Jason sent me a link to a CardPlayer article by Doyle where he welcomes anyone to play some lesser known games for high stakes in Bobby's Room at the Bellagio. (I'm going to link to the Poker Road article instead because CardPlayer doesn't know how to properly set up deep links.)
In the article he lists a dozen or so games, many of which are variants of games that we are familiar with. And within the list, all lowball games can be played in one of three flavors: A2345 nut low, 23457 (Kansas City), or A2346 (London Lowball). It also includes different betting structures like Pot Limit Razz.
The general guideline that we have used so far is to only include WSOP games in pool of games for Dealer's Choice nights. Badugi and Pass The Trash are clearly exceptions but less face it, those are awesome games that *should* be in the WSOP. I wanted to forward on the article that Jason found so that we could discuss the pool of games that we have when we play Dealer's Choice. If we want to trial a new game we could play it at low stakes so we can all get our feet wet without it costing too much to dabble with a new game. Then if we reach consensus to add a game we can raise it to full stakes status.
Some of the games that caught my attention:
* 2346 Badugi - Badugi is such a screwy game to begin with then why not adapt Kansas City lowball rules for defining the nut low?
* Greek Hold'Em - Hold'em but you must use both hole cards so it's kinda like Omaha a bit. No more one card straights or flushes and full houses get trickier too.
* Poppyha - I'm still researching this one but it sounds like everyone gets two hole cards on the flop, a third hole card on the turn, and their last hole card on the river. Doyle refers to it as a "FUN Game" (*his* capitalizations, not mine!) so that's good enough for me.
Comments welcome.
(I should also add that none of these games are crazy wildcard or pass cards to your neighbor type of games)
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5 comments:
I like the idea of Greek Hold’em and Poppyha (pending more rules), but do we really need to mess with a dog like Badugi? It's bad enough as it is, and changing to different low rules will only screw people up more without changing the game at all.
I’m all for any game that Doyle calls FUN.
And I’m glad these aren’t “pass cards to your neighbor” type games — PtT is plenty awful. We don’t need another one of those.
I really like sticking as much as possible to games that actually get spread in some casino's at least.
PTT is the bastard child that just won't go away, but all the others we play are regulars in any higher level mixed game.
I would like to be able to play a lot of different games well eventually, and I think playing against you guys at games that are actually relevant is much better than weird games that just don't show up that much (even if they are sorta fun).
As Doyle mentioned in the article, he has played all of these games at high stakes in a LV casino. Granted, we are not likely to run into any of them but really, how many hands of any game other than Hold'em and Omaha have any of us played in a casino?
I get the idea of sticking to WSOP games and I'm all for steering clear of wildcard and card passing games (with the exception of PTT) but I don't mind dabbling in other games. Heck, if it weren't for dealer's choice day at the lunch game who knows if I'd even be playing Omaha. I don't want to play any wacky games but I think there are things that can be learned from playing a wide assortment of games and that players are better off for at least trying some lesser known games.
I wouldn't mind trying Greek Hold'Em, Poppyha, or maybe a single-draw lowball game.
Pot limit Razz would be a sick, sick game.
We tried Greek Hold'em and Poppyha last night.
Greek Hold'em didn't change things too much except that Joe doesn't know when to fold when he's CLEARLY not beating anything. I think it has the most effect on flushy boards.
Poppyha was interesting. I think we only did one or two orbits shorthanded. And when we did play it was mostly short handed limp in and fold. Never had to big hands against each other.
Overall, not much data to go on but both games are straightforward enough that I don't see any issue with learning curve. I would definitely be interested in playing them more to give them a fair shot.
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