Trying HORSE - any tips

[johnnydrama]

Playing in a home game this weekend and we want to mix it up a bit later in the night when we lose a few players. Going to go with HORSE. Any tips on making dealing on the split pots as painless as possible so we still get in a decent amount of hands.

Thanks!

[ZenMusician]

-ZEN

[pfapfap]

Just stack the chips as you go. Always do two equal stacks, even if there's no low possible, so as not to clue people in to that fact if they don't see it.

If you're doing a tournament with increasing blinds, make sure the bets are easily multipliable by a bunch of drunk degenerates.

[Small Fry]

Have players turn over their cards and have one main player controlling the hand reading. Typically this would be the dealer but if you rotate and the current dealer isn't that great go with a more experienced person. Having everyone talking at once, declaring their hands and everyone elses just adds to the confusion.

If you rule a hand out for both pots fold it so it's out of the way. Don't be afraid to push up the board cards, seperate, just a little the players cards to help identify the hand. Say, in Omaha 8 a player has A,A,2,8 and board is 2,3,5,J,4. Move his A,2 away from the A,8 and move up the 3,4,5 to identify this as possibly the best hi and lo. If another player has a 2,6 or an 6,7 then do the same for them. You might even need to decide them one at a time. Do it orderly too, work from player to player if you must, rather than jumping around. After a little bit it'll become easier and players will become better at calling their own hands.

Best advice is probably to make sure somebody trustworthy stays sober.

[diddyeinstein]

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Just stack the chips as you go. Always do two equal stacks, even if there's no low possible, so as not to clue people in to that fact if they don't see it.

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This is good. I wouldn't even have considered it.

[Lottery Larry]

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Any tips on making dealing on the split pots as painless as possible so we still get in a decent amount of hands.

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Get good chips, preferably clay. Don't play with cheap chips or really slick ones.

Stacking split game pots is MUCH faster when you can split by stack size, not by counting out the pot.

[sapol]

when heads up in split games keep each player's betting separate

[tsearcher]

Have any of you been able to do this successfully? I can't imagine this being done at a home game without a professional dealer. Or maybe everyone being sober.

[TrvChBoy]

Everyone sober and a good Omaha/8 hand reader works fine. We usually end up having the most experienced player deal, but passing the deal works fine too. Critical thing is to have a guy that can read the Omaha/8 hands.

[PokerKhan]

I do it all the time. I'm experienced at reading the hands and splitting the pots, so even when we pass the deal I take care of the split pots.

A few suggestions on split pots:

1. Determine the high hand first. Then muck any hand which doesn't have a low.

2. If you have tied hands for the high or low:
a. Split the chips into two.
b. Award one half to the side which has only one winner.
c. Now split the remaining chips among the tied hands (which might include the winner of the first side).

3. Stacking chips to split the pots is much easier than counting them. For instance, make two equal stacks of blacks, two equal stacks of reds, etc. Then do the math on just the odd chips out.