Brought to you by Matt (raise or fold) and Adam and the rest of the game night brain trust, here is a game that was a huge hit this week.

First of all, for extra style points, say the following: "This is a game that my father taught me, and his father taught him. It goes by two names: between the sheets, or in between."

Second of all, everybody that is playing pays an ante. This becomes the pot. The dealer shuffles one deck of cards and deals two cards face up on the table, with space in between for a third card. Suppose that they are a 3 and a 9. (Suit does not matter.) The person to the dealer's left goes first, so he now chooses one of the following:

• He can pass, which means that he pays one additional ante into the pot, and his turn ends.
• He can bet any amount between twice the ante and the size of the pot.

If the player bets, the next card from the deck is turned face up between the first two. Now one of three things happens:

• The third card is between the first two (say a 7 in this example). The player wins the amount of his bet, which he takes out of the pot. If he bet the whole amount (which you call "potting it") then the pot is now empty, and the round ends, and you start over with the next dealer.
• The third card is not between the first two (such as a K). The player loses his bet, which is added to the pot.
• The third card goes "off the post," which means it pairs with one of the first two cards (say a 3). The player loses TWICE the amount of his bet, which is added to the pot. The clever reader will observe that if you bet the pot and post it, you have tripled the size of the pot.

That's it. The round continues with each player taking a turn until somebody bets the pot and wins it all. When there are five cards left undealt, you pick up all of the face-up cards except for the ones that are currently playing, reshuffle, and keep going.

Now there are a few points you'll notice when you start playing:

• You have to decide before you start whether aces are high or low. They can't be both. We played aces are high.
• It's not at all unusual to get dealt two cards that are adjacent, like an 8 or a 9, which means that it's impossible to bet and win. When that happens, you are just screwed. But you CAN still bet and lose if you want to.
• There is always the risk of posting on any bet, which means that you can only bet half of the chips you have at any time, so that you will be able to pay twice your bet if you have to. Unless your credit with the house is good, then you can do what you want. According to legend, people lose televisions this way.

That's the basic game that we started with, but we added lots of variations. Any or all of these extended-edition rules can be applied at the same time, which is what we did.

The Own Goal

When the first two cards pair before you have even seen the third card, you have automatically posted, and you have to pay 2 times the current "pass" price.

When you auto-post immediately after somebody that auto-posted, you have to pay 2 times what that person had to pay. Rinse, repeat..

The Dice Bonus Multiplier

It's a scientific fact that any game is 50% more awesome with dice, so we tried a few variations, and here is the best way to get dice involved.

On your turn, as the dealer is dealing your two cards, you also roll a die. For this turn, the price of passing is (size of ante times roll), and the minimum bet is always twice the price of passing. So you always want to roll small numbers for maximum choice, but you are frequently screwed with a crappy spread and a big roll.

NB: If the pot is smaller than the minimum bet, you can only bet the pot, of course. Therefore when there is a small pot and a big roll, you might have higher expected value by making a guaranteed-loser pot-size bet. This is one of the many awesome things that happen to you in this game.

The Joker Whammy

Shuffle in one or two jokers. If one comes up on your first two cards, you have auto-posted and you pay the penalty as defined in Own Goal, including the doubling of any subsequent auto-post. If a joker comes up as your third card, that's just an ordinary post and you pay twice your bet.

Exception: If your first two cards are both jokers, you win the pot immediately.

The Surrender

We learned pretty fast that if you are going to play with dice, and jokers, and own goals, you can rack up some really hefty penalties. So if you want most people to stay in the game, you have to give them the ability to limit their risk. First, declare that the maximum possible penalty, no matter what die roll or bonus multipliers are in effect, is twice the size of the pot (which is what happens when you pot-post in the basic game anyway).

Now, before each player's turn, without seeing any cards or rolling the dice, that player has the option of surrendering the round. Then you don't take a turn at all, and you can't come back in until the next round, no matter how big or small the pot gets. If there are only two people left and one surrenders, the other wins the pot.

The photograph has nothing to do with the game at all, but blog entries are 50% more awesome with photographs.

14 Jul 2006 01:12 PT - persistent link - trackback - 1 comment

Once in a while when I have more important things to do, I sit around thinking up weird games (and once in a very long while I get people to play one, which is usually a lot easier if I pretend that I did not make it up). This tends to happen when I do something like try to go to bed early at 2 AM and lie awake for two hours.

Here's what I am thinking this time: How about a game of poker where you also hold Magic cards, and your money is also your life total, kind of like Knightmare Chess. I think it could be done. Here are the rules so far:

Setup

Start an ordinary game of Texas Hold-em with whatever number of chips you like (all players must start with the same number, however). Divide this number by 20 to find the value of one life point, which will remain constant throughout the game. For example, an easy system would be to start each player with 20 chips, which would mean that one life point is worth one chip.

Each player has a shuffled deck ("library") of Magic cards in front of her. Each player will hold both a poker hand and a Magic hand, which are independent, but no Magic cards are drawn at the start of the game.

Play

The game proceeds according to ordinary poker rules until players have acquired some Magic cards. Magic cards must be earned in the following way: At the end of a hand of poker, after the final betting round after the final (river) card, all players that are still in the pot hold their two poker cards over the table and count to three. On the count of three, each player either drops both cards on the table, holds both, or holds one and drops the other (as in the game 3-5-7). Only the cards that are held can be used to win the pot, so a player that drops both has forfeited any claim on the pot and cannot win it. But, a player is entitled to draw one Magic card for each poker card that is dropped.

If all players drop all their cards, the entire pot is forfeited to a special kitty called the "Bank." Other functions of the Bank will be described below.

Hymn to Tourach kicks even more ass when you can use it to boot somebody out of a pot...

Magic turn structure

Magic "turns" roughly correspond to poker hands. Each player receives an untap phase and upkeep phase before she takes action on the first betting round (pre-flop) of a new hand of poker (even if she folds the poker hand). The draw phase only occurs if it is earned at the end of a hand, as previously described. All players except the next dealer receive a "main" phase during the time between poker hands, after the pot has been decided but before the first betting round begins on the next hand. This is therefore the only time that creatures can attack, lands and sorceries can be played, and so on. Instants or other Magic effects that can be played at any time can still be played at any time, including in the middle of a poker betting round.

Interpretation of Magic cards

• When a player takes damage, she forfeits the appropriate number of chips to the Bank (the special kitty described above).
• When a player gains life, she takes chips from the Bank. If the Bank is empty, life-gaining cards have no effect.
• When a Magic card refers to a player's "hand," it can apply to either that player's Magic hand, or her poker hand, but not both at the same time. (Yes, Glasses of Urza just got much more valuable.)
• "Opponent" means all the other players in the game.
• "Library" can mean either a specific player's deck of Magic cards, or the undealt remainder of the poker deck, but not both.
• "Graveyard" can mean either a player's individual Magic graveyard, or the set of discarded poker cards in the muck (including any burned cards), but not both. If the order matters, the controlling player can decide what "order" the poker discards are in.
• The face-up, communally held poker cards (the board) are "permanents," and can be destroyed or manipulated by Magic cards that affect permanents (although they will have to be instant effects, since sorceries can only be played between hands). Poker cards can be "removed from the game," but they are shuffled back in before the next poker hand. All poker cards have a casting cost of zero, and are either "red" or "black" for Magic purposes. During the showdown, when players' hole cards are revealed, these are also permanents for a short time, and can be destroyed before the pot is awarded. (Good use for Blue Elemental Blast...)
• Poker cards can never be mixed in to a Magic library or graveyard, and Magic cards can never be mixed in to the poker deck.

Naturally, players are eliminated when they have no more chips. Players whose chips are "all in" the pot are allowed to stay in to the showdown of course, but if they lose, they are immediately eliminated from the game without another chance to play Magic effects.

Notes

Obviously, Magic cards can have a dramatic effect on the poker game, so the drawing mechanic stolen from 3-5-7 is intended to make them quite expensive to acquire. Merely drawing the standard Magic starting hand of seven cards would require paying for and probably forfeiting four pots, which could be a crippling expense. The drawing mechanic should also punish players that are too passive at the poker betting, because it is a bad idea to allow your opponents to reach the showdown (and potentially receive two Magic cards) for cheap. A strategy of staying in every hand to the river might emerge among some players, but correct (aggressive) betting should quickly eliminate it.

The conflation of money and life points should make it obvious that good Magic strategy (or luck) can compensate for poor poker strategy, or vice versa. The point of the Bank is to preserve the zero-sum properties of poker (the total amount of money/life in the game remains constant), which helps prevent the game from going on indefinitely.

It would be possible to play Pokermagic with an increasing blind structure like in a poker tournament, but this is probably not necessary because players will acquire more and more disruptive Magic abilities as the game goes on.

As long as there are not too many Magic effects to be played, letting all the players have a vaguely simultaneous "main" phase shouldn't be a problem. If it matters, each player can take a turn in order, starting to the dealer's left and going around. The reason for skipping the dealer's Magic turn is to help keep the poker game from bogging down too much, since the dealer needs to be shuffling and dealing. Also, being the dealer is a substantial advantage in the poker game, so it seems reasonable to simultaneously disadvantage the dealer in the Magic game.

It is quite likely that there are plenty of Magic cards and combos that are horribly broken in this game, although I have tried to define away some obvious ones. Poker cards can't be permanently "removed from the game" because otherwise it would be pretty easy to cripple the poker deck with e.g. Tormod's Crypt. Likewise with the rule against commingling poker cards and Magic cards in graveyards or libraries in unnatural ways. Some cards like Demonic Tutor become just comedically powerful, but then Demonic Tutor is already comedically powerful in plain Magic, which is why it was banned.

So there you go..all I need now is about a thousand hours of playtesting. If anybody else tries it, I'd like to hear how it goes...

19 Dec 2005 03:59 PT - persistent link - trackback - 1 comment