Fun-Poker Games Thread

The Sandbox Games
1

As promised.
I have a weekly poker game with stupid (or, euphemistically, “fun”) variations.

Regrets:
Five players max.
Each player gets 10 cards, no-look.
Each player will create a five-card high hand and a five-card low hand from their cards.
The Play: Each player starts by revealing one of their own cards, and placing it in either their high hand (off-center to the right of themselves) or their low hand (off-center to the left of themselves).Highest high hand bets first.
Repeat reveals and betting nine more times, each time choosing to place it in either their high hand or their low hand.
After the last cards are revealed, there is no betting. highest High Hand wins half the pot, lowest Low Hand wins half the pot.

Crying Card.
Winner is the player with the best five-card hand, using any of their own cards and any of the cards in the “happy row.”
Each player gets five cards, which they look at.
Ten more cards are placed face-down in two rows of five. One row is the “happy row,” the other is the “crying row.”
First player reveals a happy card, and a round of betting ensues.
After that betting, the second player reveals a card from the crying row.
All players must discard from their hands the cards of the same value as this crying card.
Any happy cards of the same value are also discarded from the happy row.
Another round of betting.
And so on, alternating between happy cards and crying cards until all are exposed.

3 Likes
3

Is the “pile” declared publicly as to whether it’s the “high hand” or “low hand”?

Also, who wins? The one with the best high hand?

4

Two hands are created, revealed card by revealed card, by the player in front of the player. The hand on the right is the high hand. The hand on the left is the low hand.

Pot is split between best high hand and best low hand, as noted above.

During play, one often has to make a decision whether to blow up one of their hands.
Say you get a 2. Obviously that is a low card, so it goes in the low hand.
Then, you get another 2. A second 2 in the low hand makes it a pair. Putting it in the high hand could mess that up as well.
Player can fold at any time.

5

Trying to envision this with 5 players . . .

6

Well, each player has 10 cards, face down.
Each player reveals one card from their face-down pile, simultaneously.
Each player decides right there and then whether his revealed card goes in his high hand or his low hand.
A round of betting commences.
Betting ends.
Each player reveals second card from their face-down pile, simultaneously.
Each player decides right there and then whether to put his second card in his high hand or his low hand.
A round of betting commences.
Betting ends.

Repeating until there are no face-down cards.

At the end:
Best high hand wins half the pot.
Best (i.e., lowest) low hand wins half the pot.

7

you could flip one (or both) of the unused cards and make that “wild” to further bring chaos

8

Interesting! I can bring that up.
I have introduced Two-Board Hold’em, which I found on PokerStars (no longer there).
Then, for shits and giggles, I created Two-Board Omaha Hi-Lo.

9

Has anyone ever won both the high and low hands while their own low hand was higher than their high hand? I guess the answer would be yes because of the betting/folding aspect.

10

You should play “tiny-O”.
It’s Big-O (Omaha but with 5 cards in your hand instead of 4) but best 5-card hand splits the pot. Leads to some crazy betting when someone gets dealt trips or a straight and is trying to milk the Omaha players.

11

It is possible, but I don’t think I’ve seen that. People have certainly lost with their low hand higher than their high hand.
But, you got five players making seemingly logical choices with their first, oh, 6 to 8 cards. Most will might be cornered by then, and have to give up trying on one of their hands. Only the luckiest at that point can keep hoping for the scoop. I’ve seen people, after folding, who would have had a boat, but with low cards, and some of those low cards were going to be put on to the low hand.

The whole strategy in a game like this is to have a nut hand after, say, 6 or 7 cards exposed, with at least two opponents, only one of which will win the other hand. Can’t scare any of them away. Yet, I see players getting greedy and thinking they’re actually winning a big pot that was nearly half their money to begin with.

OK, enough tangent. Will create a “fun-poker games” thread.

1 Like
12

I think you misunderstood my implied inquiry . . .

The phrasing you used that is quoted in my post gives me the impression that someone other that the possessor of the cards is the one turning it up; namely, the individual sitting across from the possessor of the cards.

But I guess the player looks at one of their own cards and decides to put it their right (high) hand or their left (low) hand.

13

Yes.
There are no “common board cards.”
Each player has to form two hands from their ten cards, by choosing, one card at a time, which hand each goes in, at the same time that the other players are doing the same thing with their cards and hands.

14

Late to this party but I like the Regrets game. I would maybe play it in 3 betting rounds instead of 10 - so maybe each player assigns 3 cards at a time, betting round, next 3 cards, bet, next 3 cards, bet, then place the final card and then showdown.

15

We are playing 5cents to 50cents bets, so 10 bets don’t amount to too much.

16

Played a couple of hands of two-board Omaha hi-lo. One player who is vehemently against it wasn’t there, so less whining.

Slightly tangential question: In a split-pot situation where one of the splits is a tie between two players, how do you / would you go about splitting the pot?
I prefer starting with two stacks: main first splitter gets half, and the second stack is then split into equal stacks for the tying splitters.
The rest of my group prefers making four stacks, giving main split two of the stacks and the other splitters get one each.
Yes, the math is the same but the slow-down occurs in the second when there is an odd amount OR an even amount not divisible by four, all of which should occur about 75% of the time.
With my method, if there are an odd amount of chips, the main split winner takes the smaller stack, while the two half-splitters split the higher stack. If that higher stack is also odd, well, they work that out. It is a nickel, so manners dictate the player with fewer chips at the time gets it.

17

Bump. Last Thursday, I got pretty lucky and came home with over double my buy-in, which is pretty hard to do with the luck factor over 4 hours. Again, we are talking 5-50 cent max bets/raises and a three-raise limit per betting round. Lucky part is winning with the nut versus second-nut, and keeping third and fourth players in during a split-pot game when you have a nut-half. My friendly opponents prefer to overbet when they have a nut hand.

18

More games people play, you take it or leave it.
Kings and Little Ones
Five Card Draw game, in which Kings are wild for all hands, and the lowest card value in your hand is wild for your hand. Without doing the math, straight-flush is a common winning hand, though five-of-a-kind is quite common among five-seven players. I fold my four-of-a-kind often in this game. Helps to start with aces and kings (three total), as a low five-of-a-kind is often beat.

7/27
This is a common one. Each player gets one face-down card, one face-up card. The two players closest to 7 and 27 split the pot. Face Cards are worth half, Aces are worth one or eleven.
Round of betting after two cards.
Each player then decides whether to take a new card or stand on their hand. Round of betting ensues. This cycle continues until all remaining players decide not to take a card. Final round of betting, then “Declare”: one chip in hand for low, two for high, three for both (aka “pig”).

Yes, two aces and a five is both 7 AND 27.
On our version, a tie between one player above and one player below goes to the player below.
Variations:

  1. One dealer plays that the lowest number of cards wins in case of a tie.
  2. Another dealer prefers to deal two down cards at first.
  3. A dealer from the past would play it as “If you pig, you scoop it all in ties.” Unnecessary, IMO. So, if you pig with both 7 and 27 and another player also has a 7, tough shit, you as pig win all.

A Natural 7 (first two cards) is optimal, but in order to optimize the payout, gotta keep more than one other player in the game. Downside is that two players could be dealt Natural 7’s, and they are cannibalizing each other if only one other player is trying for 27. So, need FIVE players to make any profit. And some of my friendly opponents don’t understand that when they overbet their split-split pot, driving out players, they are actually losing money when they are winning a pot.

Slot Machine
Each player gets two cards face-down. Each player will then build a seven-card hand – high, low, or pig – as follows:
Four cards are placed face-up in a row next to the undealt deck.
Farthest card away from the deck costs 5 cents.
Next-farthest card away from the deck costs 10 cents.
Next-next-farthest card away from the deck costs 15 cents.
Card next to the deck is free.
Card from the top of the deck is 20 cents.
Players buy a card or take the free one starting with the player left of the dealer.
As exposed cards are bought, the other exposed cards are moved down the line, and a new “free” card is exposed.
After everyone who stays in has a card, round of betting ensues, highest hand leads.
Then, the cycle continues until players have four exposed cards. Last card is face-down, as in Seven-Card Stud,
After the final round of betting, players declare with one chip in fist =low, two=high, three=pig.
Note: a “pig” hand uses the same five cards for both the high and low. So, straight-flush wheel should do it.

Since players are choosing their cards, they are choosing them for a reason. If someone takes a ten of spades, they have a ten in their hand or a perhaps building a straight-flush. Someone takes a two, they are likely building a low hand.
I bow out early quite frequently. Hard to build a hand when the exposed cards for sale are no help. And out of six players, again, not doing the math, just intuiting, SOMEONE’s building a better hand than I can.
A high Full House and four-of-a-kind often win the high, while a wheel is often the low.

Take it or Leave it HI/Lo
Similar to the above, except only one card is exposed, and you either you take it for free, or you leave it and pay 15 cents for a card from the deck. Or fold.

19

7/27 can be a lot of fun.
-No reason to declare. I don’t see the positives this adds.
-You didn’t mention, but I assume you use this rule. If someone holds three times, then they are frozen. This does create a big advantage for position, but is necessary to keep the game reasonable.
-I’ve played “roll your own”, which may be the variation you are mentioning, where you get both cards down and you choose which one to flip over. Just allows more players to imply they are going for low and remove the advantage in those times that only one player has a low playing hand.

20

I was about to post Pot Builder, which is the same idea as your Slot Machine.
-We play one card down, then build a five card hand or two cards down. Sometimes play two cards down and build a seven card hand. Five makes it much less over powered. But also means you can “bust” pretty easily.
-We play high only.
-We play only three cards up to choose from, instead of four. We also don’t have the cards move down. And we used to do Free/1 unit/2 units/3 or 4 units (for the down card), but I didn’t like that eventually the free card would just keep getting taken, so we started doing 1/2/3/4 or 5 units for all cards.
-We play all cards go into your hand face down. Put the onus on the players to remember what people are taking.
-We have added a wild card. And if you take a face-up wild card, then you must win. If you don’t you match half the pot, then the game starts again.