@saleen121212 's thread a few weeks ago on mixed game suggestions got my wheels turning since I have a group of guys I met through another home game in town (that only play hold'em tournaments) who expressed interest in playing in my game. My game is usually dealer's choice (and mostly big bet mixed games though recently draw and stud games have become "acceptable").
Anyway I'm pretty psyched to get some fresh blood into our game but I'm definitely concerned with scaring people off with a game mix that will feel intimidating. So I've been talking to some of the other regular guys in my game, and everyone is down to do a separate night where we play a more defined mix of games that will hopefully ease people in, but also give them exposure to the different concepts and variations that they'll run into in the "big boy" dealers choice game some day. After some thought, this is the preliminary list:
(1) Hold'em
(2) 7 Card Stud
(3) Double-Board Hold'em
(4) A-5 Triple Draw
(5) Crazy Pineapple
(6) Omaha
The thought process was that playing this mix covers a lot of the basic fundamentals of mixed games: stud rules (#2), split pots (#3), 2 boards (#3), lowball rankings needed for hi/lo games (#4), and more than 2 hole cards (#5 & #6). Omaha isn't really there for education, but more because it's such a great game and so many variants build off of it. Hold'em is there for familiarity. I thought about 5 card draw but I feel, much like hold'em, that everyone understands the game mechanics of that, and it's not the most fun game IMO. I also chose to leave badugi out of this because it just felt like too much, and badugi variants don't really get called in our normal game that often.
I figured I'd throw this out to the community for general input. Do you think any other games would be better at helping people get acclimated to more complex/circus-y games? Are there any key concepts you think are missed by this mix? Do you think people who are new to mixed games would find this selection fun? My hope is that people will enjoy themselves enough that they'll want to do this again, and after a few nights of this they would at least be able to quickly understand gameplay of other games that we could explain as combinations/variations of the components that are present in the 6 games we'd been playing.
Anyway I'm pretty psyched to get some fresh blood into our game but I'm definitely concerned with scaring people off with a game mix that will feel intimidating. So I've been talking to some of the other regular guys in my game, and everyone is down to do a separate night where we play a more defined mix of games that will hopefully ease people in, but also give them exposure to the different concepts and variations that they'll run into in the "big boy" dealers choice game some day. After some thought, this is the preliminary list:
(1) Hold'em
(2) 7 Card Stud
(3) Double-Board Hold'em
(4) A-5 Triple Draw
(5) Crazy Pineapple
(6) Omaha
The thought process was that playing this mix covers a lot of the basic fundamentals of mixed games: stud rules (#2), split pots (#3), 2 boards (#3), lowball rankings needed for hi/lo games (#4), and more than 2 hole cards (#5 & #6). Omaha isn't really there for education, but more because it's such a great game and so many variants build off of it. Hold'em is there for familiarity. I thought about 5 card draw but I feel, much like hold'em, that everyone understands the game mechanics of that, and it's not the most fun game IMO. I also chose to leave badugi out of this because it just felt like too much, and badugi variants don't really get called in our normal game that often.
I figured I'd throw this out to the community for general input. Do you think any other games would be better at helping people get acclimated to more complex/circus-y games? Are there any key concepts you think are missed by this mix? Do you think people who are new to mixed games would find this selection fun? My hope is that people will enjoy themselves enough that they'll want to do this again, and after a few nights of this they would at least be able to quickly understand gameplay of other games that we could explain as combinations/variations of the components that are present in the 6 games we'd been playing.