Sunday, January 24, 2010

Card Games

When we played card games on New Year's, I tried to pull out a few of the games my father in law and his friends had introduced me to on quarter day:

1.) Pass 4 one way. 3 the other way. 2 the other way. 1 the other way. A round of betting each time. Low and high hands split the pot. This one drove people crazy, but there was a method to the madness and you really had to think about what you were passing.

2.) Jacks or better to stay in. Trips to win. Old game, but I always forget it exists. Forces you to play hands that might not normally get played.

3.) High hand AND high spade to win. If someone doesn't have high hand and high spade, the pot rolls over and you play again until someone wins. This can result in some very large pots if you play a stud variant unless you put a rollover limit on it.

4.) High hand splits with high spade in the hole. Or, high hand splits with low spade in the hole.

5.) I can't remember the 10 of diamonds/Q of spades game exactly. But it had something to do with making everyone throw their cards back in on a 10D and the QoS being wild maybe? No, I bet the QoS took half the pot. The trick was to have the 10D face down so you knew your QoS was good.

There are a pile of good variants for poker out at rec.gambling.poker if you're looking for something interesting.

2 comments:

Mac Noland said...

How many beers does it take to give up the novelty games and play something less sophisticated like Texas Hold'em?

When playing cards with my college friends, I find we always revert back to Buck Euchre after about five beers.

Scooter said...

It did indeed fall back to Hold 'Em at the end of the night. With my father in law's friends, it's about the food, so the quarter games last a long time.