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Duplicate Poker: It Removes All the Luck From the Game

A Duplicate Poker tournament, designed to circumvent the luck vs. skill debate that surrounds poker, took place earlier this week at the Cherokee Casino in Tulsa, Oklahoma. As in duplicate bridge, cards are set up so that each seat at each table gets identical hands, and the flop, the turn, and the river are the same. This removes any element of chance from the game, and rather than competing against the players at your table, you’re actually competing against the guys and gals at other tables who occupy the same relative seat position as you.

The field was limited to 100 tables, and included Linda Johnson, Chip Reese, Scotty Nguyen, and other poker notables.

Duplicate poker takes time to play because decks must be set for each hand, and chips counts revised so that each player begins each hand with the same number of tournament chips. Nevertheless, the concept offers a different slant on America’s favorite card game and seems like a natural for online play, if for no other reason than hand setting and chip distribution, as well as the somewhat complex scoring system, can be accomplished instantaneously by computer in way that it never can in a brick-and-mortar environment.

Duplicate poker may well ameliorate some of the legal questions existing in the United States and other nations that legislate against poker.