Nutty and Non-Nutty Poker Variants

[MarkGritter]

[ QUOTE ]
Stud hi/lo without a qualifier appears to be nutty! There are not many cases where a starting hand such as KKK can be assured of a scoop, but there are a few. (KxKx)KsQsJsTs(9s) is a straight flush and a KQJT9-low, and scoops against any quads on board, such as (xx)8888(x), since the latter can make only a pair of eights for low at best.

I need some help with your terms. In the hold 'em example, I assumed that the nuts was a hand that would win <u>regardless</u> of what its opponent's hand was. In the above hi-lo example, this is not the case--the nuts is opponent-dependent.

[/ QUOTE ]

I am assuming that nuts = best hand given the information available to you. In board games, this is your hand + the board, but in stud games this is your hand + all your opponents' boards.

The question in either case is "is there some board (some boards) that will guarantee a win (or tie) for a given starting hand". If the answer is always yes (any starting hand can develop into a lock) then the game is nutty. If the answer is no (there is at least one starting hand that cannot lock up the pot no matter what falls) then the game is allergic.