It is easy in RftG to focus on your own setup and not glance up at the other players. The interaction between your own cards is enough to keep you occupied. Still, it is a multiplayer game and there is at least one other person seated opposite you. RftG has been compared to Poker before, but I'm going to delve deeper into the connections between the two. On a superficial level the method of learning each is very similar. First you have to learn how to play your hand, then you can exploit your opponent's. Starting from this standpoint, this should be considered an advanced article for those comfortable with the standard strategies.

Best Poker Fits

I think the poker game that bears the strongest resemblance to RftG is limit 7 card stud. The potential for bluff in limit 7 stud is there, but without a grounding in percentage play a big gambler will be gradually eaten away by the consistent performer. There's also elements of Omaha 8, where a strong looking hand is actually much weaker than it appears.

30 Second Guide to Limit 7 Card Stud

Each player starts with 3 cards, two cards down one card up. There's an ante and a bet. Each round each player still in the game receives a face up card followed by a bet. The seventh and final round the card is dealt face down, leaving each player with 3 cards face down and 4 face up. The bets are limited to specific increments over the course of the hand. Early bets generally are smaller, and increase as the hand goes on. The points I'll be making don't rely on a deep understanding of Poker's rules, but for the curious there are many sites that describe this in more detail. Here is one of them:

http://www.partypoker.net/learn_play/poker_games/seven_card_...

Advantages of Reading an Opponent

Central to the connection between the two is the importance of reading the opponent and the opportunity for bluff. Knowing what your opponent has immediately gives you an advantage. In poker it's everything, letting you fold to a strong and superior hand, pressure a weak hand with potential or extract what you can from a dominated hand. In RftG the advantage of foreknowledge is slimmer but still vital. There are two elements to reading an opponent in RftG, their role selection and the cards they have in hand. Role selection is by far easier, and generally more immediately fruitful. Role selection directly affects your options during a turn and lets you compress your growth into fewer turns. The most obvious is picking Consume/Trade depending on another player's Settle. Other potential points of leverage are exploring to play a more expensive or better card during develop or settle (or vice versa), producing when someone else picks consume (or vice versa) or picking Consume/Trade while needing a Develop or Settle to prevent discarding most of your hand. More subtle interactions arise from developing or settling hoping that another player produces or consumes to load up your hand for the next turn. Reading a player's hand is difficult most of the time because of the fast cardflow in the game. The best use is to ferret out the 6 developments, which will tell you what is still available or worth shooting for.

Reading an Opponent

7 stud has three main sources of information on an opponent. The first is their face up cards, the second their previous betting patterns and third any tells or clues in their demeanor. RftG has all of these elements. The cards in a player's tableau can frequently tell a lot about the future plans of an opponent, as can the number of cards in their hand. A hand with 7-10 cards probably indicates a likely develop or settle, although if there are several people at the table with that situation it is likely that one or more of them will defect. Small hands without develop discounts or military may Explore hoping to get over a payment hump. Tableaus without much production are unlikely to pick Produce, although early on a single windfall world might be reason enough. Established non-leech tableaus tend to be quite blunt in their execution. It's unlikely a produce/consume that's generating 10 vp each consume and 5 cards each produce will vary from those two actions. Much like a hand with three aces showing will only bet or raise unless facing a superior hand.

Other clues in the tableau come from cards that don't seem to fit. A large military without military worlds indicates either big rebel worlds to come or a New Galactic Order that hasn't had a reason to hit the table yet. Lots of production worlds without consume powers, especially rare or novelty specific, could indicate Free Trade Association or Mining League and a coming develop to get it into play.

Your history with an opponent should reveal role selection preferences as well as preferred strategies. If they're a fan of Develop or Settle strategies it's more likely they'll be picking Develop or Settle. If they tend to hoard the perfect cards for big plays late, early game Explores are likely. Produce/Consume fanatics will depend on others to do their settling for them. The most common pattern early to midgame is the almost reflexive Consume/Trade after a Produce. A strong non-trading Producer can exploit this by picking a second Produce after the first, leeching the vp and card generation from the Consume by the other players while setting up for a Consume/X2 on the next turn. Alternatively, if overflowing with card generation, they can Develop or Settle to hopefully get a card play advantage on their opponents.

Tells, or hints given away by changes in behavior, can be the most revealing but also the least reliable. It also depends on how cutthroat the play at the table is. Someone taking a sudden interest in another player's hand and tableau could be the sign of a decision point or strategy change. It's difficult to advise beyond this point as any given hints are likely to get you in as much trouble as it would help and poker books cover this territory better.

Deceiving to Succeed

As soon as we start talking about analyzing an opponent we should be aware that they will be doing the same. Expect them to analyze your position and base their decisions on your perceived action selection. As with any situation of this type the proper level of doublethink before deciding what to do is preeminent. Even better is to lead your opponents down a primrose path and then change direction suddenly. This includes setting up an engine and then only using it to leech, holding less than 4 cards but being able to both Develop and Settle, picking Explore or Consume with 10 cards and many others. To some extent the success of these tactics depends on the situational awareness of your opponents, and so will work better against those with more experience.

Strong Hands that Aren't

Omaha 8 is unique amongst popular poker variants in its restrictions on a player's hand. Despite receiving 4 cards on the deal only two of them can be used in any given winning hand. There can be a split pot so all four cards could be used, just not in winning the same portion of a pot. A painful situation arises when a player draws three or four of a kind. Since only two of those cards are part of a hand it is likely to be a bad hand. In fact chances are it will be the worst hand at the table. In Omaha it's an easy hand to fold, although it makes you wish you were playing any other type of poker. The best hand in Omaha 8 is A-2 suited and A-3 suited. This gives you several strong hands that can be played, depending on the cards that come up.

Similarly, seemingly strong hands in RftG are actually quite weak. A hand of all one type of card is extraordinarily weak unless there are discounts in play or in hand to make them easier to play. Not only is this monotype hand likely to have to pay for cards using others that you'd like to keep, it's less likely any draws will be as rich in those now-discarded cards until a reshuffle. Further, the lack of diversity limits options and could even force you down a track you didn't want to go. A diverse hand has options in its play, and is easier to adapt to changing circumstances. Best is multiple sets of 2 or 3 well matched cards (or even interlocking sets) that can be played using the other cards in hand. As the game goes on there's a stronger and stronger preference for specific cards, making combinations less important than the right card at the right time.