[Poker] Freebie - Game of my own invention in Forum Games

[The Meal]

I am considering the idea of hosting another poker tournament in Forum Games, and was wondering if there would be interest in playing.

It'd be a freebie (no money trading hands), and it'd be run with secondary consideration to my current hold'em game (which means, moved forward periodically, on my schedule, when away from work).

It wouldn't be hold'em, but a game of my own invention, called "Longmont." (Discussed here.) The quick gist is that it's a hole-card/flop game (like hold'em or Omaha) with some elements of stud.

Part of my goal is to figure out which of two rule sets I prefer. I would pick one of the two for this tournament, and possibly run the other alternative in the future to evaluate the difference, though I recognize that this isn't a comparable format to a live game.

It is easiest to assume hold'em as a reference point and then to just explain what's different. The main difference is that a player is dealt three cards, one up and two down, before the first round of betting (option 2A from the discussion linked above). The equivalence of the blinds and dealer-button would be like that of seven-card stud: preflop the worst up-card has a forced "bring-in" bet, and post-flop the best showing hand would be the person with whom the betting would begin (so in essence, the equivalence of the "button" could change with each new card). If a hand makes it to showdown, the player uses 0, 1, or 2 of their hole cards and 5, 4, or 3 of the board cards to make their best 5-card poker hand. A player cannot use all three of their personal cards with only 2 board cards (so getting dealt a set would be fairly bittersweet). The game would be played for high-only.

Would folks be interested in playing? I'd need to flesh out the structure and type up the rules (a la this thread) before making it official, but I don't want to bother if there wasn't interest. I need to reiterate that folks would need to come in with a bit of flexibility with expectations from me, as there would be many things higher on my (forum) priority list than moving this game forward. But if you're open to that and interested in helping me play-test a new game, please pipe-up. (Even better if you're willing to periodically share with me your opinions as to how the mechanics of the game are working out.)

In
1. Isgrimnur
2. Shinjin
3. Ninyu
4. noxiousdog
5. Vorret
6. Remus West
7. pr0ner
8. LordMortis
9. JC Anejo
10. Semaj

[Isgrimnur]

I'd be up for it.

[LordMortis]

I am in for anything. However, I am less than as reliable as I would like to be at this point in life. That being the case, I'd not want to keep an exceptionally eager and dedicated player from taking a seat. Write me in as an excited if a bit diffused and confused alternate if you don't fill up.

[Shinjin]

Sure, I'll give it a go.

[Ninyu]

I'm in!

[noxiousdog]

Sounds good.

[Vorret]

Sounds fun,
count me in

[Remus West]

Count me in.

[pr0ner]

I'm in.

[JC Anejo]

I'll Play

[The Meal]

Heh. I just played through two sample hands (pretending like hidden information was hidden for each player), and one of my players got it all-in on the second hand.

The structure for that was
Ante: 2 chips,
Low-Card Bring-in: 3 chips,
Starting Stacks: 1000 chips.

Back to the (structure) drawing board!

[Semaj]

heh does this mean its off?

I was gonna say in

[The Meal]

It's still a go. Just not with that structure. I'll whip up some rulez and we'll be off.

[The Meal]

From the thread linked in the OP, I offered up a few options as I was thinking about this game. To summarize, those options were:

Deal:
1. Receive two hole cards, round of betting, receive up card, round of betting, see 3 card flop, round of betting, see 1 card turn, round of betting, see 1 card river, round of betting, showdown. (5 rounds of betting, total)
2. Receive two hole cards and up card, round of betting, see 3 card flop, round of betting, see 1 card turn, round of betting, see 1 card river, round of betting, showdown. (4 rounds of betting, total)

We went with Option 2. It was very much the right call. After three hands, with a structure that sees a bring in bet of 1/3000th the total number of chips on the table, we've seen some massive pots already. Adding another round of no-limit betting to the mix would only logarithmically amplify the size of the pots.

Additionally, Option 2 gives the "more interesting" (or at least more distinct from Hold'Em) no dealer-button, no-known-and-can-be-planned-upon rotating position for preflop betting. This is a plus in the sense that it's different from Hold'Em, but a minus in the fairness department.

Showdown:
A. Use 3, 4, or 5 board cards and 2, 1, or 0 personal cards.
B. Use exactly 3 board cards, and exactly 2 personal cards.
C. Use 3 or 4 board cards, 0 or 1 hole card, and must use your 1 up card.

We went with option A. Option C was rejected as being too limiting (leaves little room for bluffing, gives away too much useful information about your hand). Option B seems a legitimate choice and would help narrow down "good hands" preflop, especially for players with a primarily Hold'Em background. I chose to use A primarily because of its "spicy" options: there are three combinations that use 2 personal cards, 3 combinations that use 1 personal card, and 1 combination that uses 0 personal cards which gives a total of 7 hands to evaluate for each player. Compare that to Hold'Em which has 4 hands to evaluate at showdown, and that really opens things up. Option B would offer up only three total options (closer to Hold'Em than it is to Option A).

How about the players in the game. What do you think about my decision to go with 2A?

[LordMortis]

I fear that 8 cards may be too many to make a hand with. But time will tell and it gives a new strategy to play around with.

Edit: specifically, like in Omaha, you start looking for probably flushes, straights, and full houses as the primary motivators for making a hand so those are the hand you tend to play for and represent. The thing about Omaha that is always interesting to me is that even though it seems like you are making a hand with 9 cards, you are actually making them with a very flexible 7 card hand.

[The Meal]

I should have compared Omaha to the numbers of hands that Longmont A, B and C would offer at showdown.

Hold'Em offers four.

Spoiler:

Hole cards [A B]
Board 1 2 3 4 5

1x Play 5 board cards.
1x Play 4 board cards + A
1x Play 4 board cards + B
1x Play 3 board cards + A & B

Longmont A offers seven (not ten as I originally said in the note above).

Spoiler:

Personal cards A
Board 1 2 3 4 5

1x Play 5 board cards.
1x Play 4 board cards + A
1x Play 4 board cards + B
1x Play 4 board cards + C
1x Play 3 board cards + A & B
1x Play 3 board cards + A & C
1x Play 3 board cards + B & C

Longmont B offers three (again, corrected).

Spoiler:

Personal cards A
Board 1 2 3 4 5

1x Play 3 board cards + A & B
1x Play 3 board cards + A & C
1x Play 3 board cards + B & C

Longmont C offers three.

Spoiler:

Personal cards A
Board 1 2 3 4 5

1x Play 4 board cards + A
1x Play 3 board cards + A & B
1x Play 3 board cards + A & C

Omaha offers six.

Spoiler:

Personal cards [A B C D]
Board 1 2 3 4 5

1x Play 3 board cards + A & B
1x Play 3 board cards + A & C
1x Play 3 board cards + A & D
1x Play 3 board cards + B & C
1x Play 3 board cards + B & D
1x Play 3 board cards + C & D

So Longmont A is close to Omaha in terms of how many hands you really have to pick from at Showdown, and in fact is a bit more flexible.

How about how that flexibility affects gameplay. I don't want a core dump on how you've changed your strategy, but talk in terms about meaningful strategic options and ability to read/hide information. How about the change in betting structure in terms of not having position defined before the hand?

[LordMortis]

I'm honestly not sure yet. I'm interested in the game but not sold on it. But I am the kind of guy who usually has an aversion to anything more than a single while card in choose your game set of poker... except in Baseball. I've always had an affinity for baseball played as a 7 card stud game. (not so much for night baseball)

[Isgrimnur]

this is my first time playing a game with an up card dealt. I find it makes it easier to lay down questionable hands when I see some of my outs already sitting in front of other people or being able to see me getting outflushed easily.

[The Meal]

this is my first time playing a game with an up card dealt. I find it makes it easier to lay down questionable hands when I see some of my outs already sitting in front of other people or being able to see me getting outflushed easily.

I'm interested to see how this dynamic changes as players start dropping from the tournament. Right now, of 52 cards in the deck, all but 17 are spoken for (30 dealt, 5 on the board) and a player has access to 12 of them preflop, and 15 (!!!) of them on the flop.

[Vorret]

this is my first time playing a game with an up card dealt. I find it makes it easier to lay down questionable hands when I see some of my outs already sitting in front of other people or being able to see me getting outflushed easily.

I'm interested to see how this dynamic changes as players start dropping from the tournament. Right now, of 52 cards in the deck, all but 17 are spoken for (30 dealt, 5 on the board) and a player has access to 12 of them preflop, and 15 (!!!) of them on the flop.

I've had a hard time adjusting to this.
I always think : uh oh, this hand has potential!

Then, after analyzing (usually afted I call ...) I see the "big" picture and realize that it's not as good as it seemed to be.

Exemple would be :

You have
As Jh in your pocket card and 5s as your up card.

I didn't pay enough attention to everyone elses card, when I should of, instead I focused on : what kind of potential does my hand have?

- High card (low potential, obviously)
- Top pair (AA)
- Good 2 pair potential (AA-JJ)
- Top flush potential
- Top straight potential

These are great odds. BUT if you stop and take a look at what everyone else is currently showing, you might want to change your mind.

If in the 9 other card there's : 2 queens and 2 tens this just reduced your flush "potential" considerably since there's 18 cards you're not seeing.
Then there's all those "dead" spades.

So, by quickly looking at that you realized that those great odds are now reduced to bleh odds where a not so good hand could potentialy be a bigger threat since most people will call with what they beleive is a great hand while it's technicly a hand that's already dead or equal to another player that also think his AJ is good.

I'm rambling alot, not sure I'm making sense

I'm officially changing strategy, hopefully it'll go well...

[noxiousdog]

Sincere thanks for running the Tourney, Meal. I enjoyed it greatly and that's a lot of time and effort you put in.

[The Meal]

That's gratifying to hear.

Most of the time the effort is balanced out by having a good time watching things play out at my end. Sometimes it turns logging into OO a bit of a drudgerous activity knowing I'm going to have some "work" sitting there waiting for my attention. But it's a good 97%-3% ratio, so that works for me.

Any comments specific to the game itself? Comparison to hold'em? Less fun/more fun; less strategic/more strategic; less random/more random? Improvements that seem to be in "the spirit of the game?"

I haven't ever suggested playing it as part of our live mix (mostly because I have ZERO desire to migrate away from hold'em), but I suppose I could see trying to promote it as a playable game at some point.

[Isgrimnur]

Given the chip levels and number of players involved, the bring-in structure isn't exerting any substantial pressure. It occurred to me that while the click structure works for a while when there's a lot of players, perhaps there should be triggers that the blind structure should either be at or moved to a certain level once the number of players drops to certain threshholds.

I'm not sure what the expectations are for blinds and player levels, but I thought I'd at least get the idea out of my head where someone more knowledgeable might be able to do something with it.

[The Meal]

Game's over. Now that I'm not sitting in an advantaged seat, I thought I'd take some time to break down the game (from my perspective) and to maybe talk a bit of strategy as well. I encourage folks to participate, even if they didn't play in the game or haven't really thought through what they're thinking. These opinions and off-the-cuff thoughts can spur on some additional thoughts which maybe aren't so naturally forthcoming.

Given the chip levels and number of players involved, the bring-in structure isn't exerting any substantial pressure. It occurred to me that while the click structure works for a while when there's a lot of players, perhaps there should be triggers that the blind structure should either be at or moved to a certain level once the number of players drops to certain threshholds.

I'm not sure what the expectations are for blinds and player levels, but I thought I'd at least get the idea out of my head where someone more knowledgeable might be able to do something with it.

I would say that the previous level, Level 9 with a bring-in bet of 13, is the first time where it was possible, in the typical case, for a heads-up pot to grow to the level where an effective stack of 1000 chips would be fully at risk. There's a lot of supposition here, but let me lay out my case.

First up, I'm not talking quads-over-quads, where it may not be unexpected that even with a bring in bet of 1 chip and an equally divided 1500 vs. 1500 chip stack would lead to both players all-in. But it's good to recognize that you could likely build the case for entire stacks getting all-in under any circumstances, if you put your thumb on the scales inappropriately.

Let me restrict consideration to two good "made" hands. Say a non-threatening board (no full-house/quad threat, no obvious 4-to-a-straight or 4-flushed boards) where both players have what they consider a made hand (better than two-pair, say). In this circumstance, you could probably put the upper bound on how many chips you'd be willing to play to be pot-sized bets on the flop, turn, and river. This math leads to a showdown pot which is 27 times the size of the pot at the time of the flop (call the time-of-the-flop pot = P, you bet 1P on the flop and get called, pre-turn pot = 3P, pre-river pot = 9P, showdown pot = 27P). The "average" case of 3000 chips being in play is for chips to be broken up into one stack of 2000 chips and one stack of 1000 chips, which means that both players are playing effective stacks of 1000 chips. To end up with a showdown pot of 2000 chips, then, you'd need a pot at the flop of 2000/27 = 74 chips. It wouldn't be too difficult for a bring-in bet of 13 chips to lead to both players putting in 37 chips preflop (39 chips each would be the result of the standard 3x raise of the big blind for a hold'em equivalent, which seemed a pretty typical size of pre-flop raises throughout the tournament).

Now there are no guarantees that [ hands | boards | aggression | etc. ] would work out that way (for three pot-sized bets) at Level 9 or Level 10, but it's not a bad consideration for building a structure. My recollection of these OOnline pOOker games is that we tend to go about 50 hands no matter the structure.

If players wanted to "turtle" (in RTS terms) and only play for low pots, then the above calculations obviously break down. However, players playing that turtle style open themselves up to some exploitative strategies by their opponent(s).

I stand by the structure.

[The Meal]

At the end of the game, Remus West posted something along the line of him needing a bandaid for the spot where the deck hit him in the face during the past few months. That led me to the thought that I should generate a "quality of hands received" metric for folks to brag about/lament.

However, a brief amount of thought led me to the conclusion that it's an extremely complicated feat to generate this metric. Compared to hold'em, lOOngmont has got some serious complications.

In hold'em, your factors for evaluating your starting hand boil down to the cards received, your position at the table, your chip position (numbers of big blinds left, say), your opponents' chip positons, your table image, the action in front of you, and what you've learned about your opposition.

All of these same factors exist for lOOngmont. However, you also need to be concerned with the image you project by your exposed card, the interaction of the three hold'em hands you actually hold, the cards which have been exposed (and therefore won't be coming on the board or held in opponents' hands), the implications of likely hands held by your opponents, and your likely post-flop position at the table for the remaining three streets.

In hold'em you may be playing on the button with 30x the big blind in your stack holding . Action may have been folded to you. The blinds may be sitting there with 10x and 15x the big blind for the SB and BB respectively. You think you've established a credible tight table image. You've observed that the SB tends to play any hand with an ace in it no matter what action exists in front, and you may have the feeling that the big blind doesn't sufficiently defend his blinds.

That's a pretty well defined situation. (There may be other concerns depending on how close you are to the money and how the payouts progress, but won't even go down that rat's nest right now.)

Now put yourself in a similar lOOngmont situation. Say you have the exposed and are holding . The sits two to your left and acted as the bring-in bet and action was folded to you. The person sitting between you (the one you have observed to overplay weak aces) shows the . The folded exposed cards are pretty neutral (one of your 8s is gone, say, and none of the other 2's or A's were folded). Chances are very high that you'll have post-flop position if the player to your left calls, and that's pretty huge if neither of you hits the flop as if you raise preflop, you'll be able to dictate what happens with the pot (whether it goes check-check or you try to make a c-bet to end things then).

How does it play differently if two other 8's are out? How about if you have your as your up card (the in the hole) and the player to your left has the showing? You're still holding the same cards, but how strongly do you value them?

What about the case where you have [ ] vs. [ ] against a player showing who calls your preflop raise on an ace-high flop? Does he think you're betting a pair of 8's in the first case and is himself representing a pair of jacks? Would you be more or less concerned about his lead-out if you had the king exposed and there was that ace on the flop?

On the surface, you can get a first-level feeling for the strength of your lOOngmont holdings by looking at them as three hold'em hands ( & & ), but there's a lot more at work to really define your preflop situation than there would be in a game of hold'em.

[Remus West]

Not sure if I properly thanked you for running this Meal. I enjoyed it a lot. The up card really added a new dimension to consider (as you posted above). Thanks for all your work on it and congrats on coming up with an enjoyable and challenging variant.

[Vorret]

I had alot of trouble adjusting to that game. I haven't played much poker other than Hold'em so my lack of experience with Omaha and Stud might have affected my play in L00gmont.

My biggest problem was ... is my hand worth something?
I had a feeling that I got ALOT of crappy hands through the tournament and while I'm usually an aggressive hold'em player I couldn't really recreate that since I had no idea of the strenght of my hands.

It's new so obviously I need to learn and I bet that after 2-3 tournaments I'd start to get a grip of things.... or not and simply keep my pokers activity to my good friend hold'em

Thanks for hosting it Meal

[Remus West]

My biggest problem was ... is my hand worth something?
I had a feeling that I got ALOT of crappy hands through the tournament and while I'm usually an aggressive hold'em player I couldn't really recreate that since I had no idea of the strenght of my hands.

I thought being able to examine the up cards around the table made it easier to decide the value of my hand - at least as far as potential draws. If I had suited cards in the hole but there were several cards of that suit up it greatly reduced the potential of a flush and if there were no other cards of that suit showing it raised the potential. Thus if there were no hearts up and I had 4,5 of hearts down I was more likely to play the hand for the flush and straight draw. However, if there were three hearts up and I had the same hole cards I'd be looking at only the potential straight so might still play but for a lesser amount.