How The Unique Game Play Of Twister Poker Requires Different Poker Skills
Twister Poker at bet365 Poker is probably by favourite quick-fire poker game. But it is a very different kind of game than other Six-max, tournament, cash table or freeroll games.
And in my view, it requires a very different approach and skill set to get proficient at it, than those other forms of poker.
So, in this post, we are going to look at the various demands of Twister Poker. How the way the game is designed requires you to adjust your poker game and approach.
And then we’ll look at the skills you need in order to become a solid player of this particular type of quick-fire poker game.
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If you are interested in just the standard game of Twister Poker, and for me this is certainly the game where new players should start honing their skills, then what are the options?
With Twister Poker, the game is separated by the different levels of Buy In for a particular game. You can play from just €1 per game (£0.86), or you can ramp up the action to buy ins of €2, €5, €10, €20, €50, €100 and €200 per game.
As a beginner it is obviously more sensible to hone your skills playing the cheaper buy in games to get proficient before you move on to playing the more expensive buy in games.
Remember though, the amount of money you are playing for in Twister Poker is decided by a spin of the wheel and you could be playing for an amount that ranges from 2x your buy in, up to 1000x your buy in.
That means that playing at the lower levels does not preclude you from having a shot to win a significant amount of money (though your chances of playing for the higher amounts are much lower than they are for the 2x 3x or 5x prizes).
There are two other versions of Twister Poker available, one a progressive jackpot version, and another an all-in version of the game which is entirely reliant on luck rather than poker skill. Personally, I avoid the all-in version as there’s nothing I can do as a poker player to influence the outcome in my favour.
I’ll take a look at those at the end of this article.
We have already mentioned that Twister Poker sees the amount you are playing for decided by a spin of the Twister reel at the start of the game, but the actual dynamics of the game itself dictate how you should approach the game.
What do I mean by that? Well, let’s begin by explaining how Twister Poker plays out.
The game starts with the prize being decided and this is a winner takes all prize. Only one of the three players will win, the other two will finish the game with nothing.
You also start with just 500 chips. That’s a small amount when the buy ins begin at 10/20 and rise rapidly throughout the game. Then when you add the ante in each hand after the blinds have been raised a couple of times, it is obvious that it is not too long before you are going to be putting in a significant chunk of your chips every time you pay the small or big blind.
This combination of small stack and fast-rising blinds means that Twister Poker is a game where the action has to speed up. That means you can’t sit and fold hand after hand waiting for a premium pocket hand. Sometimes, you have to make the cards you’ve been dealt work for you regardless of their value and the risk involved.
So playing this type of game requires a slightly different strategy to that which you may play usually.
So, what is a positive Twister Poker strategy? Is it just playing your usual game but at a faster rate? No, it isn’t. You don’t have the chip depth to sit and wait for premium hands to fall your way. Plus, you’ll be paying a blind in 2 out of every 3 hands.
I’ve broken down how I play Twister Poker differently to my usual tight/aggressive style when playing a table game or tournament. The key aspects of this are: –
Time isn’t on your side in Twister Poker, so your range has to be much wider. Depending on the cost to stay in a hand, I’ll play pretty much any two cards to the flop to see what happens. You’d be surprised how many times you hold the dreaded 7-2, limp in to the Flop and then hit two pairs of even three of a kind. Best of all, your opponents won’t be expecting you to hold that hand, which means they may overvalue the hand they do hold.
The best piece of advice I’ve ever read about poker was that it was a game of information. I didn’t really understand this until I began playing properly. You may think that a fast paced game of Twister Poker is not long enough to get a read on your opponent. The best way to do that is to fold out of a hand and watch how your two opponents face off early on in the game. Sometimes the information you can gain from this is much better value than playing the middling to low hand you folded.
With just four other cards out of the pack pre-flop, a pair can be a very strong hand in Twister Poker, even a lower value pair. Sure, you run the risk of an overpair on the flop, turn or river, but similarly, you could also hit three or even four of a kind and those hands are tricky for an opponent to pick up when they hold a strong pair. I estimate I have finished off more games of Twister Poker winning with this type of hand than any other.
Checking is common in standard poker, but I think it shows a weakness in Twister Poker, unless you want your opponents to think you are limping in with a low value hand. As I have said previously, if you are putting chips into the pot, then you need to be much more aggressive and checking is the antithesis of that. If you believe you are ahead or aren’t sure, sometimes a well-timed and sized raise can win you the pot against an opponent who may be trying to bluff, or who holds a middling hand but suspects you may be in a stronger position.
With a small number of cards dealt each hand, that means more of each suit and value card is in the pack. As such, if I am dealt a hand of low value cards, but they are connected either by being the same suit, or are consecutive (or maybe even with a gap between them), I will play that hand until the Flop at least to see if something connects. If it does and it is cheap enough to stay in, then when you connect, you can often win a monster hand against an opponent who won’t put you on the hand you have.
If you are at a table with two passive players, then try to play as many hands as possible, regardless of your cards as you can often limp in to the flop with a low value call or even a check if you have put in the big blind. Then if you connect, you can push home that advantage.
If you start to get a chip lead over players, then push home that advantage. Make raises that will force them to really consider if they want to commit that many chips to a pot on a hand that may not be particularly strong. You can bully more passive players into folding hands often, and as such, that will improve your position a great deal against them.
The only time I bluff in Twister Poker is when the table I am playing at has two passive players and I want to steal some chips by claiming the pot. The simple reason being, if a player commits more chips to the pot than necessary for the blinds, then they have something and the odds are, if you make a bluff, then you are going to find it called by one or even both your opponents.
Although we have focused on the standard Twister Poker game at bet365 Poker, there are alternatives available.
There is an exciting progressive jackpot Twister Poker option called Ages of the Gods Twister, which shares the same progressive jackpot as the popular slots and other games in that particular series of games.
Buy in’s for this game start at just £1 and the progressive jackpot is usually measured in the hundreds of thousands of pounds.
There is also Wild Twister available, which is an even faster game that requires no skill at all as every hand all players go All-In, which means that most games may last just one hand before a winner is declared.
Wild Twister starts at just £0.50 per game, though you can wager more if you wish. Remember though this form of the game requires no poker skills – it is simply if your hand is lucky enough to win as you are going all-in no matter what you hold!
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