tone of an
| authority.
|
| This is a misquote, if I ever saw one.
|
| What I've actually written (emphasis added): " _I_ also
| don 't _think_ this can be called Poker, _really_. "
|
| In other words, this is my personal line of thought, with
| the argument given in the next sentence, and "really"
| means "to some extent it can, but not to the full".
| Maxatar wrote:
| Refrain from using quotes unless you are actually quoting
| something that someone has said word for word.
|
| The actual quote is: "I also don't think this can be
| called Poker, really."
|
| There is nothing suggesting a tone of authority, on the
| contrary this is someone explicitly sharing their own
| opinion on the matter.
| antasvara wrote:
| In the style of Texas Hold'em, both players could secretly
| choose two seats each and write them down. Then, you'd
| collectively choose 5 seats to be the shared "cards."
|
| This next suggestion would stretch the "poker" definition
| somewhat, but I think it retains the same characteristics
| (imperfect information, shared "cards").
|
| You start from a shared list of attributes (coat color,
| presence of a hat, etc.) and designate a row of seats. Each
| person gets one attribute secretly. You wager after each stop
| following poker conventions.
|
| Only downside to this is that unlike poker, your hand can get
| worse after a stop.
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| This misses the information your secret hand gives you about
| the other player's chances. In poker if I got an Ace in my
| hand the chance of the opponent having an ace lowers.
|
| If I got somebody wearing a black coat, this has no impact on
| the chance of my opponent having a black coated passenger.
| jameslars wrote:
| Does 5 of a kind beat a royal straight?
| risson wrote:
| According to Balatro, it does
| zahlman wrote:
| Traditionally, in poker variants with wild cards that enable 5
| of a kind hands, it does IIRC beat a royal flush. )"Royal
| straight" isn't a thing; AKQJT straights are sometimes called
| "broadway", but they're never distinguished as a separate hand
| type. Whereas royal flushes do get distinguished from straight
| flushes, but not for any good reason.)
|
| But all of this is moot because TFA doesn't define "suits" for
| the "cards" anyway. And of course the relative probabilities do
| change when you only have 5 ranks. (And we're also effectively
| "drawing" without replacement; there are an effectively
| unlimited number of each rank available.)
| golergka wrote:
| For a second I wondered how would you assign suits to people --
| but quickly realized that this would be easy, but probably
| racist.
| dbl000 wrote:
| If you eschew the standard 4 suit deck and go for a differently
| scaled one I think it's pretty simple - just do it based on
| clothing choices or items carried with more value given to a
| rarer case.
|
| Things like beanies, grocery bags, formal shoes could all be
| used to make suits and you have a bit more choices to play with
| on how you count the person. Do I count them as a "formal
| shoes" or a "grocery bag"? What do I think I'm more likely to
| see board later?
| yapyap wrote:
| I can imagine the discussions on whether someone fits the 'elder
| person' description that would ensue.
| deepAIhunter wrote:
| So you need to click pictures of random people in the subway to
| play this game?
| dewey wrote:
| No, you use your eyes. That's why you play it with a fellow
| commuter.
| fitsumbelay wrote:
| This is great. I've had some (probably naive) imaginings about
| extremely short term multi-player interactions in public
| spaces/public transport like this but always got stuck at the
| "how will they know it's there" part
| mplewis wrote:
| There should probably be a way to play this that doesn't rely on
| assuming the gender of someone you see in public.
| croes wrote:
| It doesn't matter if both players assume the same gender.
| shlomo_z wrote:
| I prefer not to play a game that requires assuming anyone's
| gender or age
|
| But its a cute idea
| BriggyDwiggs42 wrote:
| Aw I feel like it's perfectly harmless in this instance, right?
| You don't need to talk to the people, so there's no risk of
| insulting them.
| kulesh wrote:
| I don't know why, but I vibe-coded AI Subway Poker
| https://x.com/stas_kulesh/status/1892328616609841290
| acqbu wrote:
| Okay nice but what if queen identifies as king?
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