Consulting Tip: Play RSA Token Poker!

As consultants, we spend a lot of time on the road.  Why not inject a little fun into your work day by playing RSA Token Poker!  It’s fun, it’s easy, and can easily help determine who’s picking up that bar tab.  Read on for more.

RSA Token?

Some companies use hardware tokens as a security measure to generate codes for use during system sign-in.  These tokens generate a 6-digit code every couple of minutes.

How to Play RSA Token Poker

Look! Four of a kind!
Look! Four of a kind!

The object of RSA Token Poker is to get a better “hand” than your fellow opponents.  You build your hand from five of the six digits on your next token code refresh.  Here are the hands you can make in order from strongest to weakest:

[table]

Hand [attr sort=”false”], Description [attr sort=”false”]

5 of a Kind, Five of the same number

4 of a Kind, Four of the same number

Full House, Three of a kind with a pair

Straight, Five numbers in direct sequence

3 of a Kind, Three of the same number

2 Pair, Two pairs of numbers

1 Pair, Two of the same number

High Card, The highest digit

[/table]

A couple of other points:

  • Obviously, there are no “Flushes” due to a lack of suits.
  • Since there is no zero card in poker, you should count the Zero (“0”) as a “10”.
  • All other rules of poker will apply in terms of winning hands.

Here are the steps to playing a round:

  1. You must first challenge your colleagues by saying, “I challenge you to RSA Token Poker!”
  2. The players then place their tokens on the table face up.
  3. Players must wait until their tokens completely refresh.
  4. As each token  refreshes, that player will declare their “hand”.  Other players must be able to validate.
  5. After all tokens have refreshed and hands declared, then the player with the highest hand wins.

It’s that easy!

Some Examples

Here are some examples of some poker hands I drew with my token.

Two Pair

467746:  Technically this is three pairs, but that would only count if you were playing a 6-card hand.

Straight

618079:  This is a great hand.  6, 7, 8, 9, 0 is a 5-card straight.

Pair

408575:  A pair of 5’s.

High Card

738619:  What a lousy hand.  A 9 high won’t win very often.

Four of a Kind

778377:  Four 7’s will likely beat the pants off your co-workers.

Straight (6-card)

431256:  This, my friends, is a 6-card 6-high straight.  1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

Wrap-up

Go ahead!  Have a little fun between meetings.  Decide who pays for dinner.  Just don’t get your tokens mixed up, ok?

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