“If you were designing a game to fix, you would design cricket, because it is a whole series of discrete events, and every ball you can bet on.” – Lord (Paul) Condon

Perhaps this statement encapsulates the game, perhaps this statement has not dived deep enough, perhaps it is a mix of both; whatever be the case, an analogy between cricket and poker is perhaps the most prudent in the current day and age.

With a plethora of permutations and combinations and with several other factors in place, cricket bears an eerie resemblance to card games, and by all means, to poker.

Also read: IPL 2018: MS Dhoni Seems To be Doubtful For CSK’s Next Game

How the teams stack up, which players to rope in for the team, where to set the fields, how to lure the opposition into a sense of false security might all be tactical, but so is placing bets in poker.

It needs a lot of homework to be done, and how the opponents respond to baits thrown at them dictates the eventual outcome of the match. Now let us cast our minds to poker, and how players observe the body languages of opponents, how they mix and match their hands accordingly, how they raise and decrease the bets, all the factors come together to finalize the result.

There are specific packets in cricket, for instance, in the context of the ongoing Indian Premier League, let us consider the powerplays as different brackets, when perhaps the entire picture of the match becomes clear, so this is the period is of relatively higher stake, so much like, when players in poker hold their bets and wait for oppositions to make the move and then either pounce or let it go; the tone of the match is set right at the outset, and perhaps similar to the powerplays in cricket.

And then as the game hurtles towards the end, the action intensifies, and if it is viewed in poker terms, the bets tend to go through the roof.

We now take a look at the captains and how they tend to dictate the course of the match. If the captain s defensive, very often the team tends to follow them and never force the issue which impedes their flow. On the flip side, if the captain looks to take charge and grab the bull by the horns, more often than not, the results tend to fall in their corner.

Poker is so much similar, aggressive players who go for the kill from the outset tend to be more profitable when compared to players who remain dormant and react to the moves of other players.

Not many games and interfaces can get better than 9stacks  poker, which not only guarantees you money within two hours but has a fluid interface and legal by all means, again the action is all packed, the timings are set, and the result is quite evident!

Have we even spoken about luck, about how all decisions are heavily reliant on luck, about how it bears a striking resemblance to the game of poker!