Bored now. Invent a novel poker variant.

[MarkGritter]

aka "Nim-chinese-poker"

Each player in this game is dealt 13 cards. The table is marked with spots for four to eight 5-card hands and two to four 3-card hands. (2x and 1x the number of players.)

Each player in turn, starting to the left of the dealer, places one card face-up in one of the hands. Subsequent rounds alternate between placing cards face-down or face-up.

The player who completes a five- or three- card hand must pick it up immediately and play it as one of his three chinese poker hands. A player may not complete a hand if he has no more room to take it.

Once all hands are taken scoring proceeds as in chinese poker.

Variants: 2-7 in the middle, of course. You might also scrap the alternating face-up/face-down rule and play either all exposed or all face-down. Or require only the first card in each hand be exposed, etc.

[Phat Mack]

Man, I was hoping for some entries here. I've invented some weird ones, but have published them on RGP etc.

Lately I've been thinking of an omaha indian variant. Players would get four cards, two down which they would see, and two that would be placed on their forehead (or in their hat band) that only their opponent would see. Players would have to play one down card and one forehead card. I suspect that it would have to be played high- or low- only. Played high-low, one wouldn't know if he had a low qualifier until showdown. Perhaps the strategy would be to play high hands that could back into low hands.

[Ben Young]

"7-card draft"

this was actually invented by some of my dad's friends, and is kind of like roll your own pass the trash or something.

the idea is for it to be a draft like M:TG

Rules:

Each player is dealt 7 cards face down and they pick one, put it face down, and pass the remaining 6 cards to your left(or right, up to the people playing or the dealer or whatever). You continue passing in the same direction, taking one each time. You MAY NOT look at your already picked cards that are down, until you are finished drafting all 7 cards.

Betting part rules:
a)my variation:
Split-pot lo 8 or better(A-5 rules like stud8) betting: half-pot limit
take your seven cards and put them in any order you wish, then when everyone has done this, everyone turns up their top card and the low card brings it in, next round whoever is left does this again, but from now on high showing hand is first to act, do this again and again... until the 7th card if players are still in, when there will obviously be no betting(on the 7th card).

b) my dad's friend's variation
instead of rolling your own with 7, you do it with 5, but you still draft 7.

c)my dad's variation
9lo qualifier instead of 8 lo, the rest is like b)

[Phat Mack]

I like this a lot. I can envision it being played hi-lo with no qualifier, then, after the 5th card is rolled, bet-declare-bet.

One of the great things about anaconda is watching the cards travel around the table and trying to deduce who is taking which card. With this variant, it might be even more difficult to do so.

[Ben Young]

well actually, in magic, where you draft 3 packs of 15 cards, first pack left(if I remember correctly, it's been a while, if not then reverse all directions I list) then right then left, some players(ie not me) are able to deduce which colors you are playing and such.

[Nichlemn]

3 Ace NLHE

Simply enough, No Limit Hold'em (could be other games) with the A[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] removed from the deck. Despite being a seemingly minor change, it would considerably alter the game:

- Big Aces become weaker as they have five outs to hit a pair rather than 6.
- Pocket Aces become considerably rarer, and slightly weaker as they only have 1 out to a set.
- Broadway and wheel straights are even harder to hit.
- Spade flushes are harder to get, which also reduces the value of suited spades preflop.
- Having the Ace as an overcard to your pair is less of a problem, because (a) there are fewer Aces in the deck that an opponent could have paired and (b) they are more likely to have been folded preflop due to the Aces being weaker.