All current poker variants suck.

CP is for losers who want to gamb00l it up without playing real poker.

TD is for losers with masochism. (In the words of Chris Fargis, "Triple draw is like a carnival game. Step right up and try to accomplish some wacky goal. You get three tries!")

Draw is for losers who haven't entered the 21st century.

Your challenge: invent a new poker variant with a novel mechanism. (It can be a stupid game for losers, too. It just has to be a new one.)

No previously-published variant allowed.

Bonus points (*) if it's a lowball game.

(*) Points are worth nothing, just like Drew Carey.

aka "Nim-chinese-poker"

Each player in this game is dealt 13 cards. The table is marked with spots for four to eight 5-card hands and two to four 3-card hands. (2x and 1x the number of players.)

Each player in turn, starting to the left of the dealer, places one card face-up in one of the hands. Subsequent rounds alternate between placing cards face-down or face-up.

The player who completes a five- or three- card hand must pick it up immediately and play it as one of his three chinese poker hands. A player may not complete a hand if he has no more room to take it.

Once all hands are taken scoring proceeds as in chinese poker.

Variants: 2-7 in the middle, of course. You might also scrap the alternating face-up/face-down rule and play either all exposed or all face-down. Or require only the first card in each hand be exposed, etc.

Man, I was hoping for some entries here. I've invented some weird ones, but have published them on RGP etc.

Lately I've been thinking of an omaha indian variant. Players would get four cards, two down which they would see, and two that would be placed on their forehead (or in their hat band) that only their opponent would see. Players would have to play one down card and one forehead card. I suspect that it would have to be played high- or low- only. Played high-low, one wouldn't know if he had a low qualifier until showdown. Perhaps the strategy would be to play high hands that could back into low hands.

Each player is dealt nine cards from a double poker deck. A round of betting occurs, then each player exposes one card clockwise from the button. Repeat etc.

While there are two of each card in play, each card may be exposed only once, and only exposed cards play. A player who has exposed all possible cards may choose to be treated as all in. After all players have either reached this state or exposed seven cards, showdown occurs and the best five-card poker hand wins.

Obviously this can be played as lowball or high-low as well. A seven-card Badugi version could be quite interesting with blockers and reblockers.

ETA: may be better with a stripped deck.

This is my own invention, and I have named it, just this instant, Bhowani Junction, after the film of that title. It is an adaptation of the game Iron Cross aka Fiery Cross aka Southern Cross.

In Iron Cross each player has two hole cards and a common card is dealt face up. A round of betting ensues. A further three common cards are dealt with a round of betting after each. Each card represents a point on the compass with the initial card being north. Finally, a card is dealt to the centre of the cross. There now ensues the final round of betting. No cards are wild. In conjunction with your hole cards you use north-centre-south to comprise your five card hand or east-centre-west. So if you had AA in your hand and the cards were dealth K (n) Q (e) J (s) T (w) J (c) you would either have AAKJJ or AAQJJ but as you can only use one axis of the cross you would use AAKJJ for two pair. The trouble with this is that card that must comprise your hand the centre card is dealt last.

Bhowani Junction: the centre card is dealt first, then north-east-south-west follow. Dealing the centre card first takes much of the variance out of it. You still have the five rounds of betting as normal. No cards are wild.

This adaptation is one of my better tinkerings...

Not sure if anybody wrote this before, but in my homegame we sometimes play hold'em, omaha and CP with 2 or 3 (2 recomended) flops. You bet into the same pot, and if you win 1 of 2 boards you simply win 50% of the pot. Pretty easy, but still adds a lot to the game.

Double-flop Hold'em is well-known:

http://www.pokernews.com/poker-rules...lop-holdem.htm

(Heck, even Wikipedia mentions it.)

I think Bhowani Junction has the attributes to make it a mainstream poker variation...

I've played criss-cross where not only was the center card dealt first, it was always the same card, a joker. "Dealt first" is a bit of misnomer, however--the joker was nailed to the center of the table.

At the 2+2 homegame in DC we played Second Best Hold'em. Exactly same rules as LHE but the SECOND best hand wins the pot.

It's completely insane. Anyone heard of that before? Is it strategyless?

--GA

Super power poker.

It may not quite be what you are looking for, but it is an extremely novel variant of holdem. It only works heads up.

Played exactly as normal holdem, except one player has to play with their cards face up. to make up for this, the person with the face up cards gets to know which cards are coming on the flop, river and turn before the hand begins.

I have played quite afew hours of this to settle an argument over whether having a perfect read, or knowing the coming cards was better HU. turns out they are surprisingly evenly balanced, making for a fun game.

Mark and I have talked about it a fair bit, along with a variant where the most medium hand wins the pot, which is even weirder. There's a great deal of strategy in manipulating one and only one better hand than yours to stay in the pot while also making the pot bigger. Doing it as a board or draw game should be better than a community game.

It's a good game with a good bit of strategy. If your best hand has a pretty good low and you can get it heads up, you have a lock. If a third player catches you making a move for heads up and is in the middle, he has a play to stay in, unless of course the best player drops.

Usually played NL.

IMO myself and a couple other 2+2ers invented second best holdem and we have posted about it in a few trip reports. Some additional things we decided were necessary are a portion of the pot for the best hand (we chose 5 BB but it was sort of dependent on the donkishness of the game/stakes to be fair) as well as scoop potential for the best hand which we chose as a full house or better. This allows for some pot size manipulation strategies as well as scooooop potential which is always fun.

-DeathDonkey

51 Card Solitaire

You win when you kill yourself.