The Unseen Advantage: Information

Posted on Thursday, August 6, 2009

Written by: Jason
Covers: the basics of information advantage

In most card games when people think of advantage, the only thing that they really think about is the card advantage. Usually the idea of advantage is calculated in an equation of pluses and minuses pertaining to how many cards a certain player has, its also a idea that determines whether or not a card can warrant use. The more advantage you gain from a card, the more you’ll want to use that card.

What most people don’t realize is that there is an advantage in knowing the cards your opponent has well. The more knowledge you have of what your opponent has the more you can make your own successful power plays and set-ups.

Advantage doesn’t always have to be seen to be had. That is part of the reason why you don’t go setting all the cards in your hand if you have all spell and traps (albeit, you don’t want to overextend, but most people have the wrong idea). If you let your opponent know what you have ahead of time, then it makes part of their job so much easier. It is also part of the reason why you don’t want to make comments about how bad your hand is, or whether or not you’ve drawn all monsters until after the fact ( its not that hard to tell when your opponent is bluffing, but you also want to be careful of what information your trust that comes out of your opponents mouth). You want to keep the opponent guessing.

This is part of the reason why Trap Dustshoot is such a great card. Not only do you get the card out of your opponent’s hand but also you get an advantage of information over your opponent that they won’t have over you.

Playing around the information you have received is not that hard, but it does take some skill to be able to recognize when you have the advantage of information over your opponent. It also takes skill to know how to play using this advantage to your own benefit. If you can master this, you will find yourself being able to win a lot more games than what you did before.

So until next time, keep the other guy guessing,

E.P.B.