Strange home game rules you have run into? (1 Viewer)

[BGinGA]

I wasn't suggesting cheating, I was asking what happens if the player is responsible for counting the pot and the pot count is wrong (short or heavy).

Generally, when someone announces "pot" in our games, a player near the middle of the table (unless it's @ThePunk) will count the pot (we don't use dedicated dealers) and announce what "pot" means in real dollars.

We do use dedicated dealers (who usually keep a running count), although most of our crew would chastise any player brazen enough to announce 'pot' without having a clue as to how much they were actually wagering. I usually shout out a figure that is bigger than their stack (for shock value).

 

[WedgeRock]

We do use dedicated dealers (who usually keep a running count), although most of our crew would chastise any player brazen enough to announce 'pot' without having a clue as to how much they were actually wagering. I usually shout out a figure that is bigger than their stack (for shock value).

New strange home rule... $10 dead into the pot if you announce pot and are wrong on the amount...

 

[Mr Winberg]

I think a combination is best:

if you announce pot and are wrong on the amount...

you get slapped in the face. The slappee can choose forehand or backhand.

 

[Pinball]

Worst rule I ever played in tournament. When 2 players get all in and the small stack wins. Players had to swap chips. For examples Player A goes all in with 25'000 Player B calls with 2'500 and wins. He continues with 25'000 and Play A with the 2'500. I'm glad I took the tournament down.

 

[surfik]

When people started spilling drinks we decided that enyone that does that will have to place 5 in the next pot. Worked like a charm...

 

[Bluegrass Poker]

Bit of a thread revival (this came up as a search result for something else). Thought I'd share one.
Was invited to play at a pub game a while ago, so went along for a change of scenery. Watching a hand play out at the table and both players had Full Houses (one stronger than other of course) - they both then happily say 'Oh look, a chop pot'.....then proceed to share the chips between them. Needless to say I haven't been back there

So just curious, we’re all straights chopped pots too? All sets? Or just boats? What a crazy rule. My head would have exploded if they told me my Aces full had to split with 7s full.

 

[Mr Winberg]

So just curious, we’re all straights chopped pots too? All sets? Or just boats? What a crazy rule. My head would have exploded if they told me my Aces full had to split with 7s full.

Hero: Call. Watcha got?
Villain: Pocket aces.
Hero: Lucky I caught the deuce on the river!
Villain: Pair vs pair then. $7.50 each?
Hero: Sounds about right.

 

[upNdown]

Worst rule I ever played in tournament. When 2 players get all in and the small stack wins. Players had to swap chips. For examples Player A goes all in with 25'000 Player B calls with 2'500 and wins. He continues with 25'000 and Play A with the 2'500. I'm glad I took the tournament down.

Didn’t they know about math?

 

[WedgeRock]

Hero: Call. Watcha got?

Villain: Ace high.
Hero: Lucky I caught the ten on the river! I have ten high.
Villain: High card vs high card, then. $7.50 each?
Hero: Sounds about right.

 

[Pinball]

Didn’t they know about math?

No. They had card and chips to play with and money.

 

[Mr Winberg]

Hero: Lucky I caught the ten on the river!

Lucky river-rat 4-outer luckbox!!

 

[mattross1313]

So just curious, we’re all straights chopped pots too? All sets? Or just boats? What a crazy rule. My head would have exploded if they told me my Aces full had to split with 7s full.

I don't remember any other 'rules' sticking in my mind so would guess hope they at least played those correctly. But certainly add odd situation

 

[cgpilot]

I play in a 6-8 person home tournament game monthly. The game is over when two people remain. The chip lead at that point wins. They don’t play until there is an actual winner...

 

[WedgeRock]

That significantly changes strategy. If you are second in chips with three players left, its in your best interest to keep the short stack around until you can take a big pot off the chip leader.

 

[JMC9389]

The tournaments that I've hosted pre-COVID were chopped about 75% of the time so we could get to a cash game or it would be too late for the less hardy players. We've only had a three way chop once, but it would mostly be chopped between two most of the time as the game tended to lend itself to two big stacks versus the rest of the peasants that bled out chips a level or two earlier.

I only offer to chop personally when I'm behind the chip lead. I'm confident in my game to close it out when it gets down to 3 or 4 and I have a good chip lead. I'll wait till it gets down to three and step on the figurative throats of the other two when I'm ahead. No mercy when it's down to me and another heads up and I have more than a 60% share of the chips on the table.

But yeah, bizarre rules for home games? I responded earlier in the thread, but I thought of another. I once played in a game with a lot of drinking prop bets. Basically if you didn't win a hand, you took a sip of your drink. If you won your hand with a flush or higher, everyone else had to finish their drink. That kind of thing but with other little prop rules I'm forgetting. It was fun but I was so hung over the next day, and I almost never got hangovers in my early 20's.

 

[Mr Winberg]

I play in a 6-8 person home tournament game monthly. The game is over when two people remain. The chip lead at that point wins. They don’t play until there is an actual winner...

The only time this rule would make sense is if you're playing several STT in one night and the rule applies in all but the last tournament.

 

[roddy]

That significantly changes strategy. If you are second in chips with three players left, its in your best interest to keep the short stack around until you can take a big pot off the chip leader.

But then the alliance would change and it would continually be 2v1 against the chip leader. Weird...

 

[Outkicked]

Anytime someone uses a quote from the movie rounders they have to put $5 into the pot, might win it back and have to “pay that man his moooooney”

 

[RainmanTrail]

The best one I ran into, I was playing with friends from high school about 20 years ago. The game was dealer's choice, and this round was seven card stud hi lo split. The host of the game started the hand with just one chip left. He was all in for the ante. On 5th street, I had the only made low hand (plus a draw to the high) and was up against two strong high hands. Every betting round was capped. I was on a jelly roll. At the end of the hand, the all in host draws out a better low and says he gets half the pot. The entire pot that is, not just half the antes. I said "the fuck you do!" Then he pulls the "my house, my rules" line (nobody else there knew better either - we were playing with those red, white, and blue plastic Bicycle chips that weigh about 2g ea lol). I didn't have a gun, so a Walter Sobchak moment was off the table, but I was by far the best player there (or the only actual poker player there rather). So I decided to just let it go and win it back later. Plus, the host was such a little bitch that he probably would have ended the game early if he had gone broke on the next hand. Anyhow, it was still early, so I had plenty of time to recover, and recover I did. I ended up with every single chip on the table by the end of the night. It wasn't a tournament.

 

[Bluegrass Poker]

The best one I ran into, I was playing with friends from high school about 20 years ago. The game was dealer's choice, and this round was seven card stud hi lo split. The host of the game started the hand with just one chip left. He was all in for the ante. On 5th street, I had the only made low hand (plus a draw to the high) and was up against two strong high hands. Every betting round was capped. I was on a jelly roll. At the end of the hand, the all in host draws out a better low and says he gets half the pot. The entire pot that is, not just half the antes. I said "the fuck you do!" Then he pulls the "my house, my rules" line (nobody else there knew better either - we were playing with those red, white, and blue plastic Bicycle chips that weigh about 2g ea lol). I didn't have a gun, so a Walter Sobchak moment was off the table, but I was by far the best player there (or the only actual poker player there rather). So I decided to just let it go and win it back later. Plus, the host was such a little bitch that he probably would have ended the game early if he had gone broke on the next hand. Anyhow, it was still early, so I had plenty of time to recover, and recover I did. I ended up with every single chip on the table by the end of the night. It wasn't a tournament.

I hope you told him he was your bitch when you left.

 

[JustinInMN]

Played in a very lucrative home game back in the day, 1999-2005 that had the most bizarre concept for fixed limit Hold-Em and Omaha - action would always begin with the player who last raised on the previous street, the button was basically ignored on the turn and river.

I believe this rule could be found in "Play according to Hoyle." Which of course predates modern casino poker by at least a century. But I remember reading it there when I was a kid. I now have to find that book for the second time in a month on PCF. (The declare thread being the other.)

It's a matter of taking responsibility. The last three actions required by the dealer are award the pot, muck the winning hand, and move the dealer button. It's not that hard to do (or remember).

As casino dealers have told me "Push the pot, pull the slot, move the dot."

I learned as a kid that a spade buries you, a club hits you over the head, diamonds are valuable but hearts are the most valuable. So I've always enforced that strength-of-suits and still do to this day.

This is the order of suits in "Five Hundred."

 

[Jimulacrum]

Weirdest rule I've ever encountered was in tournament poker at a local "athletics association" (cheap bar where middle-aged men drink and watch sports). Only played with this group once. The guy running the game had established a weird rule with regard to side pots, that I'm still not 100% sure about to this day.

If a player went all-in for less than the big blind, his side pot still included the full amount of the big blind from everyone who called. The part I'm not sure about is whether that extends to all preflop action (or all action in the round where the player gets all-in). Either way, it's of course totally ridiculous, and I'm a little sad that I didn't get to exploit it to the point of absurdity.

Runner-up: I played wild-card games with my family over the course of years, and the proper rank of five-of-a-kind was somehow never really established. Whether it beat a royal flush was the main point of contention. From my experience, I'd say the "rule" is that whoever yells the loudest gets his or her way.

 

[Coyote]

When I played crappy games with wild cards in my student years, the 5-of-a-kind beat the straight flush which used also a wild card to be made, but was beaten by a "clean" straight flush, without any wild card used.

 

[shorticus]

Played in a very lucrative home game back in the day, 1999-2005 that had the most bizarre concept for fixed limit Hold-Em and Omaha - action would always begin with the player who last raised on the previous street, the button was basically ignored on the turn and river.

This is how I learned to play 5-card Draw

 

[Jimulacrum]

When I played crappy games with wild cards in my student years, the 5-of-a-kind beat the straight flush which used also a wild card to be made, but was beaten by a "clean" straight flush, without any wild card used.

We played games with so many damn wild cards that basically every hand that got to showdown had wild cards in it. No such thing as a "clean" straight flush.

For perspective, two of the variants we played most often were Baseball (normal or "night," with or without Chicago), which has 8 wild cards, and "deuces, jacks, and the man with the axe," with 9 wild cards. Honestly surprised that quints versus a royal didn't happen more often.

 

[BGinGA]

We played games with so many damn wild cards that basically every hand that got to showdown had wild cards in it. No such thing as a "clean" straight flush.

For perspective, two of the variants we played most often were Baseball (normal or "night," with or without Chicago), which has 8 wild cards, and "deuces, jacks, and the man with the axe," with 9 wild cards. Honestly surprised that quints versus a royal didn't happen more often.

Yeah, back in the day, more than once per night some bozo would call 'Follow the Queen's Baseball with deuces and one-eyed Jacks wild". Half the time it was 7-card no-peek.

Which meant 2s, 3s, 9s, one-eyed Jacks, and (usually) whatever card followed the last Queen were wild.... and a 4 got you an extra card. FFS....

Almost all winning hands were quads or better (usually quints), and the biggest area of contention was whether or not 5 wild cards were an actual hand, or totally valueless since they weren't paired with an actual value card (aka 'a wild card has no rank'). And for some 7-card hand games, they actually used the 6th and 7th cards as tiebreakers.

And the 5-of-a-kind vs straight flush argument was usually moot, too. Any hand with four wild cards plus any Ten through Ace could be a Royal Flush -- meaning only those hands with four wilds that contained an actual Ace could be five Aces. Clear winner in the high-hand argument.

For those interested, US silver coins (10c, 25c, 50c) were the 'casino currency' for those games. No pennies, nickels, or paper allowed.

 

[BonScot]

Yeah, back in the day, more than once per night some bozo would call 'Follow the Queen's Baseball with deuces and one-eyed Jacks wild". Half the time it was 7-card no-peek.

Which meant 2s, 3s, 9s, one-eyed Jacks, and (usually) whatever card followed the last Queen were wild.... and a 4 got you an extra card. FFS....

Almost all winning hands were quads or better (usually quints), and the biggest area of contention was whether or not 5 wild cards were an actual hand, or totally valueless since they weren't paired with an actual value card (aka 'a wild card has no rank'). And for some 7-card hand games, they actually used the 6th and 7th cards as tiebreakers.

And the 5-of-a-kind vs straight flush argument was usually moot, too. Any hand with four wild cards plus any Ten through Ace could be a Royal Flush -- meaning only those hands with four wilds that contained an actual Ace could be five Aces. Clear winner in the high-hand argument.

For those interested, US silver coins (10c, 25c, 50c) were the 'casino currency' for those games. No pennies, nickels, or paper allowed.

I’ve just about managed to get my players to understand Omaha (or as they call it “that Oklahoma game”) so this is like a foreign language to me

 

[Mr Winberg]

or as they call it “that Oklahoma game”

The first time we played dealers choice back during the boom, my group of degens called it Oklahoma! I corrected them the first two times, after that I followed suit

 

[grebe]

Sorry, gotta be "that guy".

http://www.onlinepoker.org/dealers-choice/oklahoma/

 

[BonScot]

Sorry, gotta be "that guy".

http://www.onlinepoker.org/dealers-choice/oklahoma/

That actually sounds alright