How To Play Poker With Your Rock Band Guitar

An anonymous reader writes 'Sean Lind over at PokerListings has written a really interesting piece on how to configure Rock Band (or Guitar Hero) instruments to use them as controllers for playing online poker. The instructions given in his how-to could really be used to configure the instruments for any game.' Or how about a genuine chording keyboard?

Comments

That's one good use for the kiddy guitar

[BadAnalogyGuy]

If you're going to play with the plastic Rock Band guitar, you might as well go whole hog and play all your games with it. It's just a controller, FWIW.

If you want to pick up women, playing a real guitar is much more effective.

Re:That's one good use for the kiddy guitar

[ari_j]

Actually, it has been my observation that playing Guitar Hero or Rock Band is at least as likely to help you pick up women than playing a real guitar, if not more so. It turns out that women are not attracted to men for any rational reasons.

Re:That's one good use for the kiddy guitar

[dunkelfalke]

Not really, as Sid Vicious has proven times and times again.

Re:That's one good use for the kiddy guitar

[Rycross]

Why does this come up every time?

Re:That's one good use for the kiddy guitar

[Mister Whirly]

And it seems your obsession with BadAnalogyGuy has led to this post. Now ask yourself, which obsession is creepier?

Re:That's one good use for the kiddy guitar

[thesandtiger]

Attraction is almost never rational, or, at least, the underlying bits are rational if you think about it but there isn't always a lot of conscious thought involved. Thus, even if the underlying bits make perfect sense, it's still not rational as being rational requires thinking.

Anyway, as a woman, I'll offer this bit of insight that may explain part of this (not very) baffling phenomena. I may get my chick card revoked for sharing this, but my ties to the nerd community are more important than the duties of sisterhood, so here goes:

Most of us tend to like guys who aren't self-important assholes. That means guys who can have fun, often at their own expense. So, guys who can get into a game like Rock Band and act like fools at it in a charming way are probably not self-important assholes. Assuming they are fair to middling in all other respects, demonstrating a capacity for merriment with plastic instruments can, therefore, tip the balance and lead to nookie.

Interestingly, many guys I've met who can play guitar (and ALL of the guys I've met who find it necessary to whine that Rock Band and Guitar Hero aren't REALLY playing guitar) are, in fact, self-important assholes who take themselves way too seriously, and thus almost infinitely unattractive.

Wow...

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet that guy rocks at poker.

Re:uhh...

[geekoid]

But if you can do it and not ruin the pizza, it would be an interesting hack. I am assuming you mean pop-up toaster.

That's nothing.

[dunkelfalke]

Those guys actually play music with it.

I don't understand?

[Useful Wheat]

I don't really understand why this is news. I have a friend that can kick your ass at any fighting game using the guitar instead of a controller. Myself, I've played Halo with the rock band drum kit, and I had 1 kill. You can't move or fire, but you can do the melee hit, which I used to ambush people who thought I was AFK. I've played several Xbox live games with the guitar, including that free side scrolling shooter. The main disadvantage was I couldn't go left or right, but up and down was easy, and all you really need. The controls for poker are so trivial I can't imagine this took more than 5 minutes of effort. The real story would be if he was playing counterstrike with the guitar, or if he was writing software with the guitar instead of using a keyboard. Because really, what coder wouldn't want to strum a guitar and have code flow from his awesome chords?

Re:I don't understand?

[swanzilla]

Because really, what coder wouldn't want to strum a guitar and have code flow from his awesome chords?

This guy. Right here.

Other mods for a guitar controller...

[dfxm]

I wrote a synth in pure data that is controlled by my guitar hero controller!

Seriously, this isn't a hardhack. All USB PS3 controllers can be plugged right into your computer (I also use an arcade stick like a sampler/drum machine). From there you use it like any HID. That means if your app supports HID you can use the controller for free. If not, you can use a program like joy2key or something.

Re:Other mods for a guitar controller...

[tepples]

All USB PS3 controllers can be plugged right into your computer (I also use an arcade stick like a sampler/drum machine). From there you use it like any HID.

I seem to remember the USB PS3 SIXAXIS controller needing a special filter driver because it doesn't provide a "button descriptor" (or something like that), which tells the operating system's HID class driver how many buttons the controller has. But interestingly enough, a PS3 guitar controller made by Blockhead worked right away, both on Windows XP and on Ubuntu Hardy.

Re:As both an avid rock bander and poker player

[amicusNYCL]

Is crap a bad word where you're from?

Re:Why is this on slashdot?

[amicusNYCL]

Because some guy used a game controller to play a different game. What, are you saying that doesn't just completely blow your mind?