Play with no hole cards

Has anyone ever tried playing with a piece of paper or what not over their hole cards online? I was thinking of trying maybe a $1.00 tourney, just for kicks to see if I could 1) play position better, 2) MAKE myself watch the other players habits more. I originally thought I'd try it on a play table, but those are usually all-in fests, whereas a $1.00 table people have a little $$ actually committed. Has anyone else ever tried this? Do you think it could work? Again, low stakes, nothing high staked.

possible, but solid for a full tourny. I advise to only cover them up preflop. On the flop, you need to know what you have or where you stand, sicne you could top set, not know it and fold to an all in

Def a valid excercise. Vanquish has done it in a CC tourney. He did keep them covered for the entire hand. I think he posted most of the hand history too, if you do a search.


You would need "readable" players; ie the lower in stakes you go you get to a point where your opposition doesn't know much better than you what they have or how to bet it.

This was talked about on one episode of the Circuit. I think it was Scott Huff that tried it and did pretty well.

Supposedly Annette Overbreasted(sp?) played a whole tourney without looking and won.

I dunno..

I saw one or two people playing without looking at their hole cards in some hands on the B&M poker tourney I played in last week.The quality of play here was terrible for the first two hours, so this definitely didn't apply in the situation I'm referring to.

I always thought that was one of the dumbest lines in Rounders when Damon said he would play in the profs. game "blind". I thought great, I'm all-in, you feeling lucky there blindy.

Looked to be limit stud in Rounders if I recall, don't have to worry too much about someone going all-in. This could be an interesting excercise, think I might have to try it sometime.

While it could be a valid exercise, I doubt doing it on $1 tables would help you achieve your first goal: $1 SnG players often don't have any concept of position and what it means... at least, not until you get down to the bubble, and even then you're hard pressed sometimes.

Also, if you play a STT turbo, at least half the time you can pretty much fold every hand and still make the money.

It might help you with your second goal, though again, getting reads on players at this level can be intersting at the best of times

Good luck though!