I think that's part of the point, from the nutted hands perspective; do you want to guarantee a smallish pot, or play it out to potentially win more, but take the risk of someone catching up.

Oklahoma sounds worth a try (never thought I'd write that). Are you saying, of the three boards, a two on the river wipes out the entire hand, or that specific board? If it only wipes out one, what's the point of the remaining two (or three, if no two) boards? Is it best low/hi with any remaining board?

Oklahoma

Board A river T
Board B river 2
Board C river A

Board B is wiped out by tornado.

Half the pot to the best high on Board A or C.
Half the pot to the best 8 or better low on Board A or C.
If no qualified low, then best high gets the whole pot.

The A on Board C can play for the low, even though it's considered high for tornado purposes.

Reading through this thread makes me miss our old dealer's choice game.

I started playing in a game about 12+ years ago, and the game had been going probably 20 years before I got into it. Back then I was one of the young guys with a bunch of old timers.

Sadly many of those guys have passed away along with the original host. The guy he had dealing for him, took over and we kept the Wednesday dealer's choice game for a little while. Then as more of the original crew started passing on the new players didn't like all the other games. So the host started limiting it to two games one round of each, a game called Macon and BigO. We had one of the original crew that passed away a couple years ago, and he was the last vestige of the old guard. He was the biggest driving force to keep at least the two games we were playing, He loved playing Macon, which I describe below. After he passed, the host dropped all the mixed game and now they only run BigO and NLHE games. There is only four us from the old game left and none of the new players what to play the dealers' choice stuff. The host has tried but he can't get enough players.

The game we called Macon, I think is a variation of a game I have seen called Cincinnati. All the games we played were 5/10/20 spread limit 4 bet cap

Each player was dealt 5 cards and during the deal, the flop turn and river would be laid out face down in the middle. The flop was three cards, the turn and river had 2 cards each.

Then there was a betting round at $5.00. Then the flop would be turned up. Another $5.00 betting round. Then each player left could buy a card for $5.00, and another $5.00 betting round. You might say how could there be any cards left. You could only buy a card if enough people folded to allow it. Those cards were now back with the dealer to use. This repeated for the turn and river. Two $10.00 betting rounds on the turn with a card buy. Then two $20.00 rounds on the river with a card buy. Once you ran out of cards then the board played out with no more buys. You would think that would happen almost every time but very seldom did it ever get to the point there wasn't enough cards to buy if you made it to the river. The game generally played with 8 to 10 players. At 9 or 10 players you only got 4 cards to start, and the river was only 1 card.

This was a any high any low game no qualifier for low, use from 0 to 5 cards in your hand to make the best poker hand you could. As you can imagine it was quite seldom that 4 of a kind was beat by a straight flush, in fact many a straight flush got beat by higher straight flushes.

I do like the DC / SL aspect of our current game. Keeps it friendly and interesting. We've had changes in group members, stakes, games, and venues. So there is a little ship of Theseus going on, but I've been playing with one other regular player for 25 years, so I'll call that the start. If we move to NLH or PLO, the game will wither.

I do like the Macon concept, but it would have to be adjusted for our game.
I don't think re-using discards are good, we don't play games that do that.
I don't mind re-using burn cards, as we might have to in lowmaha one day.


First thoughts:
Macon variant that could work with our game structure.
3 cards each to 8 players. Preflop bet (all betting rounds are spread limit).
3 card flop. Bet.
Deal 1 card to players still left.
1 card turn. Bet.
Deal 1 card to players still left.
1 card river. Bet.

27 cards used for preflop hands and flop.
9 more for turn (total 36 cards)
9 more for river (total 45 cards)

That works. Even enough cards to run a double-board version

With a qualified low, less players stick around.
Paying for cards leads to less players taking cards.
Understanding that there may not be cards to buy on the river is a nice twist too.

Thanks, it may make the rotation.

I play and deal in a local bar-poker league. Most nights, we have two tournament-style NLHE games. Sometimes, though, we have enough interest to go beyond game 2. Then, we'll sometimes be exotic, somebody bringing something from their home game. (Lowmaha was met with positive reaction).

Friday night, game 4 was Hold 'em Roulette. Pretty simple, NLHE preflop; all-in or fold post. Was kind of fun, something different and action-y. For a home cash game, maybe it's (pot-bet or 3xBB) or fold post, or something?

Since it was getting late, to accelerate the blinds, we added turbo. In this instance, that means blinds go up each time someone is eliminated or the buttons goes around + 1 position from the last elimination.

I got knocked out too early to see if the latter condition held when the table was short. I assume by the time there's 3-4 players left, blinds are high enough from previous eliminations it's a shovefest, so no need to keep raising them.

At the game this week the old dealers choice game came up. I remembered a variation of the above Macon game that I called quite often, I came up with it, and we called it Must 2 Macon. All the rules were the same except you had to use two cards for high and two cards for low like Omaha. I liked that variation better as it tamed the game down a bit, plus for some reason a few of the guys would sometimes forget the must 2 part and I always did pretty well at it.

To translate into our game, it would have to be a max bet or fold on F, T, R. Options to raise the bet, but not to bet less than max.

We rarely play games that require forced bets. Only 1 guy calls them, and they are not well received, but people play. There is a HUGE advantage to dealing in forced bet games, and since we don't play 'rounds' of games, would not be fair.


LOWMAHA update:
We played 6 handed last night.
I eventually called triple board Lowmaha*.
There were questions off the bat on running out of cards.
I knew the burn cards would be used, but that might not be enough.
I thought the best option was simply to use the burns and when they are done, we're done.
Some others thought we should shuffle in discards.
We decided that if the burns were all used, the game would end.
We did need burns, but not all of them.
I'll stick to single or double board moving forward, probably.



* First time I call single board Lowmaha. If there is short board, the next time I call double board. When the double went short board, I called the triple

The guy running our game has reinstituted the Wednesday dealer's choice game. He said the first game was good and every one enjoyed it. I, of coarse, was on vacation and missed it. Then the next Wednesday I had a appointment that day that stopped me from being able to attend. The game will probably die before I can get a chance to play in it.

LOL. I'm sure you'll get a shot.

Well I finally did. He ran it again last night. The O8H/L game had become quite popular, if you wanted a seat you had to get there at least 30 to 45 minutes early. I didn't think this dealer choice game would bring in the players. I didn't get in any hurry to get there, and only got there about 10 minutes early. I got the last seat. We were full at 10 players until around 11:PM, started at 6:00

The action was crazy, Had one of the highest winning sessions I have ever had in this game. . It was either 10/20 limit, or 5/10/20 depending on the game.

It was fun.

Super. Sounds like it's worth getting there early.

This is one of my easy, go to DC games, but we structure a little different. To begin, everyone Antes 1 unit. Deal everyone 3 cards facedown.
1st round - 3s are wild. Dealer gives everyone a few seconds to look at their cards. Then everyone holds cards at arms length (faces of cards still down so no one can see what you have). Then Dealer counts out loud: 1, 2, 3. On 3, if you are "out" for the round, you drop your cards on the table. If you are staying "in", you keep your cards in your hand. If only one person stays in, they scoop the pot, and everyone re-antes. If multiple people stay, they pass their cards face down to each other, and once all "in" players have reviewed the others hands, determine the 3 card round winner. The loser or losers must match the pot, and the winner of the hand scoops the initial pot (so if 3 people stay in, the 5 wild round will start with double the initial pot due to two players matching the pot for losing).
2nd round - each player is dealt one additional card, and 5s are the only wild. Again, Dealer counts to three, drop cards if out, hold cards if staying in. If only one stays in, they scoop the pot and everyone re-antes. If multiple people stay, exchange cards and determine winner, with loser(s) matching the pot. If no one stayed in, everyone adds an additional ante to the pot.
3rd Round - each player is dealt one additional card (now each player has 5 cards). 7 is the only wild card, but now Straights and Flushes play. Same Dealer count to 3.
If only one person stays here and they scoop, then game is over. If no one stays, everyone adds an ante to the pot. If there is a showdown, loser(s) match the pot. Dealer takes all cards, reshuffle, and starts back on 1st round rules and keep playing until you have a round where only one player stays and scoops the pot, then game is over.

If in any round, someone holds on three but then drops late, we call it out and bust their chops, tell them that was their one grace, and next time they are forced to stay in.
In some instances, we've put a cap of like $100 match for losing, super rare to happen, but important if initial ante is larger than $1.00. Also, want to announce before you start, or if seeing you might be getting to that level (or adjust a cap/max match based on size of game).

Our version of 3-5-7 was a little different.

Went around from UTG, declaring in or out. If only the button declared "in", it went around to try to defend against a steal.

If a single player is in, they got a marker (called a "leg" for reasons I never understood). First to three legs wins the pot. If multiple players in, they exchange cards and the losers pay the winner a set amount. The amount was $1 on 3s, $2 on 5s and $3 on 7s. Ended up being a seven-card game, so everyone starts with three cards, then has five on the 5s round, and seven on the 7s rounds. I believe we ruled that straights and flushes were not applicable on the 3s round. (3s, 5s, 7s wild per rounds, as described above).

When the button returns to its original position, everyone re-antes (was $0.50 in our game), and the "losing" payments go up by a dollar--to $2, 3, 4 the second round, etc. So it quickly got to the point where it wasn't a good idea to be in with a known loser, in hopes of getting the pot later.

Another variant I've also liked to add on to our version of 3-5-7, is to play it as 3-5-7-9-Jack.
So we play 5 rounds, start with 3 cards, add a single card for each new round, same rules as I quoted above, but have a 4th round where 9s are the only wild (players have 6 cards to make best 5 card hand), and 5th round where Jack's are the only wild (players have 7 cards to make best 5 card hand).
When there is a carryover pot, reshuffle and re-deal 3 cards, and first to scoop ends the game. This gets interesting when someone gets dealt a pair of 9s or Jack's, so they stay early just to try to get through to the 9 or Jack as a wild, round.

The new dealer's choice game was full again this week.

I have called a game a few times I remember us playing when they ran this game years back. The old timers called it slip and slide. It builds some pretty decent pots, and most everyone seems to like it. Mostly I like the must 2 version of our Macon game, but I throw this one in occasionally.

Everyone gets 4 cards and the community cards are dealt out in three groups of three. XXX XXX XXX.

There is also a card set above and below those cards.

You bet pre-flop, then turn over first set of three cards, another betting round.. Then you can buy a card. Repeat this for each group of three.

Then turn over the sliders above and below and one last round of betting. You can move one of the cards(top or bottom card) to any group to make you best high and low hand. Can't use the top and bottom card in same group. Also it is a must 3 game, three cards out of you hand with two on the board.

Sounds like a game that might work with our group. Plenty of cards and betting rounds. Chances to lock up a wheel early and draw to quads and straight flushes.

Our closest version deals 4 to each player, 3 groups of 4 community cards and 2 single floaters. No extra cards can be bought. Use any combination of cards from your hand, one group and one floater to make the best 5 card hand. Bet - flop a group. Three times. Then Bet - show a floater. Two times. Split pot, Hi-low(8 qualifier).



Re: 3-5-7
I've played it at another home game years ago. Wasn't explained well and I hated it. Would consider playing it again, but it doesn't fit with the current group dynamic.