poker variations

[paul wheaton]

At my house, we play "pea poker". But a 1000 dried peas for a buck. The night's big winner gets the pot. A bean is worth ten peas. A macaroni is worth ten beans. So a person usually starts out with 8 macs, 18 beans and 20 peas. Pea ante. Mac max bet.

We got into a bit of a rut where almost all of our games were either "black mariah" (7 card stud, queen of spaces face up forces a redeal and low spade in the hole splits the pot) or "queen follow the queen" (7 card stud, queens are wild, when a queen is dealt face up, the next face up card is also wild).

So tonight, we're going to try some new variations - thanks to the mighty internet!

The best one I like so far is "tree poker". A variation of five card draw. Everybody starts with five cards, then bets. Then you can trade cards with everybody else as much as you like. Then the final round of betting.

Any of you do much with poker?

[fred rosenberger]

i like 7-card no-peek (you can also do 5-card, but it's not as fun, IMHO). everyone is dealt 7 cards, face down, you are not allowed to look at them.

The first person turns over one card at a time until he has the best hand (for the first person, it's one card). a round of betting.

Then the second person keeps turning over cards, again, one at a time, until he has a better hand (a round of betting), or runs out of cards and folds.

repeat until everyone is out of cards except the person currently holding the high hand.

[paul wheaton]

Kathy Sierra was known for a while as "The Bean Queen". Given that the "pea poker" we have here has beans in it, I made up the following variation:

Bean Queen (7 card stud)
When a queen is dealt face up, all players may then pay a bean to make a face up card wild for them. That card is marked with a bean (which will go into the pot at the end of the game). If the player does not have a card up yet, the player cannot make a card wild. If the player already has a bean on a card, the player may pay another bean to move the marker bean to a different up card.

What do you all think?

[paul wheaton]

I got to thinking that this wasn't very fair to folks sitting to the right of the dealer. So I changed it a bit:

Bean Queen (7 card stud)
After any face up deal, if a queen has been dealt up, all players may then pay a bean to make a face up card wild for them. That card is marked with a bean (which will go into the pot at the end of the game). If the player already has a bean on a card, the player may pay another bean to move the marker bean to a different up card.