What’s the world record for someone holding their breath?
How much money is kept in the
Bellagio safe?
How many manholes are ⚽️ there in San Fransisco, California?
Do you know
the answer to any of these questions? It doesn’t matter. Do you have ⚽️ a good guess? Even
better - do you have a good guess about what your friend might guess? If so, ⚽️ then you
can play Lodden Thinks.
Lodden Thinks is a proposition betting game that was invented
at the World Series of ⚽️ Poker Europe by poker pros Phil Laak and Antonio Esfandiari in
the mid-2000s. According to Laak, the game was the ⚽️ product of boredom. As the two
played together at a feature televised table, they found themselves repeating the same
old ⚽️ tired cliched banter to one another. Esfandiari told Laak “we need to come up with
new material.” Laak thought about ⚽️ it for a bit, and he came up with an idea. He’d come
up with a question for Johnny Lodden, ⚽️ another popular poker professional who was at the
table with them, and then Laak and Esfandiari would bet on what ⚽️ Lodden would think the
answer was. The actual answer to the question was irrelevant. Nobody needed to look it
up ⚽️ or check it. In fact, the harder an answer was to check, the better, because it
lessened the possibility that ⚽️ Lodden would know the actual answer and would have to
draw upon some other knowledge or information to come up ⚽️ with a guess. Before long the
two were having more fun playing “Lodden Thinks” than playing poker, and the game
⚽️ caught on at tournaments and poker tables around the world.
The rules are simple. First
you come up with a question ⚽️ with a numerical answer. The more obscure and difficult to
know, the better. Then the two people involved in the ⚽️ bet then hold an over/under
auction. One person suggests a number they think the “Lodden”, in this case a third
⚽️ person who is not involved in the bet, will answer. The other person then can either
accept the “under”, meaning ⚽️ they will bet that the “Lodden” will say something below
that number, or they can bid a new number that ⚽️ is higher. After they bid a higher
number, the first person can accept the “under” or bid an even higher ⚽️ number. The
players keep bidding until one of them accepts the “under,” ceding the “over” to the
person who bid ⚽️ the number. Then they ask their “Lodden” the question, hear their
answer, and settle up the bet.
What makes “Lodden Thinks” ⚽️ fun is that in order to make
a good bet, you need to utilize as much psychology and prior knowledge ⚽️ of your “Lodden”
as you can. If your “Lodden” is a stranger, then you need to consider how that person
⚽️ might think based on what little information you have about them - their clothes, their
age, their gender, etc.
In this ⚽️ way, “Lodden Thinks” involves a lot of the skills that
makes poker such a dynamic and fun game. It’s important ⚽️ to get a good read on someone,
but even a solid read won’t guarantee victory. There’s still a little bit ⚽️ of luck
involved.
“Lodden Thinks” also employs an auction-style of over/under line setting, so
another skill important to winning is setting ⚽️ a good line for yourself. It can be
stressful sometimes trying to feel out where your opponent would like the ⚽️ line to be
and not going over it and giving them the over they want. The best spots are when ⚽️ you
and your opponent are far out of whack with each other’s estimates, and you can grab a
good side ⚽️ of the line for yourself and your opinion. But again, even then, Lodden can
screw it all up for you.
Laak ⚽️ and Esfandiari usually play “Lodden Thinks” for one
hundred dollars a question, but some high rollers have played for much ⚽️ more. On Season
6 of Poker After Dark, the players get involved in some high stakes “Lodden Thinks”
atR$1,000 a ⚽️ question. At one point Phil Ivey and Doyle Brunson betR$10,000 on how old
Daniel Negreanu thinks Clint Eastwood is. Phil ⚽️ Hellmuth remarks that it’s the biggest
“Lodden Thinks” bet he’s ever seen. (Ivey wins by taking under 74. Negreanu went ⚽️ for
73.)
The other thing that’s fun about “Lodden Thinks” is coming up with amusing
questions. Again, the more obscure and ⚽️ unknowable, the better in my opinion. Someone
could easily know how old Clint Eastwood is. If you want to figure ⚽️ out how someone
might guess at how many cars there are at the bottom of Lake Michigan, you’d need to
⚽️ really get inside your “Lodden’s” head to figure out how they will try to figure out
the answer. One of ⚽️ my favorite questions I’ve heard came from a table with Shaun Deeb
at the Seminole Hard Rock: “What’s the total ⚽️ number of people that have been murdered
by the current population of this casino right now?” You can imagine how ⚽️ the discussion
around the bidding for that one went.
“If you play a lot you start noticing human
patterns,” Laak told ⚽️ Epic Poker. “You start picking up edge before the game even
starts.” Laak says that the more you play, the ⚽️ better idea you’ll have about how people
will guess on questions that revolve around certain themes. So like most gambling
⚽️ games, experience and practice helps.
So the question that remains is, what does Johnny
Lodden think about Lodden Thinks? In interviews ⚽️ he has said that he had a lot of fun
playing the game at first, but that Antonio Esfandiari has ⚽️ taken the game to a whole
new level, playing it wherever he goes as often as he can. “I’ve played ⚽️ with Antonio a
bunch and I’ve never seen him lose,” Lodden said. “That’s why it’s still running. He’s
hustling everyone.”
6 ⚽️ SIMPLE STEPS TO LEARNING LODDEN THINKS
1. Designate someone to be
"Johnny Lodden"
2. Ask that person any question with a numerical ⚽️ answer and have them
write down their guess.
3. Propose a number you think they wrote down.
4. Your opponent
can either ⚽️ propose a higher number or "call" your bet.
5. Once someone "calls," reveal
"Johnny's" guess.
6. Whoever was called has to be ⚽️ under "Johnny's" guess to win. If
they are over, they lose and the person who called wins.
