So after having my fourth AA cracked by KK this week (all in preflop), I've been thinking of an concept that may or may not interest you. Introducing a hand into pocker that is essentially always the nuts.

If you were to introduct say two wild cards into the deck for NLHE, I think this would add a completely different dynamic to the game. Say a player wakes up with WW, he would essentially have the nuts to any board. Players would need to think about the game on another level completely. I'm sure you all know what I mean, but just for an example hand.

Player 1 - WW
Player 2 - AcKc

Board - 6c4c9c7c10x

Player 1 - Straigh flush to 9
Player 2 - Flush to the A
Player 1 - Wins (+Net $1m)

Then I went on to think that this might cause to many split pots and confusing with two people showing down the exact same hand. So I thought of a potential rule when a wild could not play a card that another player has shown. Example:

Player 1 - WW
Player 2 - KK

Board - Kx10x2xKxAx

Player 1 - Full house, 10's over K's
Player 2 - 4 of a kind K's
Player 2 - Wins (+Net $3.4m)

Obviously I never expect this to take over mainstream poker, but I thought it might be good for a relaxed home game or something. Look for thoughts/opinions or if anyone else has any slight rule changes that might be interesting.

No

Very constructive. You're awesome and your feedback is overwhelming me with excitement.

the first game would be fun to play at a low stakes home game. i don't like the second because when you have the wild card it means you don't actually know what your hand is until the showdown.. and if someone decides to muck instead of show it could also change your hand. it would get way too screwy.

btw there's a thread in the draw & other forum for making up your own poker variants.

Yeah, I thought about what you mentioned in the first paragraph as well. I thought a way around this could be that a player with WW would have to declare what two cards they're playing. Example:

Player 1 (UTG) - WW
Player 2 - (Button) 7c9c

Board - 6c8c9c2xAx

Player 1 bets, player 2 raises, player 1 shoves, player 2 calls. Player one has been called, so must flip his hand and elect what hole cards he would like to play. Player 1 is a fish and has missed the potenial flush draw, opts to play AcKc. Player 2 then shows his hand and collects the pot.

Make sense?

not really. first of all i assume you meant 7cTc for player 2. so does that mean if player 1 said 7cTc then player 2's hand doesn't count?

Sorry, was what I meant.


And if player 1 had said that, then it would have been a split.

This sounds like a good idea for low stakes home game but not good anything but a bunch of fish playing for fun.
I have an idea very similar to this: why not in Soccer/football letting the goal keeper clothes line the attacker once during a match. WILD CARD BITCHES!

http://youtu.be/MYtjpIwamos

Not really a great scenario suggesting the game works because people might be too stupid to work out what the nuts is on any given board.

If the game is made to strange and alien to general poker you won't find people to play it. There is a reason why Hold'Em is so big and if you compare it to Omaha you find that there is a totally different type of player you find in it. Your new poker game would probably be fun to play for a while but I cannot see it surviving for a long period of time. Different poker sites have tried to invent and patent new poker games and they fill up for a few weeks and then the action pretty much die.

The game wouldn't be fun or interesting at all. You wouldn't play a hand unless you had at least one wildcard.

Why don't you just try playing a game that isn't primarily played preflop? (Gasp, making decisions on the turn and river!?!?) Or just suck it up and deal with the fact that you'll never be greater than 80% to win when you get it all-in pre. It is gambling after all.

lolnolimit

No. 85% favorite and you don't like it? A 100% hand would just be boring.

Lol_Jokers.

Shouldn't it be Aces over Kings in hand 2?

And concept doesn't seem that interesting, playing with jokers is also nothing new.

If anything, 1 wild card would be enough. But even that would ruin the game, it would make it too tight and at the same time too chaotic. The wild card is so powerful, you'd barely be able to play any hands because you'd always have to fear one of your opponents has it (it's way too easy to get the nuts, unlike currently where it's 1/221). It would take no skill to play the wild, you'd almost never have to fold it, you don't have to protect it from draws, you can just take any line you want for massive +EV. If you don't have the wild, there's no counter to the opponent who has it. You'd all just be taking turns being dealt the wild card and scooping the pot.

It's so big a change, the game would lose its resemblance to hold'em.

Whereas, something like adding a "Star" suit + "Rainbow" hand is a relatively small change that keeps the game basically in tact while adding some action. I've tried that variant before in home games and it went well.

Sorry OP +1

Your idea is very dumb. What makes poker worth playing (!) is that AA loses to QQ in a flip sometimes (fairly frequently, really - 1 in 5 or 6 is pretty frequent). It happened to me yesterday. If you don't understand why, you should think about it, and we should play some.

this thread belongs to "Beats, Brags, Variance"

Any hand with a Joker is a favorite over Aces. Having two is just ridiculous.

I'm gonna say 'no'.

Wild cards are for goofy homegames with semi drunk folks having fun. I did not call wild card games stupid, worthless, or anything seriously negative. They are simply goofy games for goofy times, and temporary goofy players! If you like it do it, no need to evangelize it LOL