Home game 2 deck holdem variant - question on hand rankings

[ddg333]

Ok... so myself and a couple friends want to play some crazy homegame using a 104 card deck for some small stakes just for kicks (~6-8 players) (some of them don't want to lose too much money and $5 is kinda boring otherwise) we're talking like .05/.10 NL here. Otherwise the game plays out like typical NL holdem. My question is.. with 8 of every card out there.. you have to discount quads and full houses quite a bit. Would you rate straights over flushes... I really have no idea as to the probability there. Is 5 of a kind easier to get than a straight flush in this situation? I don't really need the math.. just wondering what people would think intuitively. This is just for donking around and I see why such a variant should (could?) never be played for more than nickels and dimes. Is this game feasible?

My intuition on the hand rankings

high card (not likely)
pair
2 pair
trips
full house
flush
straight
quads
quints
straight flush
royal flush

My intuition says flushes are considerably easier to get when you're chasing 22 outs / 99 compared to 9 / 49.
Also, I'm pretty sure that full houses would be super easy to make with people playing mostly pairs to see a flop.

Such a game would highly discount the value of AK suited and the like would it not?

Is this thinking incorrect? No need for super combinatorics...(I suck at discrete math) unless you like these mental exercises. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Anyway, discuss away (or not).
Much thanks.

[GMan42]

The "discounting" of good hands really applies more to games where players get more cards, like Omaha, rather than just doubling the size of the deck.

I don't think you'll see a significant change in relative strength of hands here, although some interesting situations will come up...like having to think about whether your A-high flush isn't the nuts, since another player may have the other A of that suit but have you outkicked.

[stigmata]

The changes will be quite minimal. Although you have more "outs", you have more "non-outs".

e.g. normally for a flush you have 9/47 outs.
Now you will have 22/99

So the effect of more decks is really very minimal. It will just be the occassional interesting quirk that will occur, such as the example given above.

Might be more radical to just play with 1-deck, but introduce more cards somewhere (e.g. 2-flops, or a second river, etc) or play pineapple or something.