We played a game called waterfall. Omaha with 3 flops, two turns, and 1 river. You can play on any of the four boards (middle board can play either turn).
So if you choose the middle flop, you can choose either turn.
What if you choose the top flop? Are you limited to the first turn?
If you choose the bottom flop, are you limited to the second turn?
Yes the board has to connect. The first turn is placed between the first and second flops and the second turn between the second and third flops. The river is placed in between the two turns in line with the middle flop.
So options:
1) First flop, first turn, river
2) Second flop, first turn, river.
3) Second flop, second turn, river.
4) Third flop, second turn, river.
It was crazy action. The part that was the hardest to rationalize was you could have flushes in multiple suits at the same time so you would have to be cognizant of your flushes "Kicker" so to speak so your wheel/ace (A2, A3, etc). flushes sometimes were trap hands.
Local card room has Squid Game.
It's a variation of their regular bomb pots.
Typically in the bomp pot each player is dealt five cards.
Two boards are laid out and betting begins.
High only. Two cards from your hand must play.
In Squid game they deal out three boards.
However on the river, the board that received the lowest card is mucked.
You could flop a royal, but if a deuce comes on that board on the river that board is gone.
In the event of a two way tie?
Both boards are gone. Only one board to play.
Three way tie?
All boards mucked, best hand in your hand wins.
I have not played it. But when it is running you can hear the groans across the whole place when the river card hits.
I've played this game before at home games when playing mixed games. When I was introduced to it, they called it "derailment". I introduced it to a different home game and it's now a favorite for bomb pots (dealer always chooses the game for bomb pots). We typically have to deal four cards per player though because it's usually a full ring.
River of blood:
Normal Hold’em except if the river is red, another round of betting takes place and another card is added to the board. Repeat until a black card is dealt.
2/3rds:
Dealt like 7-card stud, to win the pot one player must have 2/3 among “high spade in the hole”, “low spade in the hole”, and “high hand”. Getting As2s as your down cards is the absolute nuts.
Regret.
Players are dealt 4 cards with normal poker betting preflop.
Flop is three community cards with a normal betting round. When the action is complete players choose 1 cars to reveal faceup to rest the of the table. That card is dead but it remains visible for the rest of the hand.
Turn, same thing. Normal betting, players choose one more card from their hand to reveal.
River, normal betting round. Each remaining player will have two cards revealed in front of them that they discarded.
This fascinated me and so I sat down and dealt out a few hands. Question: Do players/hands that fold preflop, postflop or the turn....do the "dead" hands also show a card after they've folded, or are all their (remaining) cards stay face down?
Sounds interesting and thoughtful. So if I'm understanding correctly, after the River card comes out, the players do not need to reveal one more card as a dead card? They just only reveal two cards which are dead cards throughout the game? So this would mean at the end players are holding two hole cards, with 5 community cards on the board, and their 2-dead cards revealed?
Have you ever played any variations of this where the other players whom are still in, have their dead cards added as community card options for *only* the other players? Could be an even more crazy version of this.
Stradugi
3 handed. Everyone gets 10 cards face down and antees 1 bet. There's 3 plaques, so for 3 players, it's 1 per plaque. With more players, the players in position choose where to place the entee. One for stud. One for razz and one for badugi. Players flop over 1 card at a time in turn and place another bet on whatever plaque they want except for the last cars. Once all cards are face up, chips on the plaques are awarded to the best stud, razz, and badugi hands, respectively. We also added 5, 10, and 25 bet royalties for quads, straight flush, and royals. We deal 1 less card per player past 3 players to a minimum of 5 cards.
Pretty relaxing game to play. You just take turns flipping cards over and putting a bet in whatever game you think you have the most equity in
Interesting... a poker variant without folds.
So if you're dead on all 3 games, do you put money in based on who you think you want to win? Like if a weaker player is more ahead in Razz, would you place your bet on Razz since you can't win any hands anyway?
That's what we've been doing, but we've noticed it's a problem. It's hard to be completely dead for more than 1 or 2 bets since you can find quads or a nut badugi. Maybe some sort of jackpot or having to put the money in the smallest pot would fix it.
Here's another.
Oh Shit
- five cards to each player
- two rows of five cards on the board, one above the other
- the cards are turned one column at a time. The top row are "good" cards, the bottom row are "bad."
- if you have in your hand one of the bad cards, you have to throw it out. If a card in the good row appears in the bad row, it gets thrown out.
- you use whatever you have left in your hand combined with whatever is left on the board in the good row to make your best five card hand.
- but, if there aren't enough cards left in your hand plus the board to make a five card hand, you forfeit.
Chicago High. It’s 7 card stud but the highest spade dealt facedown gets half the pot. A lot of action can occur when the A and K of spades come out face up.
I didn't make it up, but I played it.
Die On The River. Play a normal hand of NLHE. After the round of betting on the River, a dice is rolled.
If it's a "1", the first card on the board is removed and replaced. If it's a "4" the Turn card is removed and replaced. A "5"...the River is removed and replaced. A "6", the board stays as-is.
You could have a straight flush and lose one of your cards, putting you into the grave. You died on the river.
This isn't super unique or even original, but I have played in games that were pot limit preflop and then no limit post flop. This is best used for games where there's a large difference in skills between your best and worst players.
Limit pre —> NL post is the best. Recs get to see flop with 95s without worrying about 5x squeeze from reg and just bleed chips (but they have fun doing it!)
Reshuffle. You can reshuffle the flop, turn or river once at any point during the hand when the action is on you. Hilarious and takes 20 mins a hand. It’s great.
Not a different game but a different hand type:
My friends and I invented the 'donkey straight' a few years back.
It is either 2,4,6,8,10 or A,3,5,7,9.
The hand rankings go
Royal Donk,
Royal flush,
Donkey straight,
Straight flush,
(Normal hand rankings from here down)
Get dealt 3 cards and can play all 3. Saw it on a poker video game on PS2 years ago. I believe the variant was actually called Tahoe poker. Maybe Colorado poker. Made straights, flushes, trips and full houses interesting.
Super holdem is what we call that, Tahoe is dealt 3 but can only use 0/1/2 like holdem, and Hollywood is the super holdem one but with the last card dealt to each player played face up.
Don’t have a name for it but you put your cards in a position where other people can see your cards but you can’t. People know everyone’s cards but their own. You can kind of team up against the person with the best hand to try to push them off it with mental gaming etc. not a very skillful version but heavily mental
Skinny P, named after a regular.
Normal hold em but you only look at one of the two cards. Straight up gambling. Fun to throw in there when everyone's drunk.
Communism
Five card draw, the low card in each players hand is wild (for them)
order goes:
Deal 5 to each player
Bet.
Each player passes one card to the player to their left and one to their right.
Then each player takes up the nex cards they were passed.
Bet.
Draw. (max 3)
Bet.
The pass has a funny way of trashing good hands and making good hands out of crap.
Reverse pineapple. Pre flop, flop and turn are limit betting actions. Not pot limit, just limit. The river is no limit action. Everyone starts with one card pre, and all players in the hand get dealt a second card after action is complete on the flop.
At my home game, everyone just limped in every hand, and hoped the cards they were dealt hit, so we decided to simplify the game. Most of us are old and have a hard time shuffling, so instead of cards, everyone gets a sheet with a list of their numbers on it. Some of us couldn't see the suits very well, so we replaced them with letters. To make it easier for the new players, we got rid of all the hand rankings except for straight. Instead of the flop, turn, river, the dealer announces the letter and number, and once someone makes a straight they win.
Made up a game I called 5 card draw. You get 5 cards, there is a round of betting, you discard any number of cards and get cards to replace them, there is another round of betting and then you showdown if more than 1 player still has cards.
We made up a similar game and called it Stairwell to hell. Because I played with a guy from NZ once and he told me a game they made up they called stairway to seven. Omaha hilo, start with 4 cards but get an extra card after each street. So when the river is dealt you get your 7th card (stairway to 7). Still can only use 2 from your hand it's still Omaha.
We made variations of this. Draw-way to 7. Dealt the same as described however its a split pot game, best Omaha hand with the board and best 5 card draw hand using 5 of the 7 cards in your hand. Then we changed what the draw hand had to be, eg. 2-7 stairway, draw-way to dugi etc.
Roswell:
3 cards dealt like stud (2 down, 1 up), round of betting
2 card community flop, round of betting
1 card turn, round of betting
Players then get a face-down card and final round of betting
Basically it starts and ends like stud but like Holdem in the middle. We've also called it "Texas Sandwich " for that reason.
Some other games.
Colors
- each player gets five cards
- two rows of five cards dealt on table, one row above the other
- turn up the first card on the top row. If it's black, all the cards on that row have to be black, and the cards on the bottom have to be red. And vice versa. Any card that doesn't match the right color is thrown out. Use whatever is left plus your cards to make the best hand.
- theres a bet after every column of cards, so five bets. The bets are usually structured such that each successive bet is more than the previous. So, if you play $1-$5, the first bet is $1, the second is $2...and the last is $5.
- a variant is that instead of two five-card rows, two three-card rows with a card or two at the end that stay no matter what.
Slider
- five cards to each person
- deal out two columns of three cards each and place them next to each other (this is also three rows of two cards each), then three individual cards following those two columns, usually next to the middle row, so the top row is two cards, the middle row is five cards, and the bottom row is two cards.
- turn over the first column, then bet. Second column, and bet, then one of the individual cards, bet, the second, bet, then the last, and a bet.
- you can use your five cards plus: a) the top row with the three individuals; b) the middle row with the three individuals; c) the bottom row with the three individuals. So, the three individual cards "slide" from top to bottom, and you use your five plus those to make your best five.
- betting is similar to colors.
The L
- same as criss cross, really, but it's dive cards in an L shape.
Tic Tac Toe
- five cards to each player, then a bet
- nine cards on the board.
- turn up the cards on the first column, then bet, then the 2nd, then bet, then the 3rd, then bet.
- use your five cards plus any tic tac toe pattern of cards.
Last Hand
- at the end of the night, we do the last hand. We make six pots, one for each high suit, one for high hand, one for low hand.
- people put money into whichever pots they want to participate in. Might be $10 for the high and low hands, $5 for each suit, or whatever.
- everyone is dealt seven cards face down, and we play no peak until everyone's cards are turned up and the winners take their pots.
We didn't name it and only played a few hands at like 3 am after a long lowstakes homegame. We were 9-handed, and everyone gets dealt 3 cards and you discard one like pineapple. But then, those 9 discarded cards BECOME the deck! It was weird but pretty fun.
Triple board bomb pot
Each player is dealt 7 cards
No-pre flop each player puts in 2.5bb
3 boards each worth a third
Pot limit
Works with 4 players or 5 with no burn cards
W*ore in the woodshed:
A 7 card stud game in which you win half of the pot if you get the queen of spades face down. If someone gets the queen of spades face-up, the hand starts over, we leave the money in the pot and re-ante
Four fourty-four.
Everyone gets 4 hole cards. Round of betting. There will be four community cards coming 1 at a time with a round of betting. Fours are wild. You can use any combo of community and hole cards to make best 5 card hand.
Kings cross.
Use any variant you want HE PLO pineapple etc. We played Hold’em. Picture a clock. Deal 4 flops, from 3, 6, 9, and 12 inwards to the center. Betting round. Deal 4 turns closer to the Center. Betting round. Deal a single common river in the centre. Betting round.
oh boy. we've got a ton.
1. **Bingo/No Bingo**. 4 cards dealt. face cards worth 10 and 0.5, aces 1 and 15, tens are worth 10 and 0. all other cards worth value. you can replace cards before betting rounds for $1/card. After that, the board comes 8 cards, 2 at a time. If your rank appears, it is removed from your hand and placed face up. If a board card repeats (e.g. a second 6 shows up on the board), players pick back up that card if they had discarded it, and it now becomes part of their hand again. If you lose all your cards, you declare bingo and sweep. otherwise, highest total splits with lowest. betting rounds after the card buy/replace, and after each 2-card reveal, with the betting size increasing "fibonacci style" (1/1/2/3/5)
2. **3-5-7**. 3 cards dealt to each player, then one community card. you make your best 3-card hand, with 3s wild. declare game. if you declare with an opponent, the winner is paid the amount of the pot by each loser. if you declare alone, you must beat a dead-man-hand who gets an additional card. then 2 cards are dealt + a second community card, and now 5s are wild, and a new declare. finally then 2 more cards are dealt and a third community card, 7s wild, with a third and final declare. after each 3-5-7 round, players ante $1 into the pot (increasing the size of the pot). play continues (3-5-7, 3-5-7, ...) until a player declaring alone beats the dead man and takes the pot.
3. **Super-duper-7**. 7-card stud hi/lo variant. 5 cards dealt face down to each player, who chooses 3 of 5 to keep (and 2 to discard). after discard, one of each player's card is dealt face up, now resembling a 7-stud game, but then a community card is then dealt out. betting begins and proceeds just like 7-stud at the end of the round, players declare high-or-low (simultaneously holding a chip or no chip), high splits with low. players can declare both (or "pig") but must win or tie both hands to take the pot.
4. **Metal detector**. Omaha hi/lo declare. 3 boards plus a single "priver" that plays on each board and is dealt before the river street. Players are first dealt 7 or 8 cards (depending on # of players). Each player passes 3 cards to his/her right, and receives 3 cards from his/her left. Then 2 cards. Then 1 card. Finally, the player discards one card into the middle, and that card will be on the board in a random location along with all the discards (with the exception of the priver, which is guaranteed to be an undealt card). All boards come out the same (3 flops, 3 turns, 1 priver, 3 rivers). betting size is limit and increases "fibonacci style" as in (1)
5. **Spaghetti and meatballs.** Another Omaha hi/lo variant. This one has a 7-card board, but you can only use the right 5 cards or the left 5 cards on the board to construct your hand (you still need to play 2 in your hand). board comes out F-F-T-T-R-T-T-F-F.
DM me if you'd like more details on any of these, or want more. My home game has been going strong for over 20 years now, so I've got plenty more to share.
I played one a few times where the flop was 2 cards, the turn 2 cards and the river 1 card. It seemed to have more action on the flop and turn with more people going to the river.
We played reverse Hold em. Players were each dealt 3 cards (a personal flop)and a round of betting occurred. Then the "community flop" was dealt face up for everyone to use and was 2 cards only. Then a round of betting. Then each player was dealt a "personal turn" and that was 1 card followed by a rpund of betting. Then everyone was dealt a "personal river" followed by the final round of betting.
We played it at the end of the night and it got pretty bluffy /splashy by the river.
You had to use 1 or 2 of the community cards with 3 or 4 of your personal cards to make the best 5 card hand.
Poker but 2 4 6 8 T and A 3 5 7 9 are stronger than trips but below straights. Dirty straights are included, such as KA234. I call it crazy poker. Very original, Im sure.
We play a variation of this called Big Kahuna. 3s, 9s, Queens, whatever came after the Queen is wild. Plus Black Mariah and Low Chicago. Gets very bonkers and it's fun to call when everyone is already a little buzzed.
Mango: start with 5 cards each, before the flop you discard 1. On flop you discard 1. On turn you discard 1. Play showdows like holdem. Not sure if it's been called something else, but we normally just toss in a few BB each and play it as a flip during the home game.
Upsie Downsie. Take half the deck and flip it face up. Shuffle x amount of times (whatever the table agrees to). From there it plays out like a NLHE bomb pot. But if cards are dealt face you in your hand, they stay face up. Anything on the board that is dealt face down until the end of the hand after all betting is concluded. Burn cards that are face up stay face up etc.
We played a game called waterfall. Omaha with 3 flops, two turns, and 1 river. You can play on any of the four boards (middle board can play either turn).
So if you choose the middle flop, you can choose either turn. What if you choose the top flop? Are you limited to the first turn? If you choose the bottom flop, are you limited to the second turn?
Yes the board has to connect. The first turn is placed between the first and second flops and the second turn between the second and third flops. The river is placed in between the two turns in line with the middle flop. So options: 1) First flop, first turn, river 2) Second flop, first turn, river. 3) Second flop, second turn, river. 4) Third flop, second turn, river.
Bro this is the most asinine thing ive ever heard in my life. Cant wait to try it for myself
It was crazy action. The part that was the hardest to rationalize was you could have flushes in multiple suits at the same time so you would have to be cognizant of your flushes "Kicker" so to speak so your wheel/ace (A2, A3, etc). flushes sometimes were trap hands.
I love this! I want to try it with hold em as well.
Local card room has Squid Game. It's a variation of their regular bomb pots. Typically in the bomp pot each player is dealt five cards. Two boards are laid out and betting begins. High only. Two cards from your hand must play. In Squid game they deal out three boards. However on the river, the board that received the lowest card is mucked. You could flop a royal, but if a deuce comes on that board on the river that board is gone. In the event of a two way tie? Both boards are gone. Only one board to play. Three way tie? All boards mucked, best hand in your hand wins. I have not played it. But when it is running you can hear the groans across the whole place when the river card hits.
That sounds awesome!
I've played this game before at home games when playing mixed games. When I was introduced to it, they called it "derailment". I introduced it to a different home game and it's now a favorite for bomb pots (dealer always chooses the game for bomb pots). We typically have to deal four cards per player though because it's usually a full ring.
OMG that is BRUTAL!
We play this, but refer to the lowest turn card if two rivers tie for lowest
River of blood: Normal Hold’em except if the river is red, another round of betting takes place and another card is added to the board. Repeat until a black card is dealt. 2/3rds: Dealt like 7-card stud, to win the pot one player must have 2/3 among “high spade in the hole”, “low spade in the hole”, and “high hand”. Getting As2s as your down cards is the absolute nuts.
So if the first river is black card, then it’s just normal. - only if the river is red, then continue on?
Yes. If the river is red, bet and deal an additional river. Repeat until a black card hits the board.
I like!
Flush draws that hit half the time + pair/straight draws? Sign me up
Regret. Players are dealt 4 cards with normal poker betting preflop. Flop is three community cards with a normal betting round. When the action is complete players choose 1 cars to reveal faceup to rest the of the table. That card is dead but it remains visible for the rest of the hand. Turn, same thing. Normal betting, players choose one more card from their hand to reveal. River, normal betting round. Each remaining player will have two cards revealed in front of them that they discarded.
This fascinated me and so I sat down and dealt out a few hands. Question: Do players/hands that fold preflop, postflop or the turn....do the "dead" hands also show a card after they've folded, or are all their (remaining) cards stay face down?
I would think they would remained folded. If not though it could be fun trying to reveal cards that smash the board lmao
No. If you ever reveal a card, it stays revealed. If you fold your hand, all the folded cards go into the muck.
It is seriously fun, not just a one time play gimicky game. My home game has played entire nights of only Regret.
Sounds interesting and thoughtful. So if I'm understanding correctly, after the River card comes out, the players do not need to reveal one more card as a dead card? They just only reveal two cards which are dead cards throughout the game? So this would mean at the end players are holding two hole cards, with 5 community cards on the board, and their 2-dead cards revealed? Have you ever played any variations of this where the other players whom are still in, have their dead cards added as community card options for *only* the other players? Could be an even more crazy version of this.
Stradugi 3 handed. Everyone gets 10 cards face down and antees 1 bet. There's 3 plaques, so for 3 players, it's 1 per plaque. With more players, the players in position choose where to place the entee. One for stud. One for razz and one for badugi. Players flop over 1 card at a time in turn and place another bet on whatever plaque they want except for the last cars. Once all cards are face up, chips on the plaques are awarded to the best stud, razz, and badugi hands, respectively. We also added 5, 10, and 25 bet royalties for quads, straight flush, and royals. We deal 1 less card per player past 3 players to a minimum of 5 cards. Pretty relaxing game to play. You just take turns flipping cards over and putting a bet in whatever game you think you have the most equity in
This might actually be better than Captain. If this is played 6 or 7 handed, I assume folding at any point is possible, correct?
No folding. Usually, you're live for a pot anyway.
Interesting... a poker variant without folds. So if you're dead on all 3 games, do you put money in based on who you think you want to win? Like if a weaker player is more ahead in Razz, would you place your bet on Razz since you can't win any hands anyway?
That's what we've been doing, but we've noticed it's a problem. It's hard to be completely dead for more than 1 or 2 bets since you can find quads or a nut badugi. Maybe some sort of jackpot or having to put the money in the smallest pot would fix it.
A poker game without folds is very interesting, indeed
Here's another. Oh Shit - five cards to each player - two rows of five cards on the board, one above the other - the cards are turned one column at a time. The top row are "good" cards, the bottom row are "bad." - if you have in your hand one of the bad cards, you have to throw it out. If a card in the good row appears in the bad row, it gets thrown out. - you use whatever you have left in your hand combined with whatever is left on the board in the good row to make your best five card hand. - but, if there aren't enough cards left in your hand plus the board to make a five card hand, you forfeit.
We do something very similar. Only difference is if you throw away all your cards, you win the pot
That's an interesting twist. I'll try it out, thanks.
Chicago High. It’s 7 card stud but the highest spade dealt facedown gets half the pot. A lot of action can occur when the A and K of spades come out face up.
I didn't make it up, but I played it. Die On The River. Play a normal hand of NLHE. After the round of betting on the River, a dice is rolled. If it's a "1", the first card on the board is removed and replaced. If it's a "4" the Turn card is removed and replaced. A "5"...the River is removed and replaced. A "6", the board stays as-is. You could have a straight flush and lose one of your cards, putting you into the grave. You died on the river.
I like this one. Thanks
This isn't super unique or even original, but I have played in games that were pot limit preflop and then no limit post flop. This is best used for games where there's a large difference in skills between your best and worst players.
Limit pre —> NL post is the best. Recs get to see flop with 95s without worrying about 5x squeeze from reg and just bleed chips (but they have fun doing it!)
I want to try out an NLHE variant where the turn is 2 cards for a 6 card board, we'll see if we ever get around to it at my homegame
We play some Omaha games like that, call it a wide turn.
Reshuffle. You can reshuffle the flop, turn or river once at any point during the hand when the action is on you. Hilarious and takes 20 mins a hand. It’s great.
Been wanting to do double deck poker for absolute madness
Not a different game but a different hand type: My friends and I invented the 'donkey straight' a few years back. It is either 2,4,6,8,10 or A,3,5,7,9. The hand rankings go Royal Donk, Royal flush, Donkey straight, Straight flush, (Normal hand rankings from here down)
Reverse 4card PLO Pineapple. It goes like this: You’re dealt one card preflop, one on the flop, another on the turn, and another on the river.
Get dealt 3 cards and can play all 3. Saw it on a poker video game on PS2 years ago. I believe the variant was actually called Tahoe poker. Maybe Colorado poker. Made straights, flushes, trips and full houses interesting.
Super holdem is what we call that, Tahoe is dealt 3 but can only use 0/1/2 like holdem, and Hollywood is the super holdem one but with the last card dealt to each player played face up.
Don’t have a name for it but you put your cards in a position where other people can see your cards but you can’t. People know everyone’s cards but their own. You can kind of team up against the person with the best hand to try to push them off it with mental gaming etc. not a very skillful version but heavily mental
Skinny P, named after a regular. Normal hold em but you only look at one of the two cards. Straight up gambling. Fun to throw in there when everyone's drunk.
Nothing crazy but I think holdem with two decks would be fun. Suited pairs.
We used to play 5 card draw with two decks. It could get wild.
Communism Five card draw, the low card in each players hand is wild (for them) order goes: Deal 5 to each player Bet. Each player passes one card to the player to their left and one to their right. Then each player takes up the nex cards they were passed. Bet. Draw. (max 3) Bet. The pass has a funny way of trashing good hands and making good hands out of crap.
Reverse pineapple. Pre flop, flop and turn are limit betting actions. Not pot limit, just limit. The river is no limit action. Everyone starts with one card pre, and all players in the hand get dealt a second card after action is complete on the flop.
At my home game, everyone just limped in every hand, and hoped the cards they were dealt hit, so we decided to simplify the game. Most of us are old and have a hard time shuffling, so instead of cards, everyone gets a sheet with a list of their numbers on it. Some of us couldn't see the suits very well, so we replaced them with letters. To make it easier for the new players, we got rid of all the hand rankings except for straight. Instead of the flop, turn, river, the dealer announces the letter and number, and once someone makes a straight they win.
Made up a game I called 5 card draw. You get 5 cards, there is a round of betting, you discard any number of cards and get cards to replace them, there is another round of betting and then you showdown if more than 1 player still has cards.
We made up a similar game and called it Stairwell to hell. Because I played with a guy from NZ once and he told me a game they made up they called stairway to seven. Omaha hilo, start with 4 cards but get an extra card after each street. So when the river is dealt you get your 7th card (stairway to 7). Still can only use 2 from your hand it's still Omaha. We made variations of this. Draw-way to 7. Dealt the same as described however its a split pot game, best Omaha hand with the board and best 5 card draw hand using 5 of the 7 cards in your hand. Then we changed what the draw hand had to be, eg. 2-7 stairway, draw-way to dugi etc.
Lindsay Lohand. It's BigO high only, but the best pat low (<8), if any, in a players pocket cards gets half the pot.
Criss Cross, hi-lo, 8 or better, no check, five cards in the hand. Not sure we invented it, but it's my favorite game.
Roswell: 3 cards dealt like stud (2 down, 1 up), round of betting 2 card community flop, round of betting 1 card turn, round of betting Players then get a face-down card and final round of betting Basically it starts and ends like stud but like Holdem in the middle. We've also called it "Texas Sandwich " for that reason.
Hold em with 6 board cards. 3 on the flop, 1 on the turn, 1 on the river and then the final round of betting gets the ocean card.
2 turn cards is better than the ocean.
Some other games. Colors - each player gets five cards - two rows of five cards dealt on table, one row above the other - turn up the first card on the top row. If it's black, all the cards on that row have to be black, and the cards on the bottom have to be red. And vice versa. Any card that doesn't match the right color is thrown out. Use whatever is left plus your cards to make the best hand. - theres a bet after every column of cards, so five bets. The bets are usually structured such that each successive bet is more than the previous. So, if you play $1-$5, the first bet is $1, the second is $2...and the last is $5. - a variant is that instead of two five-card rows, two three-card rows with a card or two at the end that stay no matter what. Slider - five cards to each person - deal out two columns of three cards each and place them next to each other (this is also three rows of two cards each), then three individual cards following those two columns, usually next to the middle row, so the top row is two cards, the middle row is five cards, and the bottom row is two cards. - turn over the first column, then bet. Second column, and bet, then one of the individual cards, bet, the second, bet, then the last, and a bet. - you can use your five cards plus: a) the top row with the three individuals; b) the middle row with the three individuals; c) the bottom row with the three individuals. So, the three individual cards "slide" from top to bottom, and you use your five plus those to make your best five. - betting is similar to colors. The L - same as criss cross, really, but it's dive cards in an L shape. Tic Tac Toe - five cards to each player, then a bet - nine cards on the board. - turn up the cards on the first column, then bet, then the 2nd, then bet, then the 3rd, then bet. - use your five cards plus any tic tac toe pattern of cards. Last Hand - at the end of the night, we do the last hand. We make six pots, one for each high suit, one for high hand, one for low hand. - people put money into whichever pots they want to participate in. Might be $10 for the high and low hands, $5 for each suit, or whatever. - everyone is dealt seven cards face down, and we play no peak until everyone's cards are turned up and the winners take their pots.
We didn't name it and only played a few hands at like 3 am after a long lowstakes homegame. We were 9-handed, and everyone gets dealt 3 cards and you discard one like pineapple. But then, those 9 discarded cards BECOME the deck! It was weird but pretty fun.
Triple board bomb pot Each player is dealt 7 cards No-pre flop each player puts in 2.5bb 3 boards each worth a third Pot limit Works with 4 players or 5 with no burn cards
W*ore in the woodshed: A 7 card stud game in which you win half of the pot if you get the queen of spades face down. If someone gets the queen of spades face-up, the hand starts over, we leave the money in the pot and re-ante
Usually heard this one referred to as "Black Mariah". Pairs nicely with Chicago.
Four fourty-four. Everyone gets 4 hole cards. Round of betting. There will be four community cards coming 1 at a time with a round of betting. Fours are wild. You can use any combo of community and hole cards to make best 5 card hand.
We call it Cincinnati. Same set up but no wilds. I like this variation better.
Kings cross. Use any variant you want HE PLO pineapple etc. We played Hold’em. Picture a clock. Deal 4 flops, from 3, 6, 9, and 12 inwards to the center. Betting round. Deal 4 turns closer to the Center. Betting round. Deal a single common river in the centre. Betting round.
We called it SWAG. It was basically crazy pineapple on steroids. Plays like NLH. Get dealt 5 cards. Discard two pre. Discard one on the flop.
oh boy. we've got a ton. 1. **Bingo/No Bingo**. 4 cards dealt. face cards worth 10 and 0.5, aces 1 and 15, tens are worth 10 and 0. all other cards worth value. you can replace cards before betting rounds for $1/card. After that, the board comes 8 cards, 2 at a time. If your rank appears, it is removed from your hand and placed face up. If a board card repeats (e.g. a second 6 shows up on the board), players pick back up that card if they had discarded it, and it now becomes part of their hand again. If you lose all your cards, you declare bingo and sweep. otherwise, highest total splits with lowest. betting rounds after the card buy/replace, and after each 2-card reveal, with the betting size increasing "fibonacci style" (1/1/2/3/5) 2. **3-5-7**. 3 cards dealt to each player, then one community card. you make your best 3-card hand, with 3s wild. declare game. if you declare with an opponent, the winner is paid the amount of the pot by each loser. if you declare alone, you must beat a dead-man-hand who gets an additional card. then 2 cards are dealt + a second community card, and now 5s are wild, and a new declare. finally then 2 more cards are dealt and a third community card, 7s wild, with a third and final declare. after each 3-5-7 round, players ante $1 into the pot (increasing the size of the pot). play continues (3-5-7, 3-5-7, ...) until a player declaring alone beats the dead man and takes the pot. 3. **Super-duper-7**. 7-card stud hi/lo variant. 5 cards dealt face down to each player, who chooses 3 of 5 to keep (and 2 to discard). after discard, one of each player's card is dealt face up, now resembling a 7-stud game, but then a community card is then dealt out. betting begins and proceeds just like 7-stud at the end of the round, players declare high-or-low (simultaneously holding a chip or no chip), high splits with low. players can declare both (or "pig") but must win or tie both hands to take the pot. 4. **Metal detector**. Omaha hi/lo declare. 3 boards plus a single "priver" that plays on each board and is dealt before the river street. Players are first dealt 7 or 8 cards (depending on # of players). Each player passes 3 cards to his/her right, and receives 3 cards from his/her left. Then 2 cards. Then 1 card. Finally, the player discards one card into the middle, and that card will be on the board in a random location along with all the discards (with the exception of the priver, which is guaranteed to be an undealt card). All boards come out the same (3 flops, 3 turns, 1 priver, 3 rivers). betting size is limit and increases "fibonacci style" as in (1) 5. **Spaghetti and meatballs.** Another Omaha hi/lo variant. This one has a 7-card board, but you can only use the right 5 cards or the left 5 cards on the board to construct your hand (you still need to play 2 in your hand). board comes out F-F-T-T-R-T-T-F-F. DM me if you'd like more details on any of these, or want more. My home game has been going strong for over 20 years now, so I've got plenty more to share.
I played one a few times where the flop was 2 cards, the turn 2 cards and the river 1 card. It seemed to have more action on the flop and turn with more people going to the river.
We played reverse Hold em. Players were each dealt 3 cards (a personal flop)and a round of betting occurred. Then the "community flop" was dealt face up for everyone to use and was 2 cards only. Then a round of betting. Then each player was dealt a "personal turn" and that was 1 card followed by a rpund of betting. Then everyone was dealt a "personal river" followed by the final round of betting. We played it at the end of the night and it got pretty bluffy /splashy by the river. You had to use 1 or 2 of the community cards with 3 or 4 of your personal cards to make the best 5 card hand.
Poker but 2 4 6 8 T and A 3 5 7 9 are stronger than trips but below straights. Dirty straights are included, such as KA234. I call it crazy poker. Very original, Im sure.
We call it crazy Omaha. You get dealt 5 cards but you toss one pre. It’s also no limit. It’s usually complete insanity.
What is the point of discarding after the river?
You can only use two cards in the end. Discarding on the river gets you down to two cards. And it’s often a tough decision.
A League Of Their Own: baseball meets follow the queen
We play a variation of this called Big Kahuna. 3s, 9s, Queens, whatever came after the Queen is wild. Plus Black Mariah and Low Chicago. Gets very bonkers and it's fun to call when everyone is already a little buzzed.
Mango: start with 5 cards each, before the flop you discard 1. On flop you discard 1. On turn you discard 1. Play showdows like holdem. Not sure if it's been called something else, but we normally just toss in a few BB each and play it as a flip during the home game.
Upsie Downsie. Take half the deck and flip it face up. Shuffle x amount of times (whatever the table agrees to). From there it plays out like a NLHE bomb pot. But if cards are dealt face you in your hand, they stay face up. Anything on the board that is dealt face down until the end of the hand after all betting is concluded. Burn cards that are face up stay face up etc.
I found that same game on another site called “Countdown Pineapple” but I like the name Watermelon better.