The similarities and differences between competitive poker and auto-battler games

Not long ago, during the nationwide crackdown, we poker‑enthusiasts found ourselves with no local clubs offering safe, legitimate competitive poker events. So we turned our thirst for victory toward a self‑play chess‑style game built on a DOTA 2 map, developed by China’s Duoduo Jiniu Studio and infused with elements of the national pastime—mahjong.

Dota Auto Chess combines strategic card‑battle gameplay with Dota’s custom maps, supporting up to eight players in a single match (you can even host your own SNG and claim the top three spots for prize money!).

Dota Auto Chess divides the eight players into eight separate boards. In each round, players draw units from the pool, assemble unique unit combinations, and battle against other players and AI-controlled creeps to earn gold, purchase new units, and continuously strengthen their lineups in pursuit of victory.

A few of us die-hard enthusiasts gather every night in a private room at Wangyu Internet Café, firing up our computers to play auto‑chess, and with a little friendly banter thrown in, we both satisfy our gambling cravings and avoid getting invited in for a chat by the cops.

Returning to the two games, when I first started playing them, as an esports enthusiast, I always regarded clinching the championship as the ultimate goal. After all, in my view, if you can’t win the title, why bother participating in such multiplayer competitive games or tournaments?

But after spending more time competing in poker tournaments and immersing myself in the deep mechanics of auto‑chess, I began to take a path opposite to that of most players: survival became my top priority. Only once I’d secured a better ranking—climbing into the top four (in auto‑chess, at the same skill level, staying in the top four usually keeps you from dropping rank, and sometimes even moves you up)—would I start looking for opportunities and figuring out how to clinch ultimate victory. In auto‑chess, you have to withstand the damage inflicted by opponents who’ve beaten you; in competitive poker, you need to steadily accumulate chips to keep pace with ever‑rising blinds. In essence, both are survival‑of‑the‑fittest games, much like battle royale.

From a gameplay perspective, both a single round of auto-battler and each hand in competitive poker feature three key factors that players must weigh.

The three key elements of auto‑chess are economy, your board composition, and health. I’ve seen many enthusiasts and top players on various platforms sharing strategies for climbing the ranks faster and increasing your chances of winning. After studying their guides and putting them into practice, I’ve concluded that the core of effective management lies in assessing both your own and your opponents’ lineups to strike a balance between minimizing health loss and optimizing your spending—exactly what the pros emphasize. In today’s meta, it’s rare to see players who squander their entire bankroll early on only to fall short. Still, when I team up with friends, if they spot multiple opponents drafting the same lineup in the early game, they often stick rigidly to their plan: waiting until round 17 to reach seven units before trying to fill out their roster. This leaves them bleeding heavily in the opening stages, and even after dumping most of their savings, they struggle to assemble a competitive lineup capable of matching the likes of “Tianhu Dog.” As a result, they can’t even scrape into the top four—let alone secure a decent score. Only recently have I started, after round 10, not just monitoring the number of players chasing the same lineup but also keeping an eye on them and offering timely reminders over voice chat. Only then do they manage to keep pace with my climb.

After the ten‑piece threshold, we’ll start ramping up our operations—typically by turn 7 or 9, when we begin to accumulate cash. Remember: you’ve got to be willing to let go in order to gain. By then, you should have a solid grasp of your core strategy; any pieces that fall outside that framework need to be discarded. Sometimes, after carefully assessing your opponent, you may even choose to forgo certain units in pursuit of three‑star ratings, all to safeguard your economy. The key is to lock in your preferred build early and keep only the most valuable pieces. To do this, you’ll need a deep understanding of the game and a strong sense of the bigger picture.

Another key operational skill is understanding which pieces each population is holding. When things aren’t going smoothly, I don’t recommend keeping two separate strategies for a single population in the late game—every piece you hold that’s meant to support that population could end up stalling your progress. Moreover, when you have the chance to farm Tier‑3 pieces but no opportunity to upgrade your population, you should decisively sell off any excess pieces.

The three key elements of competitive poker are position, stack size, and hand strength. Each of these serves as both an offensive weapon and a defensive bulwark. Much like the game of rock-paper-scissors, they create a delicate balance in which each factor exerts checks and counterchecks on the others.

Starting hand strength is the factor beginners value most—and also the one they tend to overestimate. In competitive poker, there’s only one hand that reigns supreme: AA, which holds an overwhelming edge and wins more than 80% of the time against every other hand. But how often do you actually get AA? On average, it happens once every 221 hands! When you finally do hit AA, you’re ecstatic—yet you still have to mask your excitement with a calm demeanor. Even so, two scenarios can unfold: either you raise and everyone folds, leaving you with just the small and big blinds (which is fine in the early stages but leaves even seasoned players frustrated in the middle and late game), or someone calls all‑in and beats your AA. If that’s the case, what good is AA?

The real purpose of choosing your starting hand is to cover the blind spots that position and stack size alone can’t address. For example, in a cutoff position against a strong opponent with deep stacks, we need to select hands that perform well against both these disadvantages—hands that can handle deep stacks and unfavorable positions. The top choice here is pocket pairs, since they can develop into set‑ups or full houses, enough to push all‑in. Next come suited Ax hands, which have the potential to turn into nut flushes. As for hands like AJo, they’re playable when stacks are shallow; even with deep stacks, they can still be played if you have position. But if you’re deep‑stacked and out of position, playing AJo becomes a double‑edged sword: before the flop, you worry about being re‑raised; after the flop, you fear an opponent might hold a big hand lurking.

Position has a profound impact on tournament poker. Tournament poker is an information war: the more information you gather and the better you can analyze it, the greater your chances of success. The true value of position lies in its ability to provide information at a relatively low cost. On average, a player with position pays far less for each piece of actionable information than a player without it. This explains why chips tend to flow clockwise around a no‑limit Texas Hold’em table—because that’s the direction from bad to good position. The advantage of position allows us to play a wider, more liberal range of starting hands and to enter pots even when our stack depth doesn’t give us a clear edge. From this perspective, position serves as a tool to compensate for the blind spots left by the two other key weapons—starting hand strength and stack depth.

Stack size has always been a crucial weapon in competitive poker. During a tournament, when you’re the big stack—far ahead of your opponents—your rivals tend to play more conservatively, knowing you have the power to knock them out. But when you hold a sizable stack and other players are also attacking from later positions, you can find yourself in a very tough spot. All in all, it’s still a double-edged sword.

In competitive poker, hand rankings are akin to the lineup in auto‑chess: both are the most fundamental building blocks and the tools players rely on to face their opponents. Chip stack size, much like health points, is a critical measure of a player’s survival. As for position and economy, they share a key similarity: both ultimately determine the outcome of the game. Mastering positional play in poker will make you far more adept at navigating the table, while in auto‑chess, effective economic management is what sets the stage—good finances let you pull higher‑tier three‑star units and craft flexible, versatile lineups to dominate your foes.