Cash Game Studaha - Does this Variant Work? (1 Viewer)

power13

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I was talking with another guy in our mixed game group about an idea for a variant we'd not seen before. I guess this would be a Dramaha variant with 7CS as the individual hand instead of a 5CD hand. In talking it through, we think this would be the structure. The "stud side" would be dealt Mississippi style to have the same number of streets as the flop side.

1) Each player dealt 2 down, 1 up, round of betting
2) Each player dealt 2 up, deal flop, round of betting
3) Each player dealt 1 up, deal turn, round of betting
4) Each player dealt 1 down, deal river, round of betting, showdown

Pot is split between the best stud and best omaha hand. By my math this would play max 6 handed.

One flaw we discussed was that so much of the individual hand is exposed that allowing up cards to make the Omaha side might make the winner very obvious, so we considered that maybe you can only make the Omaha side from the down cards? In that sense, I think the Omaha side would effectively play like that Fusion game they put on Pokerstars last year.

Thoughts? Does this seem like it would be interesting or terrible? Ideas to improve it to make it viable?
 
Only one way to find out. Play and report back. Maybe make 6th & 7th dealt down at the river instead of two after the flop up. So only three face up. Or two at river one up one down
 
Or maybe 0-1 from up and 1-2 from down?
 
Razzaho is a pretty good hybrid Razz/Omaha game -- it is dealt as a normal 7 card stud game, with a conventional five card board of community cards for Omaha (flop, turn, river), and uses the conventional five rounds of stud betting (first two at small bet levels, last three at big bet levels) with a maximum of four bets (one bet and three raises) per betting round.

The best Razz hand (using the 7 stud cards only) splits the pot with the best Omaha hand (using three of the board cards with any two of the three face-down stud cards) -- so it's essentially three-card Omaha, not four-card (and you don't get your last hole card until after all the board cards have been dealt).

Logistics:
  • 3 cards dealt to each player (2 down, 1 up) -- round of betting (low-card bring-in and small bets if played Limit)
  • 4th street dealt to each player along with a 3-card flop -- round of betting (action on best stud hand and small bets if played Limit)
  • 5th street and turn card dealt -- round of betting (big bets if played Limit)
  • 6th street and river card dealt -- round of bettimg (big bets if played Limit)
  • 7th street dealt face-down to each player -- final round of betting (big bets if played Limit), followed by showdown (Omaha first)
  • can be played with either individually-posted antes or a single table ante
  • burn cards are used prior to dealing 4th-7th street (6-handed play requires 18 to 51 cards).
  • players must segregate their three down cards at showdown (mixing all exposed stud cards kills their Omaha hand)
All of the exposed stud up-cards provide a lot of information regarding what Omaha cards are NOT in play. It is a very memory-intensive game, much more so than regular stud, stud8, or razz. Most skilled players will scoop (or nut-lock one side and be free-rolling the other), and most non-skilled players will chase non-nut draws and 1/2-pot hands.

For additional circus carnage, you can play it with small/big blinds (instead of antes) and use pot-limit betting rounds per dealer button position. Can be brutal for casual players, but makes for a highly entertaining tournament format.

I suppose it could be played Stud/Omaha instead of Razz/Omaha, but would probably be a lot less action (more overlap of needed cards for each game, and unable to use them). Razz is the better option imo, with a much larger range of playable starting hands.
 
Razzaho is a pretty good hybrid Razz/Omaha game -- it is dealt as a normal 7 card stud game, with a conventional five card board of community cards for Omaha (flop, turn, river), and uses the conventional five rounds of stud betting (first two at small bet levels, last three at big bet levels) with a maximum of four bets (one bet and three raises) per betting round.

The best Razz hand (using the 7 stud cards only) splits the pot with the best Omaha hand (using three of the board cards with any two of the three face-down stud cards) -- so it's essentially three-card Omaha, not four-card (and you don't get your last hole card until after all the board cards have been dealt).

Logistics:
  • 3 cards dealt to each player (2 down, 1 up) -- round of betting (low-card bring-in and small bets if played Limit)
  • 4th street dealt to each player along with a 3-card flop -- round of betting (action on best stud hand and small bets if played Limit)
  • 5th street and turn card dealt -- round of betting (big bets if played Limit)
  • 6th street and river card dealt -- round of bettimg (big bets if played Limit)
  • 7th street dealt face-down to each player -- final round of betting (big bets if played Limit), followed by showdown (Omaha first)
  • can be played with either individually-posted antes or a single table ante
  • burn cards are used prior to dealing 4th-7th street (6-handed play requires 18 to 51 cards).
  • players must segregate their three down cards at showdown (mixing all exposed stud cards kills their Omaha hand)
All of the exposed stud up-cards provide a lot of information regarding what Omaha cards are NOT in play. It is a very memory-intensive game, much more so than regular stud, stud8, or razz. Most skilled players will scoop (or nut-lock one side and be free-rolling the other), and most non-skilled players will chase non-nut draws and 1/2-pot hands.

For additional circus carnage, you can play it with small/big blinds (instead of antes) and use pot-limit betting rounds per dealer button position. Can be brutal for casual players, but makes for a highly entertaining tournament format.

I suppose it could be played Stud/Omaha instead of Razz/Omaha, but would probably be a lot less action (more overlap of needed cards for each game, and unable to use them). Razz is the better option imo, with a much larger range of playable starting hands.
Interesting! Would seem playing big bet in this format would be tough as in other stud variants due to the additional street...
 
We ended up trying this last night. It was actually pretty good. We did end up playing it high on the stud and Omaha side. We pretty quickly started playing it as roll your own, which increased starting strength on the Omaha side and everyone felt made it more balanced between the two halves. In this configuration it actually plays more similar to pineapple on the Omaha side. We dealt it Mississippi style since my group plays big bet to keep it 5 streets. Lots of players going to the flop since so many cards come out. Everyone liked it I think this will stay in our rotation!
 

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