First, allow me to explain the title: it’s all about CIRCUS games, focused on cranking up the FUN!
I hope to highlight some of the pitfalls and efficiencies of learning new games.
More specifically...
New players often don't understand circus games when first presented with the win conditions,
and yet they sometimes are overconfident and end up in a Ram&Jam™ situation
until it's all in—only to lose a buy-in.
I think there is a clear and specific path to learning
the more popular circus games. I'm posting this
in the hope it helps players progress through
circus games with more ease.
I think my target audience is Hold'em players
that are not content to be hold'em players.
It’s the age-old Icarus story, retold nightly—except here,
the wings melt, and the chips disappear,
leaving one more busted player in the rake, I mean wake.
Post hoc, players who didn’t fully understand the game are often upset—at themselves,
the game, the dude(s) teaching it, the situation, or life itself.
This can lead to hesitation or outright refusal to play circus games
out of fear or embarrassment.
Nothing ruins a night faster than a misunderstanding, stealing the joy of discovery.
I enjoy learning and sharing new experiences—this is why I wrote this post.
I try to be an ambassador for new games. I really admire @inca911's approach and patience.
My goal is for everyone to have as much fun as I do.
Sorry, nits, you're incapable of it.
That's why I took on refreshing the plaques and running the Group Buys for the Mixed Game Plaques.
So anyways, I started blasting...
We called a hi-lo game variant '8 or better'—we'd been playing crazy games for a few hours.
Spoiler: the board did not qualify a low. It's an Omaha variant that
requires two community board cards to be lower than 9.
The player rolled over A-3-4-8-8 and exclaimed, '8 or better!'
As if he had just hit a Yahtzee, hands in the air and all
At this point in the night, the player had 2 buy-ins all in on this hand.
This sucks.
Genuinely, I would have thought he would have known or asked questions.
The boards were such that he could have made a low on either or both boards when stacks went in,
even though the runout didn't come.
I didn't mention this to him, as I know it wouldn't matter, but
Spoiler: the board did not qualify a low. It's an Omaha variant that
requires two community board cards to be lower than 9.
The player rolled over A-3-4-8-8 and exclaimed, '8 or better!'
As if he had just hit a Yahtzee, hands in the air and all
At this point in the night, the player had 2 buy-ins all in on this hand.
This sucks.
Genuinely, I would have thought he would have known or asked questions.
The boards were such that he could have made a low on either or both boards when stacks went in,
even though the runout didn't come.
I didn't mention this to him, as I know it wouldn't matter, but
God's Game
Ultimate High, Ultimate Low
4-way action, 2 boards, 2 cards to go.
Though I'm not sure it's any consolation for him.
He was a champ,
stood up,
said thanks for the game,
and promptly left.
While it's not as bad as he perceived,
I’m sure it bothered him regardless of the odds,
and his perception is what will
make or break his willingness
to play these games,
or potentially worse yet,
not patron my game.
I’ve had in-depth conversations about the ‘ethics’ of teaching new games toplayers gambolerz
as there is money and betting involved.
I don’t want to spend too much time here, nor do I want the post flagged for politics.
I find it hard to have a conversation about ethics while gambling.
The takeaways are: with no stakes, nothing is actually learned.
That is to reiterate: Nothing ventured, nothing lost gained.
You also wouldn’t want someone to do $1000 flips in a game they don’t understand.
I do suggest, if people would like, running a $5 showdown hand:
everyone tosses in 5 bucks, and you deal out the game face up,
explaining a few tactics along the way.
Nothing will teach a game faster than losing money while playing it.
Go on, ask me how I know.
That said, the $5 is typically enough to get people to stop lollygagging
and pay attention to the rules as you present them.
I know my eyes glaze over at a Giant Wall O’ Text—hopefully I’ve got some memes to break up this post.
Here is where the value of my experiences hopefully yields more usefulness
than the cautionary tales you might not have read above:
My assertion is that there’s an optimal order for learning these games.
When you start grouping them,
as I have many, many times,
you start to see bifurcation in their categorization.
Wait,
hold up
bifurcation is an overly wordy word
that basically means
breaking down into two buckets.
Here’s the twist: it’s surprisingly simple, but not exactly obvious.
First, Game Mechanics or Concepts.
Second, just spotting variants.
If we were speaking Latin and I told you English was easy,
I could explain that Agnostic breaks down into two words:
Ag- meaning 'without' and -nostic, meaning 'knowledge.'
I could further explain that a term for 'without knowledge' would be
'unknowing' or 'ignorant.'
I could go around calling everyone idiots,
and they would love me for it!
While that transition might not seem applicable,
once you know the basic mechanics,
progression through these games will be significantly easier.
This will prevent you from being an... Agnostic
or preventing you from adapting to new games quickly,
which seem complex but really follow some basic concepts
that aren’t really that complex.
Come along as I attempt to teach a Martian how to play “Stick It in Your Bumbum” (just call it Bumbum) and Badacey
two of the wildest, most entertaining circus games out there.
The assumption here is that a Martian,
someone from Mars,
has never seen, heard, or played any card games.
First stop: Blind Man’s Bluff. While there are less political names for some of the games,
I will try to use the least derogatory or juvenile names
some can’t be helped.
I think there are some arguments with my list, such as 5-card draw over Hold’em.
While it does have some pros, I think there are more cons than Hold’em.
I plan to stick with the more popular games.
I’m also going to try to stay away from what I would call ancillary concepts to the games.
While implied odds and pot committed scenarios apply to Hold’em,
they don’t really appeal to the game itself
from a conceptual point of view of how to play the game.
As I mention below, counting ‘outs’ is something you would do in Hold’em,
it develops more so as an evolution in Omaha.
I don’t say this to be malignant; objectively, I believe this is true.
You can see this in the outcomes of progression.
This list highlights the key concepts each game introduces,
not a full rules rundown.
So, without further ado...
Ultimate High, Ultimate Low
4-way action, 2 boards, 2 cards to go.
Though I'm not sure it's any consolation for him.
He was a champ,
stood up,
said thanks for the game,
and promptly left.
While it's not as bad as he perceived,
I’m sure it bothered him regardless of the odds,
and his perception is what will
make or break his willingness
to play these games,
or potentially worse yet,
not patron my game.
I’ve had in-depth conversations about the ‘ethics’ of teaching new games to
as there is money and betting involved.
I don’t want to spend too much time here, nor do I want the post flagged for politics.
I find it hard to have a conversation about ethics while gambling.
The takeaways are: with no stakes, nothing is actually learned.
That is to reiterate: Nothing ventured, nothing
You also wouldn’t want someone to do $1000 flips in a game they don’t understand.
I do suggest, if people would like, running a $5 showdown hand:
everyone tosses in 5 bucks, and you deal out the game face up,
explaining a few tactics along the way.
Nothing will teach a game faster than losing money while playing it.
Go on, ask me how I know.
That said, the $5 is typically enough to get people to stop lollygagging
and pay attention to the rules as you present them.
I know my eyes glaze over at a Giant Wall O’ Text—hopefully I’ve got some memes to break up this post.
Here is where the value of my experiences hopefully yields more usefulness
than the cautionary tales you might not have read above:
My assertion is that there’s an optimal order for learning these games.
When you start grouping them,
as I have many, many times,
you start to see bifurcation in their categorization.
Wait,
hold up
bifurcation is an overly wordy word
that basically means
breaking down into two buckets.
Here’s the twist: it’s surprisingly simple, but not exactly obvious.
First, Game Mechanics or Concepts.
Second, just spotting variants.
If we were speaking Latin and I told you English was easy,
I could explain that Agnostic breaks down into two words:
Ag- meaning 'without' and -nostic, meaning 'knowledge.'
I could further explain that a term for 'without knowledge' would be
'unknowing' or 'ignorant.'
I could go around calling everyone idiots,
and they would love me for it!
While that transition might not seem applicable,
once you know the basic mechanics,
progression through these games will be significantly easier.
This will prevent you from being an... Agnostic
or preventing you from adapting to new games quickly,
which seem complex but really follow some basic concepts
that aren’t really that complex.
Come along as I attempt to teach a Martian how to play “Stick It in Your Bumbum” (just call it Bumbum) and Badacey
two of the wildest, most entertaining circus games out there.
The assumption here is that a Martian,
someone from Mars,
has never seen, heard, or played any card games.
First stop: Blind Man’s Bluff. While there are less political names for some of the games,
I will try to use the least derogatory or juvenile names
some can’t be helped.
I think there are some arguments with my list, such as 5-card draw over Hold’em.
While it does have some pros, I think there are more cons than Hold’em.
I plan to stick with the more popular games.
I’m also going to try to stay away from what I would call ancillary concepts to the games.
While implied odds and pot committed scenarios apply to Hold’em,
they don’t really appeal to the game itself
from a conceptual point of view of how to play the game.
As I mention below, counting ‘outs’ is something you would do in Hold’em,
it develops more so as an evolution in Omaha.
I don’t say this to be malignant; objectively, I believe this is true.
You can see this in the outcomes of progression.
This list highlights the key concepts each game introduces,
not a full rules rundown.
So, without further ado...
Machine’s:
A progression of circus games for Martians:
Blind Man’s Bluff will introduce a paper or hopefully plastic playing card; one side of the card is the same as all others to create obscurity, and the other side has a value, a ranking. It will teach that all cards have a value and begin committing card values to memory.
Hold’em is a two-card game with a community board as simple as it gets. It shows the basics of grouping cards to form five-card poker hands, allowing understanding of hand rankings. It also introduces the concept of a community board where everyone has a unique hand based on their two hole cards.
Omaha reinforces a community board with four hole cards. New concept: you must use exactly two hole cards. It also has an exponential number of starting hands and incentivizes players to start looking at ‘outs’ as part of the game.
SOHE reinforces another way to play both Omaha and Hold’em. The concept underlines the differences and introduces the split pot.
Big O introduces the concepts of a low hand and FIVE cards! It also highlights the most common variant of all, ‘8 or better’, while keeping familiar aspects and concepts from the previous games. While you can have split pots in previous games, this form factor is predicated on it, increasing the likelihood of multiple winners.
Drawmaha reinforces a split pot and a communal board, while the dynamic form factor becomes a hidden poker hand of your hole cards. It also introduces a draw phase while keeping the familiar Omaha core.
Bumbum is some of the most fun and/or pain you can have without physical contact. It puts it all together and introduces playing 2 or 5 out of your hand—flipping the script entirely.
Short break, we’ve hit one of our milestones, Bumbum, hopefully @bergs will show up and explain how this game was named. From here, let's get to Badacey!
Lowball (California or Ace to Five) embraces the previously learned low hand win condition and introduces a triple draw game with no communal board.
Lowball (Kansas City or Deuce to Seven) introduces a low hand win condition where straights and flushes will disqualify or counterfit your hand. Played the same draw structure and often referred to by the best hand deuce to seven being 2-3-4-5-7, because Aces are high only. Another aspect of this game is that paired deuces are a better hand than paired Aces, which would not be the case in Ace to Five.
Badugi (badoogi) would play on the familiar Lowball form factor and introduce a unique aspect in which suits affect the game.
Badacey combines Badoogi and (California) Lowball
Badeucy combines Badoogi and (Kansas City) Lowball
BiSexual in the Middle is a SOHE variant that introduces two hands with shared cards.
Holdout 8, while a variant, is a better version, just as BiSexual in the middle is of SOHE. Introduces discarding cards to play with a communal board.
Scarney introduces a point system while keeping other aspects, such as a split pot
From here, Route 66 and Sviten are variants of Drawmaha
Derailment is Omaha introducing board removal
BiSexual in the Middle is a better version of SOHE
Archie is Lowball but with an added high hand; Veronica is a variant of Archie
Big Easy is a variant of Big O
Courchevel, Fusion, and ImPLOcean are all variants of Omaha
Now, let's discuss games no one really plays anymore and the variants, okay, just the fun one then, Super Stud 8
I hope you've enjoyed the post and it wasn't too much of a distraction with my formatting.
Last edited:
