Oh labrowwwwwwwwn....
Feb. 25th, 2007 02:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kickahaWent to a poker gathering last night, with one house rule: no Texas Hold 'Em. We played 7-card stud, 5-card draw, the usuals, and then some interesting variants. Baseball, Cincinnati, and others. Then we got creative.
I added a variant to the night that was a big hit, because it subtly changes the betting strategies quite radically. It can be added to any type of poker, I think.
Before dealing, draw a card from the deck. This is the base card. For our purposes, let's call it a 4.
Now, the wild card for the game is that base card... plus the number of people still in the game. If you start with six players, then the first round of betting, the wild is a 10. If someone folds, now 9s are wild, 10s aren't.
This forces you to predict, and try to influence, how many people are left in the game on the final betting round. 4s will obviously never be wild, and 5s will be wild only when one person has one. The interesting values are 6, 7, and 8, where you have 2, 3, or 4 people left in the game. People with 6s are going to want to force everyone else out but one opponent, while those with 7s are going to try and entice one other player to stay in. Someone heavy in 8s is going to try and keep *two* extra people in, so they're not likely to push the bet value.
One final detail: it's modulo 13 math, A as one. If the base card is a Q, for instance, that's 12. Six players would make the first wild card a 5. 12 + 6 - 13 = 5.
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badger had a good term for this, it's monetizing the mere *presence* of players, as well as their hands. Now, you have to know which players you can entice to stay, as well as those you can scare off... and you have to do so when their desires for this specific hand might conflict with their normal natures. If someone has a crappy hand showing, but you need their seat filled for the final bet, how do you keep them in, without scaring them off? And, what if they have hidden potential wilds that are the same value as yours? Or worse, one higher?
It really shoves the game from a numerical one to a social/psychological one quite abruptly. I think it would work best with games where people have partial information of their opponent's hands, but it should be applicable as a wild variant in pretty much any game. I was trying to come up with a snappy name for it, but Walking Wilds was about as good as I got, although there might be a tie-in to Lou Reed there that would be cute. Any ideas? Or, given that I suspect this is a known variant that someone came up with a loooooong time ago, is there an established name for it? :)
I added a variant to the night that was a big hit, because it subtly changes the betting strategies quite radically. It can be added to any type of poker, I think.
Before dealing, draw a card from the deck. This is the base card. For our purposes, let's call it a 4.
Now, the wild card for the game is that base card... plus the number of people still in the game. If you start with six players, then the first round of betting, the wild is a 10. If someone folds, now 9s are wild, 10s aren't.
This forces you to predict, and try to influence, how many people are left in the game on the final betting round. 4s will obviously never be wild, and 5s will be wild only when one person has one. The interesting values are 6, 7, and 8, where you have 2, 3, or 4 people left in the game. People with 6s are going to want to force everyone else out but one opponent, while those with 7s are going to try and entice one other player to stay in. Someone heavy in 8s is going to try and keep *two* extra people in, so they're not likely to push the bet value.
One final detail: it's modulo 13 math, A as one. If the base card is a Q, for instance, that's 12. Six players would make the first wild card a 5. 12 + 6 - 13 = 5.
badger had a good term for this, it's monetizing the mere *presence* of players, as well as their hands. Now, you have to know which players you can entice to stay, as well as those you can scare off... and you have to do so when their desires for this specific hand might conflict with their normal natures. If someone has a crappy hand showing, but you need their seat filled for the final bet, how do you keep them in, without scaring them off? And, what if they have hidden potential wilds that are the same value as yours? Or worse, one higher?It really shoves the game from a numerical one to a social/psychological one quite abruptly. I think it would work best with games where people have partial information of their opponent's hands, but it should be applicable as a wild variant in pretty much any game. I was trying to come up with a snappy name for it, but Walking Wilds was about as good as I got, although there might be a tie-in to Lou Reed there that would be cute. Any ideas? Or, given that I suspect this is a known variant that someone came up with a loooooong time ago, is there an established name for it? :)