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Poker Home Games: Cyclone

I enjoy a good night of serious, skill-heavy poker the same as any gambling enthusiast out there. However, there are also those nights when you want to get together with your friends and just kick back and play some cards. You’re more than likely going to drink some alcohol, have a sports game on television and/or music playing on a stereo, too. Point being, your concentration will not be on the finer points of the game most of the time.

In these situations my favorite games to play are ones that are fun, outside the box, with crazy rules you know somebody made up when they were drunk in the same situation. You don’t have to take yourself too seriously as a player, and you can get in and out for less than $50. That’s a good night.

Here’s one such game that I recently learned. Its main rule is absolutely ludicrous, but when you’re bored with your regular rotation of games, you’re always willing to give a new one a try. One thing I do like about this one is the potential for a different number of cards to be “in play” on any different hand, and I’ll explain now with the rules to a game called Cyclone.

There are actually two different variations to this, one that plays more like Texas Hold ‘Em, and one that plays more like Omaha.

• Each player is dealt two hidden cards (or four for the Omaha variation). NOTE: I’d keep the number of players in this game to between 6-8. As with many of these “off beat” games, if you have too few, you get no pots at all, and even in a fun game, that’s just no fun.

• Once all players have their cards, there is an initial round of betting.

• 10 cards are now taken from the deck and stacked tightly in the dealer’s hand. The dealer then holds them face up, and flips them around onto the table in a whirlwind motion (mimicking that of…you got it…a cyclone!)

• Here’s the rules for play: Any card that has it’s corner area more than half exposed (the number and suit symbol), and is still touching the other cards (and, obviously, it has to still be face up) is fair game to use as a community card in combination with your down cards.

• Final round of betting and reveal.

NOTE: It is usually the dealer’s call as to whether a card qualifies as “in.” And this is definitely the type of game you’ll want to consider whether the dealer can play a hand of his own. If you can trust each other, more power to you, but it’s something that should decided before the hand is dealt.

NOTE: If you’re playing the Omaha variation, you can still only use two cards from you hand, but the options open up depending on how many cards from the cyclone qualify to be used as community.

Poker Home Games: Black Poker

One of my favorite things in the world of home gaming is combining games. Taking a hybrid of two or more tried and true forms of gambling and meshing them into one big melting pot can spawn some unusual but rewarding results. Take double-hand baseball, for instance, or idiots blackjack for that matter. In fact, most of the games that I’ve posted on this site have been the brainchild of a group of bored kids looking for the next variation to ramp up the stakes and keep things interesting.

And that brings me to the latest creating to share with the masses. Not much to this one, sort of the simple genius that was staring you right in the face and you didn’t even know it.

Usually, when you release two titans into the same arena, they’ll spar, fight, teeth and claw at each other. It won’t make for pretty results. One will be left standing, and shout to the mob, “Are you not entertained???”

OK, that’s getting a bit carried away. Anyway, here’s the game. Let’s call it Black Poker. No racial undertones implied, you’ll see what this means in just a moment.

1. Rules are straight seven card stud, including the deal, bets, etc…

2. Here’s the twist. Your hidden cards represent not only part of your poker hand, but a separate, independent blackjack hand, as well.

3. At the end of the hand, dealer will go around the table and offer everyone the chance, for a price of course, to take their last card face up, so as not to “hit” their hidden cards’ blackjack hand if they choose not to. Otherwise, it will be dealt face down. The amount you pay to have it face up is at the discretion of the house. Usually, though, it amounts to the ante or twice the ante.

4. Cards are revealed. It’s a split pot game. High poker hand wins half, high blackjack hand wins the other half.

Yeah, this is where it REALLY pays off to have a pair of kings underneath. Even more so than that fearsome pair of aces.

My recommendation is to play this game with a group that not only likes blackjack, but is large enough to build decent pots. Usually in home cash games, the house is playing with a betting limit – meaning there’s no all-in. Therefore, the pots usually accumulate from generous betting or matching throughout the hand (see Moose, Continents, etc…)

If you have six plus players, this is a great game to work into the rotation every once in a while. It satisfies those that secretly wish they were at a casino playing blackjack while maintaining the fun of poker, and the ability to keep the best part of your hand hidden until the end. Throw in the buy on the river, and it opens an entirely new avenue into the final round of betting (which can come after the decision if the house prefers).

I like that option, actually, because it pours a little more information onto the “reading your opponents” fire. If you see someone take the card up, you know you’re going to have a decent blackjack hand to face, in addition to whatever poker hand they managed to scrape together.

Having a great blackjack hand off the deal is also a great way to build a pot, since you know that person or people are staying in to see it through to the end no matter what other crap cards they’re dealt.

Please, have some manners

 So much is made of unwritten rules in sports. In baseball, you better not upstage the pitcher after jacking a home run. Likewise, if you strike out a major slugger, don’t pump your fist too hard, especially in the NL, or you can expect to get one aimed right at your head next time you walk into the batters box. In the NFL or NBA, if you’re up by “enough,” leaving your starters in, throwing downfield or heaving up three-pointers is seen as an act of disrespect.

Whether you agree with these or not, they exist and are widely regarding as proper etiquette in sports. So, how does that translate to poker? Are there unwritten rules of poker, either in the casino or in online gaming rooms? You better believe it.

Professional players, or at least those who’ve played long enough to be considered regulars, won’t whine or cry at the mechanics of the game. They may shake their head at the decisions of another player, but crying “foul” on a flop, or just straight complaining that you’re not getting the cards isn’t what you want to be doing – at least not if you want to be taken seriously. Players there to make money and/or just have a good time will likely vacate the table if something like this continues too much.

You see this chatter more online than you do in an actual casino – the whining about betting, flops, dealing, anything and everything, you name it. And I think the reasoning behind this is pretty obvious. If you raise a racket in an actual casino, after a little while, some eventually will come by and ask you nicely to stop your bull or you’ll be asked (not so nicely) to find a game elsewhere.

It’s become somewhat of an unfortunate epidemic in online poker rooms. Whenever someone takes a sizable loss, half the time you can count on them moaning and groaning and blaming this person or that person for the loss. That’s not only poor etiquette, it’s flat our poor sportsmanship, and just shouldn’t be tolerated on any level.

One way to avoid this is to block the chat. However, this opens the door to something far worse than whining – cheating. If you block the only way to see if people are collaborating with each other, you unfortunately allow yourself to become a victim. Not by choice, of course, but it’s nonetheless every online player must be aware of.

You could report a whiner, but you’d almost end up sounding like a whiner yourself, and it’s certainly not something you want to waste time on when you’re trying to win money and/or improve your game.

So, you’re left to tolerate what you can or simply get up and try a different table or a different poker room. One can only wonder how much whining and complaining and poor manners there’d be if you could anonymously play basketball over the Internet. You’d never get a game finished because someone would call a damn foul every play.

One other area of manners I want to cover – trash-talking. Is it cool? I suppose in certain situations. I don’t particularly have a problem with it. That is, however, if it’s done for the right reason. If you’re doing it to try to elicit an emotional response out of your opponent to learn something from him or her, then by all means, have at it. If you’re just doing it to gloat, or worse, because you’re a jackass, then I have to roll my eyes and put you in the same camp as the whiners and criers.

Poker Home Games: Pot Luck

 Ready for a new home game to try? I am – or was – until this one was taught to me recently. It’s an incredible game, perhaps not for the poker skill involved, perhaps not for the betting technique it forces you to perform, and perhaps not for the patience-building skills it encourages you to develop. What it does offer, though, in spades (pardon the pun) is the ability to build the biggest pots this side of a half hour Continents session. That’s right folks, bored with small, dinky Hold ‘Em pots? Are you “over” follow the Queen because you’re only winning $2-$4 a hand? Fear not, this game will quickly come to your rescue.

Called Pot Luck (that’s my name for it, since it didn’t have one when it was taught to me – but I admit you could probably come up with something better), it’s a blend of Omaha, Hold ‘Em and, dare I say, blackjack? Well, it offers one element you’ll find it blackjack, at least. OK, here we go:

Basics – You can play with between 3-7 players ideally. No wild cards. And it’s a high/low game, so the massive pot might get distributed between a couple players unless you take the whole thing (which you planned to do anyway, right?)

Every player receives six cards.

Players then split their cards evenly into two different hands of three cards each. Players must use two cards (and only two – shades of Omaha here) from each hand respectively, which will combine – separately – with the community cards that are yet to come.

• Note – If you plan to play one hand, that’s fine. You can fold one of your hands whenever you like and continue on with the other hand. You cannot, however, keep both hands in and then only call or raise with one. If you raise or call, you must do so with both hands, which in turn costs that player double the contribution to the pot than that of the player only going in with one hand. Also, a player can’t bet against himself to increase the value of the pot (believe me, it’s going to get large enough as is). This means if you know you have a winning hand, you can’t bet with that hand and then re-raise with your second hand.

OK, moving on, after an initial round of betting, you get to see a typical Hold ‘Em flop (three cards).

Now, each player, regardless of how many hands he might be playing, must either discard one card from his hand or buy insurance on a card. Insurance will mean you can keep the card in your hand through the discard section. Insurance will be some fraction of the ante you determine before the game begins (and can be whatever the house wants).

So, if you have K, K, J for instance, you can buy insurance on them all, so you don’t miss out on the possibility of a Jack also improving your hand on the turn or the river. If two more jacks come up and no more kings, obviously you’ll want to use the Jack you saved to make trips instead of getting stuck selecting two kings and discarding your jack. Same situation with a flush draw or a straight draw.

After the insurance, there is a second round of betting.

There are no more insurance rounds after the flop bet. It’s simply turn card, then another round of betting, then river and another round of betting, similar to Texas Hold ‘Em.

Once the river round is complete, there is the declare (for high low, whatever works best for your house rules). Winner takes his half of the pot, or all of it if he wins both the high and the low.

I think this game has major potential for huge pots, but it might be contingent on how high you set the insurance. You can really make this a nasty burn ($5 to stay in the game, for example) and give anyone considering a flush or straight or a few high cards plenty to think about – similar to the match or fold rule if a 3 comes up late in the game of baseball.

Poker Home Games: Greedy Grill

There’s something I just love about guts games. Or any drop game for that matter. The difference is in the risk, as anyone will tell you, the all or nothing gamble that can really only be equaled in regular tournament or cash games by the all-in. Putting yourself “in” knowing if you lose, you have to match the pot regardless of how much is in there, gives you a different rush than incremental betting.

So, it should be no surprise that I know, play and practice dozens of different drop games. Anything that tweaks guts or high-low to make things a little more interesting or increase the pot size a little more is worth a look.

Here’s the latest one I’ve learned, and it’s a nice addition to the list.

Now, before I start with the rules, which are really quite simple, I have to open with my frustration for when guts players try to buy the pot. This means, they’ll take the risk of losing by going in on garbage, just hoping nobody else will go in, and he’ll then win by default. Of course, soon after these people showed up, the house dealers got wise and introduced the “grill,” a deck hand that would come into the play in the event that only one person stayed in for any given hand. And, like continents, eventually the grill hand made its way into every hand, regardless of how many people were staying in.

OK, so, this guts game takes that and adds another twist. Here are the rules.

1) Straight guts rules apply. It’s a 1,2,3 drop game where you hold if you’re in and you drop if you’re out. If you’re in and win, the pot is yours. If you’re in and you lose, you match the pot (in our games we always did match the pot plus 1 ante to keep the size of the pot growing even if only one person lost, but this is house preference).

2) Every player in typical guts gets three cards to work with. Straights and flushes don’t count. (Another house rule, while straights and flushes don’t count in terms of poker hand hierarchy, they would afford you the choice of trading in your hand for three fresh cards – however, if you chose to do this, you would automatically be “in” unless someone raised you back, which would give you the “out” to fold if you wanted to.) In this game, though, every player starts out with 5 cards. And yes, this time straights and flushes do count.

3) The 1,2,3 all is made to determine who will stay “in.”

4) Players who stayed “in” then receive two more cards to add to their hand. They’ll use these and the five they already have to determine their best five-card poker hand.

5) As in all guts games, best hand wins. Losing hands match the pot.

6) Here’s the twist. If only one player goes in, the grill not only gets a hand, but gets eight cards against the player’s seven. This, mathematically, should be all that’s needed to discourage even the most reckless player from going in just to buy the pot. It doesn’t make sense in this game, and that’s an aspect of it I absolutely love.

So, if you’re looking for something that evens the playing field a little bit but still retains the edge and rush of guts, all the while expanding the hands to include all of poker, this is the game for you. Give it a try.

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