The Gang Second Opinion

This is a hold up! No. wait. A Hold Em! A Texas Hold Em to be precise.

But this is not your usual poker style affair. There’s no tells to suss, no pistols to brandish, and arrival by horseback is most definitely optional. Why? Well, because we aren’t living in the wild west. But also this is poker co-operative style. Yes, you heard that correctly. The most competitive card game around has gone all care-bear and banded players together to bust open the vaults and share out the riches. And do you know what? It’s brilliant!

Although the main review for The Gang can be read here, I am coming to this game as a poker noob. Whilst I have played and enjoy games that use elements of poker in their game play (Pioneer Rails and Truffle Shuffle to name but a few), I don’t think I have ever (or at least I cannot recall ever having) played straight up poker. Even visiting Las Vegas in my younger days, the flops, flushes and rivers eluded me. And so, I went into The Gang with very few preconceptions of what a game of poker would feel like.

I honestly can’t tell you if it is a true poker style play, but I’ll explain a round very briefly so you poker pros can decide. You’ll have cards in your hand and a number of cards on show in a row (the flop) that is sort of like a lending library. You don’t collect the flop cards, but you can use them in combination with the cards in your hand to make specific melds which are ranked from low scoring (two of a kind i.e. a pair) to the highest run of picture cards in a single suit (a royal flush).

You’ll also have some chips (matching how many players there are) which you are going to take use to bet on how strong your melds are is compared to your teammates’. Now, you can chat about the flop and cards generally, but you aren’t allowed to reveal what is specifically in your hand – that would literally be giving the game away! So you need to give and gather information on what others have in a different way. The Chips! Ah hah!

By taking the lowest value chip, you are likely indicating that your own hand in combination with cards in the flop is quite weak. If you take the highest chip, then you’re suggesting the opposite – that you have something juicy forming. As cards get added to the flop, different colour /patterned chips are added, and the selecting/sorting process is repeated. When the 5th card has been added to the flop and the 4th set of chips divided up, it’s time to reveal everyone’s hands, starting with the player with the highest total on their chips. If the hand strength follows the order in which players reveal their cards, you win the round and flip over a vault card. If there’s a mismatch, the round is lost, and you flip an alarm card instead. So long as you can open the three vaults before you set off the three alarms, you and your teammates win The Gang!

Once you get into it, there are also advanced variants which increase or decrease the difficulty depending on whether you are winning rounds or losing them!

Final Thoughts!

If proper poker is as much fun as The Gang, I may be tempted to grab a saddle and ride into my local saloon looking for a game! Having said that, what I like most about it (and probably marks the major difference between The Gang and the game inspiring it) is that it involves the opposite of bluffing. And that’s good as I have the worst poker face in the world – Lady Gaga has nothing to fear from me! When we are playing, everything about the choices each player makes is to further your team efforts towards victory. As well as the chip shuffle between players who fancy their hands equally high or low, the hints and mentions of suits and flop composition are fully loaded. And if my eyebrows could speak, I definitely wouldn’t need my mouth haha! Arched brows and forehead crinkles are worth a thousand words! I’m not a fan of team games where you can’t speak at all – it feels like an unnecessary hand-tied-behind-your-back element. If you are working as a team, you should be able to explore and discuss options and strategy. And although you can’t reveal your cards to each other here, there is definitely value in the curated dialogue you can give.

Perhaps I like The Gang so much because it isn’t poker. Either way though, I think it’s super fun, and I can’t wait for me and my team to chip away at victory in the next game!