can’t read my Poké face
August 10, 2015
2:38 am
Still waiting for my computer to get fixed but I’m assured it’ll be here before next weekend so I’m working with last generation’s technology for now.
I like that T. Hawk face in the second panel, reminds me of the good ol’ days.
Now watch as Jared folds on a royal flush – he’d do that – or successfully bluffs everyone with a multi-suit 2-3-4-5-7 – he’d manage that as well.
He’d have the Royal Flush when someone thinks to call him, and then lose *EVERYTHING* on the 2-5/7.
Or the reverse order. It’s Jared, man. We have no idea, just like him!
Or perhaps he’ll get the rules confused, and they they are playing the pokemon card game or magic the gathering. When Jared taps his 4 kings to cast ‘Ace of Hearts’… I have a feeling everyone else is still going to lose.
Go Fish!
Not going to lie I’d probably be happy to be included for fun as well.
Aww that just warms my heart.
Just when the story starts to drift away from Jared and I start to like the Commander the most as a character, Jared goes and says stuff like that. I love the adorable little goofus.
Don’t trust those Pokémon kids, they start gambling from a young age
I’m absolute garbage at poker. I know there is skill involved, but it’s not something as concrete as chess, which I much prefer.
If you think that way then you’re obviously not grandmaster-level at chess. Up to a certain rating, chess is all about being able to memorize and find new patterns (and admittedly, if you’ve perfectly memorized all positions, then you’d be a perfect chess player, but no one has done that), but above that, there’s a psychological component to playing; sometimes you intentionally make a move you don’t personally believe is computationally optimal in order to trip up your opponent.
It’s just that poker’s psychological component comes into play at a muuuuch lower skill level than chess’s.
1. I think it’s pretty safe to assume most people are not grandmaster-level at chess.
2. Chess is still a lot more concrete than poker. The presence of a psychological aspect at higher skill levels doesn’t really change that.
The psych factor’s still there at low levels. It’s just really hard to use, and not worth it much until those high-level games.
From my experience, the psych factor gets harder at lower levels due to new players (like me) being too dumb and reckless to influence.
At grandmaster level, chess is even *more* about deception than Poker is — because in order to win you need your opponent to guess wrong about what you’re intending to do despite seeing every single asset you have and every move you’ve made.
No kidding, ya think he might not be a grandmaster? What tipped you off? Was it perhaps that the overwhelming majority of the human race aren’t?
Wonderful strip, but today’s title takes the cake :)
What does T-Hawk’s face has to do with the good old days…?
I pity the foo’ who has to gamble against Barret.
Just realized pokemon trainers would probably attempt to become skilled at reading the other person and what they are planning to do, as well as prevent the opponent from doing the same in turn.
go watch some of the pokemon world championship matches and you’ll see that they do
I thought it was more along the lines of “he’s a Pokemon master – including card games”
You have no idea. A Pachurisu (cute cuddly mostly useless electric squirrel) is currently one of the most popular doubles pokemon *because” of it’s performance in the world championships, and his moveset was mostly based around predicting enemy action. “Pachurisu used Follow Me” is a fair reqson for many trainers to curse loudly.
I love that Volt Krueger from The Bouncer keeps appearing in your works.
He’s mai husbando.
I think my favorite part is that Mr. Fish is apparently kibbitzing. Because when Jared sits down to a friendly poker game, he parks his hundred-foot dragon serpent monster behind him like he’s dropping a backpack. I love this kid.
Not only is Mr. Fish there to kibbitz with Jared, he also lowers the risk of anyone accusing Jared of cheating…Remember that one of Mr. Fish’s skill slots is “don’t eat Jared,” so no one else is really safe.
To be honest, people who’ve never played poker before can be quite good at it. Because they don’t understand the game, they can be unpredictable, which psychs out the more experienced players.
Kinda like fencing, then?
Kind of like most games that involve skill. Seasoned players use memorized strategies and counter-strategies to try to outmaneuver each other, while newer players usually play in a more situationally advantageous way. It isn’t always that the newer player “psyches out” their more experienced opponent, just that they forget how to handle a situation they haven’t encountered due to relying on memorization.
Back when I played League of Legends, this was my favorite thing to do: just play weird and less than optimal team compositions that really shouldn’t function. The meta is so ingrained in that game that just breaking out of it means a lot of people don’t know how to handle it, and suddenly they lose every advantage a well balanced team should have. So much of the playstyles in that game are based around the assumption that your opponent was playing the same strategy, and a lot of people blindly follow it, meaning they waste a lot of resources doing things that are no longer important, or avoiding doing things that are perfectly safe. If your team knows how to play your counter strategy well enough, then chances are it will be an easy win. Although from what I have heard from friends who still play, the current meta is a lot more flexible, with more viable strategies, which means the strategies experienced players don’t know how to handle are fewer. Stuff like the kill lane, where you sacrifice late game damage for characters that can ensure the opponent won’t succeed at getting their late game damage up to par are now somewhat common.
There is a similar thing in Natural Selection 2, where one of the first upgrades the alien team can get is stealth-utility, rather than the other two, which grant survivability. As such, it is considered not good and rarely sees use, which means it is never expected. This in turn makes it really powerful when it is used. The ability to turn 99% invisible, leaving only a slight shimmer, gives so much ambushing power, but once they realize your team went that route, they will pay more attention, and apply heavier pressure, making it very hard to keep up. So going the stealth route becomes a race to press your advantage before they realize what you did. If you can pressure them hard enough and long enough to clear the way for a second base, you can gap your weakness with a second upgrade and maintain pressure. Although as good as the invisibility ability is from that path, the other one is incredibly powerful in the right hands. It lets you see nearby enemies through walls, and also see their approximate health. As an offensive unit, this lets you more effectively harass, getting out before enemies can stop you, or guaranteeing you pick off the weakest one first. As a support one, this reduces the chances of being caught out. The main problem is just that you need to be super aggressive or you fall behind, and both the skills lend themselves towards wanting to play it safe and slow.
Yup, I’ve been there before. First and only time playing poker, I won a close second. Jared, flounder wisely. Use the great wisdom of the magicarp.
man, i love poker, i just wish i knew how to play it better :D
Flipside has some tutorials sprinkled into the intermissions. I had a hard time understanding them though… I’ll learn the game one of these days.
Huh. Either I borked the code or the site prohibits external links.
The comic shouldn’t be too hard to find through Google or what have you, but be warned, the chibi intermissions may contain spoilers and the main story gets pretty gruesome at times.
At a guess, you probably left out the http:// part of the URL, causing it to be interpreted as a relative URL instead of an absolute one. It’s quite a common slip-up that even highly technical people make occasionally.
i’ll check it out
Omigosh that’s where I learned to play poker, too ^.^
Small World. I should catch Flipside on the… flipside… later. I guess. Sorry. I’ll show myself out.
IF you have Steam and a half decent laptop, you could pick up Poker night at the Inventory. PLay a dozen or so games on there, and you’ll start to get the gist of things. Plus the dialogue between The Heavy and Strongbad is hilarious.
With all the masked and single-shot faces in recent comics, I’d forgotten how much I enjoy seeing your facial transitions. Love this one!
“plus he’s, y’know, got a giant laser fish”
I lost it at the punchline AND the newspost title. I lost it twice. I have no idea how that’s possible or where it might be.
My God, Jared’s cute. <3
That’s how I feel when my friends do the Sports, Jared.
I’ve accepted that I’ll never really understand them, but dammit I’ll still play.
… was the whole comic just a set up for the post title?
still yes, that sheer joy at being included. very jared.
This page made me laugh out loud!
I think Jared is my spirit animal. That’s the exact same face I make whenever I’m included in any fun reindeer games.
I found a video with the title Poké Face on Youtube. Don’t search, the one singing is, while thankfully not tone deaf, just near Roseanne Barr levels of vocal talent.
Is that Poison talking to Jared in panel three? :D
I don’t blame him, I’m suspicious of anyone who smiles that much.
Reminds me of playing Werewolves with friends. They accused me on account of the fact that I looked shifty, so I reminded them I ALWAYS look shifty. I was an innocent villager, but they killed me anyway.
Next game, though, I bluffed my way through several turns by outing myself as the Seer and declaring the results of my scrying each turn as part of a gambit to get myself out of being lynched as a werewolf, culminating in confusing half the group as to whether I was the Seer or the Hunter I suggested I might actually be on the turn that saw the werewolves finally agree to silence me.
Was part of your gambit making run-on sentences with little or no punctuation? If so, well played.
Nah, not technically a run-on. Just long.
Werewolves is interesting once managed to convince the group I was the tanner and that the person I stole from, as the thief, was still a Werewolf.
mr fish has the best pokéface ever.
Considering that giant pile of cash in front of him, I’d say Jared is doing pretty alright for someone that apparently doesn’t know how to play.
Kinda makes you wonder what denomination those chips are.
I wonder how good Jared would be at Dragon Poker.
You know which character I miss?
Canadian Guy!
Dang, those guys must have trouble finding space to make their moves with their massive man-frames.
I wonder if they let Jared in because he didn’t take up as much space?
The real trick is to watch Mr. Fish and go off his expressions. XD
I don’t have much to say about this one, I just wanted to say “BARRET! <3"
I'm a longtime FF fan and he's part of my favorite FF7 team (Cloud/Barret/Yuffie = carnage), so I approve of seeing him here.
This is exactly how I play poker.
This exact thing happened to me when i was like 12, my older brother let me play poker with him and his friends and my first hand was like double aces or something and i just got a huge smile on my face and couldnt hide it. so they all folded. then next had i got a shit hand and i knew they were all looking at me to see if i was going to smile again and that made me laugh so they all folded again. I tried to explain it but from then on, no matter what hand i got i would get a huge smile on my face.
This is some fabulous line work. I’d love to get a crack at the hi-res and a chance at coloring it. Also, Jared has the best way to confuse an enemy, be happy to be with them.
To Jared, animosity is a one-sided concept. I don’t think Squid’s ever shown him not liking someone. I think it’s part of his charm – he’s so genuinely nice.
Well, unless you’re playing against him on the X-Box or showing fear of his fish, but yeah, he’s pretty nice.
Well there was this one time:
It was “The Summer Beach Fun Edition”.
First time posting!
Umm, I think Jared can sometimes hostile with prejudice, like when he meets Poison for the first time. The fact that now, he could sit next to Poison without even remotely annoyed, show how much character developments he went through.
And that’s Wonderful.
“…I call BS, he’s sandbagging.”
yeah that definitely seems like something Jared would do. Not to mention the fact that he’s already told them he doesn’t know what he’s doing he’s just happy to be part of the game.
Right, the “i don’t even know the rules” gambit.
Excactly whaty you’re going to hear right before you get “sharked”.
Case in point: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7PF2iQgoAM
http://slightlywarped.com/hilarious-tumblr-photo-comments/
The fudge thing. That you, Squidy?
The first time I ever played poker we were just using chips we got from a yard sale and just having a good time. Half an hour later I had half the chips, my stepfather had the other half, and my sister had less than ten low-value chips. She then paid me ten dollars to give her my chips and quit the game. I sincerely believe that even if it’s Jared’s first game, he can shark these people.
That second panel… most glorious face I have ever seen.
HOLY MAMA, five pages of Platinum Black ?!? That’s… That’s even better than a nice, hot cup of cocoa in a warm room while a snow storm is raging outside. You’re spoiling us, Coelasquid. This story makes me love so many characters… I want to (respectfully) hug most of them.
On a side-note: How the hell did I miss this little scar on Blue’s lip ? I checked, it was always there.
I’ve been reading this comic for a couple months now and I just finished rereading them all again and decided to comment for the first time so thank you for making an awesome webcomic Happy Birthday twice congratulations on your engagement your tattoos are awesome you make an amazing comic and congratulations on your new job
How can Barret play poker with his anger issues? And do we get strip with Marlene and Red IX and commander´s kids? That would be worth manly Dawww
I was lucky enough to catch this while it was still line art yesterday. your art looks great both with and without colour!
when line art, you see so many details, the lines are so fine, and it itches in me to colour them in – with colours the characters “pop” out and all the detailed lines seem to disappear somehow, but this is a positive! the page doesn’t look messy or too detailed distracting your eyes, but instead as a full whole thing.
and then there is the great face expressions and the humour :D
Man, that’s my poker face when I play poker. Mostly for the same reason. I have no idea what I’m doing, but I always get giddy cause I usually get good hands.
Ever since the first comic with Poison in it, I’ve been wondering if her and Jared will eventually ever go on a date, with how Jared keeps becoming a more accomplished and respected person, in his own way.
Not only did the comic make me grin from ear to ear (because Dawwww), I squeed like a little kid seeing Barret in the panel with Poison. I think out of the varying Manly Men at the agency, he’d be one of the higher functioning ones in society.
It still makes me weirdly happy that Volt is basically a main character at this point. XD honestly amazed anyone else still remembered him. He was an island of manliness in the sea of bishie men I liked as a teenager. (well, except Auron – dang – and Seijuro Hiko, still one of my all time favourites ..)
LMAO
The funny thing is I am Jared in this comic, lol. I actually do know how to play Texas Hold’em, but I’m like… yaaaaay I got invited to something! <3