"No-shuffle" hold 'em variant? (1 Viewer)

[sappidus]

My group is usually up for off-the-wall ideas to spice up a session at least once in a while—mixed games, prop bets, etc.—and I was brainstorming ideas for this when I came up with the following… It was mainly inspired by the fact that stud games (which we enjoy) allow for a lot of additional information compared to HE.

The variant is NLHE with the following changes:

1. The button only moves every TWO hands.
2. For the first hand, it is played as standard NLHE. However, at the end of the hand, player holdings/the board/the muck/etc. are NOT shuffled into the deck proper; everything from the hand is turned face-down into the muck, which remains in place.
3. For the second hand, it is still played as standard NLHE, except everything is dealt from the portion of the deck that was not used in the first hand. (Probably burn a card before starting the dealing proper.)
4. After the second hand, everything is shuffled back into a regular deck of 52 cards, and as per #1, the button moves. Rinse & repeat.

(#1 is meant to ensure that over each orbit, every player has every position for both a standard hand and a non-standard hand.) We never play greater than 8-max, so even with burn cards, it would always be possible to play the two hands without running out of cards in the deck.

The general idea is that during the second hand, you will always have some additional info compared to the first hand. Even if the action from the first hand folded preflop, you would at least know the cards from your holding were no longer live in the remaining deck for the second hand. And if the first hand does indeed see a board and possibly a showdown, there would be public information of now-dead cards that everyone knows. Again, a little stud-esque, including the memory work it takes to remember that previously seen cards are no longer live.

However, having brainstormed this, I'm not sure it's actually a good idea. What do you think? Have I missed something fundamentally degenerate that completely breaks the idea of this variant? Is there an interesting potential added layer of strategy whenever it's a "second" hand, or is it all too complex for its own good? Should it be required for everyone who reaches showdown in a first hand to show instead of the muck option usually given to them? Would it be better to play it fixed-limit rather than NL? I appreciate any and all thoughts.

 

[philhut]

the trouble with this is table talk.....one person griping about their 7/2 in the first hand gives way to the second hand and potentially all information is not gleaned by all players that could be held by some...ie players showing others cards etc.... The thought is there but I wouldn't want to gamble money like that when I could be perceptively at a disadvantage in the second hand compared to other players....just me though

 

[sappidus]

the trouble with this is table talk.....one person griping about their 7/2 in the first hand gives way to the second hand and potentially all information is not gleaned by all players that could be held by some...ie players showing others cards etc.... The thought is there but I wouldn't want to gamble money like that when I could be perceptively at a disadvantage in the second hand compared to other players....just me though

A legit concern, for sure… While my group doesn't tend to do this sort of thing anyway, you've highlighted that it would probably be best to make clear something like "Treat every set of paired hands as one BIG hand for the purposes of table talk. In regular HE, after folding preflop, you wouldn't suddenly exclaim 'Argh, I woulda flopped a straight!!' if the action was still active, so similarly here you shouldn't talk about your holdings in any way until the button moves again."

And a straight prohibition on showing other people your hole cards at any time.

 

[sappidus]

I guess I should mention that we are usually playing for micro stakes, and especially so when circus games are on the table. I don't want to legislate away people's fun by enforcing too stringent rules on table talk, and I don't think anyone is going to be incredibly pissed if there's an occasional slip-up regardless. Maybe this is an argument for playing this variant fixed-limit, though.

 

[philhut]

you may also find a 2nd hand anti-climatic due to dead cards being dealt...a queen being dealt on the flop when the previous hand was won by a set of queens for example.
card counters would theoretically love it.

 

[Moxie Mike]

Well... it's certainly creative

Knowing a handful of dead cards changes the math a little bit (depending on what they are and how many) but doesn't significantly change anything structurally. Given the number of hands that don't go to a flop or go to showdown, it's reasonable to say that the second hand won't be much different than the first a decent percentage of the time.

I would say FL>NL just so more hands progress deeper and thus influence the second hand.

If you're open to suggestions, If you're trying to induce a stud-esque element into HE, 'showtime holdem' is interesting. I learned about it when Stars introduced it into their home games. It's the same as Holdem with one variation: ALL mucked cards including losing hands at showdown are mucked face up. So all preflop folds, etc. are all exposed and remain so throughout the hand.

Only uncalled bets are not exposed.

So not only do you get the dead-card info, you also get to see what people are folding to aggression. A savvy player could make strategic adjustments accordingly. We've tried it a few times... you really do have to alter your play.

 

[CrazyEddie]

I think it would play out somewhat differently from regular NLHE... but only for the better players, the ones savvy enough to be thinking about outs and odds and clear-headed enough to pay attention to and remember the exposed cards across two hands.

For anyone else, it'll just be plain old NLHE except they'll lose more money by making bad bets (but maybe they're doing that already).

Try it! See how people feel about it.

 

[CrazyEddie]

I'm with @Moxie Mike - if you want to see a bigger difference in play, show more cards. The game Mike described sounds like a pretty fun variant!

You could even try them both at the same time! With so many cards publicly known and out of play at the start of hand #2 it'll be a bit like Concentration. Okay, sure, you've got KQhh but do you remember how many kings, queens, and hearts went out on the last hand? If it was a lot, then your hand might as well be dead. If it was very few, then you might already be ahead of AA !

 

[inca911]

 

[CrazyEddie]

for the lulz

 

[CrazyEddie]

If @Moxie Mike ’s game is called “Showtime” then if you follow it up with @sappidus ’s game you could call it, quite naturally, “Encore”.

Showtime: Hold’em, mucked cards are mucked face-up.

Encore: After the Showtime hand is complete, turn the muck face-down and immediately deal a new hand using only the stub from the first hand, without moving the button. The winner of the first hand posts a big blind and betting proceeds to the left of the winner. No other blinds or antes are posted. Later betting rounds start to the left of the button as usual. Mucked cards are mucked face-down as usual.