Scarney - Icelandic or not? (1 Viewer)

[Leonard]

When I first learned Scarney, I thought no cards should be the best low. I relatively quickly came around to the Icelandic point of view:
No Cards => No Hand. No Hand => No Money.

In my home game, I'm the only one who thinks this way. We play "Leonard Scarney" when I deal. "Regular Scarney" otherwise.

At meetups, I see more people who think like I do.

What say you?

 

[RowlettTexasChipGuy]

How many times have you played in your home game where a player ended up with zero cards in his hand?

 

[TheBigTater]

Icelandic > Candian > Regular (original) > Murder (in all forms)

 

[k9dr]

How many times have you played in your home game where a player ended up with zero cards in his hand?

It’s happened to me twice at meetups.

 

[Leonard]

How many times have you played in your home game where a player ended up with zero cards in his hand?

3-4 times.

 

[Sprouty]

I can see both arguments but I like when no cards = being able to call but not raise for half the pot.

I think I went out the first hand I ever played and was awarded half the pot so maybe that has something to do with it.

 

[Psypher1000]

IMO, if you have no cards in front of you then you have no hand to show down. I've played three different ways...requiring a card is my favorite. Not a hill I'm going to die on, though. Ultimately it's "what kind of bingo do you like playing most"? Or possibly "How hard would you like to get kicked in the genitals?"

 

[trever]

I've always believed that the reason people like Icelandic is because they hate having to make tough calls/folds knowing that they can only win half the pot, when the nut zero bombs the pot. Scaredy nits.

 

[aggie]

No card = No hand.

But I played Scarney for the first time at DiDII last week, so my opinion is worthless other than to cover @k9dr flight home

 

[Ben8257]

No card = No hand.

But I played Scarney for the first time at DiDII last week, so my opinion is worthless other than to cover @k9dr flight home

I did it to @k9dr in his own Home @ SQM. I Hate it! 100% prefer Canadian Scarney but i have only seen zero card hands 3 times total.

 

[CraigT78]

Zero cards = No hand

There's so much more sweat when there's a player with a single card and more discards coming.

 

[Ben8257]

Zero cards = No hand

There's so much more sweat when there's a player with a single card and more discards coming.

Good point! Still went with the Minority vote myself. But you are absolutely right when you are holding that duce and absolutely NONE in Play with the Dirty river coming! Hahaha

 

[Machine]

Oh Canada!

 

[Ben8257]

I've always believed that the reason people like Icelandic is because they hate having to make tough calls/folds knowing that they can only win half the pot, when the nut zero bombs the pot. Scaredy nits.

"Canadian scarney" fixes this issue! No cards equals "call only" you may no longer bet.

 

[k9dr]

"Canadian scarney" fixes this issue! No cards equals "call only" you may no longer bet.

But you must apologize

 

[inca911]

No pain, no gain. GO ICELAND!

In Iceland, you must *earn* your half of the pot by calling a $120 raise and fading the River when you have only one card. Icelandic is so much better in all aspects.

Your hand should be easily discernible from a fold, Icelandic does that.

 

[moose]

If the point of the game is to lose cards then losing your last card should not kill your hand. If you want to make the best hand possible, then the best low hand is zero points. Why penalize someone for making the best low? It's like saying you can't make a Royal Flush or your hand is dead because the hand is too high.

On the flip side, if you lose all your cards then obviously you have no shot at high. Seems balanced IMHO.

I also point out a similar rule in stud, where if you go to showdown somehow short a card and still have a winning hand, your hand is not dead.

I played a hand at DiD where I had one card left after the flop in Icelandic. Forrest bet and I insta mucked. What am I going to do? Call every street hoping my hand doesn't get killed for half a pot? Fuck that. Stupid rule. It's not 'earning' anything. Why should the advantage go to the player's going for high? It's unnecessarily penalizing players going for a low hand. A split game is a split game.

 

[Justin Olson]

100% fan of Canadian Scarney

 

[CrazyEddie]

If the point of the game is to lose cards then losing your last card should not kill your hand. If you want to make the best hand possible, then the best low hand is zero points. Why penalize someone for making the best low? It's like saying you can't make a Royal Flush or your hand is dead because the hand is too high.

A key difference is that if you have no cards then a) you have the nut low AND b) everyone knows you have it WHICH MEANS c) if you bet it there is zero chance that you could be bluffing and thus no one has even a slim incentive to call your bet. This disrupts the normal dynamic underlying betting in poker, and it has a big effect on the players contending for the other half of the pot.

The Canadian version is an elegant solution to this problem. Once you lose your last card and it is therefore publicly known that you have the nut low, you are effectively no longer gambling (since you know you can't lose) and your opponents are effectively no longer gambling against you (since they know they can't win). Forbidding you from making new bets is a reasonable approach to allow the rest of the table to continue gambling over the other half of the pot.

 

[Machine]

The spirit of the game is preserved, and action is stimulated, not hindered by not having cards

 

[Rhodeman77]

Zero cards = No hand

There's so much more sweat when there's a player with a single card and more discards coming.

It helps to slow the person down betting if they have 1 card and there is more than one discard to go. They may not want to be potting now with the chance they will have a dead hand.

I prefer no cards is a dead hand as well.

How can you tell who has no cards vs who has folded then?

 

[MrCatPants]

What is 'original'? (Vs. Canadian and Icelandic?) You can play a nut 0 and bet?

 

[TheOffalo]

What is 'original'? (Vs. Canadian and Icelandic?) You can play a nut 0 and bet?

Seems like OG is just 6 cards vs. 5, at least according to the mixed games doc:

So less of a chance to end up with no cards?

 

[moose]

It helps to slow the person down betting if they have 1 card and there is more than one discard to go. They may not want to be potting now with the chance they will have a dead hand.

I prefer no cards is a dead hand as well.

How can you tell who has no cards vs who has folded then?

And why give impunity to someone betting 4 cards against someone with 1 card? Only the player with 1 card is at risk. It's a small percentage but you are giving a player going for high a freeroll to scoop. Why do that? What makes the high hand more important than a low hand?

 

[Psypher1000]

Your hand should be easily discernible from a fold

QFT

 

[Rhodeman77]

Going for a high is not a guaranteed win, having zero cards and still in the hand is a guaranteed win. I have seen a 1 card hand win the high completing a flush or straight to scoop. I have seen a 1 card hand make a full house to scoop (top board double paired). I have seen 3 card hands scoop vs a 1 card hand. Playing split pot games to win only 1/2 the pot is a great way to lose your money. Playing hands that have scoop potential in a split pot game is how the game is meant to be played.

 

[bergs]

Half the game is achieving a low via discards. So if you do it perfectly, and lose all your cards, you get penalized?

I also don’t understand why you need to have a card and make a big call risking losing it and losing the pot. That’s literally calling for maybe half the pot, which everyone here tells me is a -EV strategy.

I just think it turns an interesting two way game into an uninteresting one where it’s correct to just play for the high only and back into the low.

While we’re at it, I don’t love the kill Scarney where the top board goes away if the card pops on the discard board. A shitty pair often ends up backing into the high inadvertently.

Scarney is a super interesting game and involves a fair amount of hand reading but it’s the rare game that suffers from variations designed to artificially create action or suspense.

I just don’t like the “back into half the pot” aspect of the variants. They seem like bingo, even for circus games.

Take derailment - sure you can back up to making a board like you would double board or any other game, but the goal is still to have a powerful draw or made nut hand on at least 2 (preferably 3) boards - so there is still a ton of board contextual strategy here.

I do think however that we’d benefit from something that denotes a cardless live Scarney hand. Something like this…

 

[MatB]

I prefer Icelandic. You have a 1 card after the turn, You want to bet pot? go ahead lets sweat that river.

Some ways it can help tone down the nut low 1 card guy from getting too frisky.


Losing all cards and still being able to bet is whack-a-doodle.


I prefer Icelandic, but if you want to call 'zero is nut low' then at least make it Canadian.

 

[MrCatPants]

Losing all cards and still being able to bet is whack-a-doodle.


I prefer Icelandic, but if you want to call 'zero is nut low' then at least make it Canadian.

agree on that. I don't think any other poker game has an equivalent 'face up' version of 'I have the nuts'.

 

[bergs]

Look at this way.

You’re at a meetup. You have $1500 behind after a long day. It’s $1100 to call into a huge pot on the turn and you’re holding a single 2 with no 2 on the board. Everyone else has 4 cards (3-way action).

If this is any other game, you can call and fade and get half or maybe scoop. You can call and suck out if you’re behind somehow. You can bluff on the river with chips behind.

You have all of the standard poker options available.

Now we play this version of Scarney.

Ace hits the river.

It’s the only poker game you’re ever going to play where your hand is dead. You have no options, no hope, nothing. You played the hand correctly, violated no rules, but your hand is literally dead.

This to me is one step above playing with wild cards. For $50, sure whatever. Scarney was originally a limit game. I might’ve been the dum-dum that too it from jbutler’s game 4 or 5 years ago and said “Wheeeee! Pot Limit Scarney”, so maybe this entire thing is somewhat on me, but to pump that much money into a pot-limit hand and not even have an action or card that can save you just seems like bullshit.

Here’s another fucked up scenario. Your hand is dead on the turn. Pot goes down to one player who rolls his hand after the action completes and everyone else folds on the river and his hand is fouled - he should’ve discarded on the flop. So his hand is fouled and should be disqualified but he scoops and your hand was killed arbitrarily because of a rules-based discard?

The more I think about it, I don’t love playing Scarney at meetups. I like the original version, but unlike Dramaha, which is almost infinitely versatile, the variants of Scarney change it fundamentally into a game where it’s correct to play for one side (which we’re not supposed to do) and only play for the low on the river after the discards conclude (which is sort of an action killer).

I dunno, Dramaha4ever. Or Icelandic Hungarian Turkish Scarney or whatever, but only limit. Maybe I just need pizza and I’m miserable.