Which Lord would be the best at poker?

[Alistair]

Let's imagine that all the lords of the series meet up to engage in a poker tournament (they are all taught the rules beforehand). Which is the best? Who walks away with the most money?

I haven't played Archanea, Jugdral, Tellius, and Fates: Birthright, and it's been years since I've played Awakening, so I'll refrain from talking about those lords. Of the remaining, here are my thoughts:

Gaiden/Shadows of Valentia: Both Alm and Celica are decent but not spectacular. Neither strike me as great at either the mind games or the actual strategy of knowing when to stay in or when to fold.

Binding Blade: Roy is probably the worst of these. Kid's a little too easily rattled and would probably psych himself out playing against some of the harder to read characters and the other Elibean lords.

Blazing Blade: Of the three of them, Hector's the best, Lyn is in the middle, and Eliwood is the worst. Hector is deceptively good at mind games, and probably can read the other players fairly easier. Lyn is similar to Alm and Celica in being decent, and for similar reasons. Eliwood is better than his son but not by much, and he also would be prone to psyching himself out.

Sacred Stones: Eirika is comparable to Alm, Celica, and Lyn. Ephraim would constantly push his advantage but might falter at the end, especially some against some of the better players like Hector. 

Fates: This is slightly weird, in that Rev!Corrin and Conquest!Corrin are technically the same person but their differing experiences would make them play poker slightly differently. Rev!Corrin would be a lot more self-consicous about their tells and try not to give too much away, while Conquest!Corrin is much less in their own head and more trying to read the other players and execute their own game plan. They're comparable, of course, and neither are among the best of the best.

Three Houses: Byleth has the killer instinct and obviously hard to read, but by the same token they may not be able to read other players very well. The others are a lot more debatable, especially when you consider how they turn out in the others' routes; for simplicity's sake I'll just mention the lords from their own routes. CF!Edelgard is like Ephraim in that she constantly pushes her advantage, but I think she can be surprisingly susceptible to mind games. AM!Dimitri is decent but again is very susceptible to mind games. VW!Claude has a ton of strategies, some more obvious then the others that can help him against most of the other lords, but against the best of the best I don't know how he stacks up.

Engage: Alear is just not very good at the game, probably only slightly better than Eliwood and Roy; they just don't have either the psychological knowledge or the strategic ability to work their way through all of their hands.

Of these, I think it's a three way race between Hector, Byleth, and Claude. All three, to my mind, have the ability to either bluff or think their way through the rest of the competition, but I think they're all easily matched. Byleth and Claude may be able to throw each other off given thier shared history, but I doubt it's much of an advantage on either side.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

Ephraim would always either fold immediately, or go all-in. Because he doesn't place bets he can't win.

Sigurd would have no poker face whatsoever. It doesn't help that he's repeatedly asking Oifey to explain which hand beats what.

Seliph does really well, but only because the dealer, Lewyn, has stacked the deck in his favor.

Alm and Teach do abnormally well - say, have they been abusing the ability to rewind time? Celica, of course, would never do something so dishonorable. Alear would, except Veyle nabbed their rewind crystals before the game began.

Ike would come up short, because he keeps eating the cards, against Soren's stern advice. The snacks have all mysteriously vanished. He swears, this is the last time he invites Ilyana...

Micaiah, though, would ultimately come up on top. I mean, her absurd Luck stat has to be useful for something, right?

Edited May 14 by Shanty Pete's 1st Mate
Needs more Soren.

[Jotari]

Micaiah can see the future. She wins. GG.

[ARMADS!!!]

I feel like Roy could be really good since he's fairly smart, good at strategy and can keep his cool, maybe what puts him at a disavantage is that he's a 15 years old playing against a bunch of adults and he'd probably have less experience than a lot of them. Also I feel like as Roy plays (either pretty well or at least okayish), Merlinus would stay behind him trying to tell him what to do all the time but the advice would always be shit and uncalled for, and Roy would be screwed a bunch of times because Merlinus says his cards out loud and the other people at the table hear.

2 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Ephraim would always either fold immediately, or go all-in. Because he doesn't place bets he can't win.

Sigurd would have no poker face whatsoever. It doesn't help that he's repeatedly asking Oifey to explain which hand beats what.

Seliph does really well, but only because the dealer, Lewyn, has stacked the deck in his favor.

Alm and Teach do abnormally well - say, have they been abusing the ability to rewind time? Celica, of course, would never do something so dishonorable. Alear would, except Veyle nabbed their rewind crystals before the game began.

Ike would come up short, because he keeps eating the cards, against Soren's stern advice. The snacks have all mysteriously vanished. He swears, this is the last time he invites Ilyana...

Micaiah, though, would ultimately come up on top. I mean, her absurd Luck stat has to be useful for something, right?

  ̶Y̶o̶u̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶g̶o̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶E̶p̶h̶r̶a̶i̶m̶'̶s̶ ̶s̶t̶r̶a̶t̶e̶g̶i̶c̶ ̶p̶o̶w̶e̶r̶s̶ ̶a̶r̶e̶ ̶a̶k̶i̶n̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶m̶a̶g̶i̶c̶ ̶s̶o̶ ̶h̶e̶ ̶c̶a̶n̶ ̶w̶i̶n̶ ̶e̶v̶e̶r̶y̶ ̶g̶a̶m̶e̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶r̶e̶a̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶e̶n̶e̶m̶y̶'̶s̶ ̶m̶i̶n̶d̶ ̶j̶u̶s̶t̶ ̶b̶e̶c̶a̶u̶s̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶s̶t̶o̶r̶y̶ ̶r̶e̶q̶u̶i̶r̶e̶s̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶s̶o̶ ̶a̶l̶w̶a̶y̶s̶ ̶w̶i̶n̶.̶ 

I like the implication that Sigurd asks a 14 years old to explain the rules of the game DURING the game lol.

 I feel like Chrom would eat the cards too.

 I liked your ideas, specially the ones that use gameplay aspects in the scenario.

Edited May 14 by ARMADS!!!

[AnonymousSpeed]

Marth would be terrible at the game. Not because he has a bad poker face- his masterful gentility ensures an unbroken visage at all times- but because the game by its nature conflicts with his own. Poker is ultimately a game about using deception to screw over others, something Marth would strongly rather not do.

[Jotari]

4 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Marth would be terrible at the game. Not because he has a bad poker face- his masterful gentility ensures an unbroken visage at all times- but because the game by its nature conflicts with his own. Poker is ultimately a game about using deception to screw over others, something Marth would strongly rather not do.

Marth is willing to use deception to screw over others. Because it wasn't Marth playing at all! It was Frey disguised as Marth! He screwed everyone over by not even attending. He was too busy killing all his other friends to get the Go Fish Paralogue.

[lenticular]

Let's assume that all forms of future-sight and time travel are banned. Whichever extradimensional being summoned all these characters together also put up an anti-magic field to put paid to any temporal shenanigans.

Yeah. Doesn't matter. Micaiah still wins. She has a good head for strategy and she has decades of practice in deception and concealing her intent and she's just incredibly lucky. I can't see nayone else coming close.

Ike is probably the worst player of everyone. He doesn't see the point of the game, doesn't really try, and outright tells everyone else what his hand is most of the time.

Elincia will sit timidly at the table, not doing much, folding a lot, and gradually losing chips to blinds. And then all of a sudden she's gone all in against your flush and you can't tell if she actually has the full house or not and if you get it wrong then you are so screwed.

Eirika is way too trusting and easily manipulated. "Trust me, I have a royal flush. Would I lie to you?" Celica too.

Everyone tells Corrin that they are simply the best at poker, truly a savant, an unmatched genius, guaranteed to win, no questions asked. They aren't. It comes as quite a shock.

Edelgard is good at poker, possibly even very good, but she thinks that she's even better than she actually is. This gets her into trouble.

Claude is also good, but he's too focussed on trying elaborate double bluffs and triple bluffs, and ends up playing himself.

Dimitri does pretty well to start out, but then he has a couple of bad hands, and he goes on tilt hard and makes the absolute worst imaginable decisions. The game has to be put on hold for twenty minutes after he flips the table when he's eliminated after going all-in on a high card 7.

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

Marth is willing to use deception to screw over others. Because it wasn't Marth playing at all! It was Frey disguised as Marth! He screwed everyone over by not even attending. He was too busy killing all his other friends to get the Go Fish Paralogue.

I laughed.

[Fire Emblem Fan]

I think most of them would be average Poker players. The only ones I think might be above average are Roy, Hector, Micaiah, Claude, and Byleth. The ones I think would be below average are Celica, Eirika, Ike, Corrin, and Alear.