Wild card hand rank -- survey

[tim.daughters]

The following situation came up in my home game, last night. We were playing a game with wild cards, I don't remember the game, exactly, but for the sake of illustration, we'll say it was 7-stud, low-hole card wild.

At the showdown, player one showed:
Ks, Qs, 9s, 5s, wild

Player two showed:
Ac, Qc, 6c, 5c, wild

At first, we all agreed that player one had the better hand, AKQ95 flush, compared to player two's AKQ65 flush. But, then I brought up the mutant topic (I was a folded hand) that player two could have an AAQ65 flush. Some players argued that you couldn't have two Ac in the same hand, but that was met with the counter argument that five Aces was certainly a legal hand in wild-card games.

The contestants decided to split the pot, and I agreed to look it up today. I checked a couple of books this morning, and came to the conclusion that it can be played either way, depending on the prior agreement of your group.

I decided to solicit opinions from Two-plus-two. For those of you who play wild-card games, can the wild card count as:

1. Any card, even if that card is already in your hand, thus allowing a double- or even triple-ace high flush.

2. Any card, not already in your hand, but it can also be used to make five of a kind.

[poppel]

I think it is a wild card.... any card. AAA flush is fine, because it would have come down to the kicker, none wild card.

[Andy B]

My opinion is that player two should win because he has the highest "natural" card, but I don't find too many people who agree with me on this. I think it's most common to say that the wild card is the highest-ranking card in that suit that you don't already have in your hand, so that player one's AKQ9-high flush beats player two's AKQ6-high flush. If you want to rule some other way, that's fine too. I think that having two Aces of Clubs in the same hand is just plain dumb, but I've played with far dumber rules. What is important is that you have a rule in place and that everyone understands what it is so that there isn't unpleasantness later when someone loses a big pot he thinks he should have won. Another thing to agree on is whether five-of-a-kind beats a straight flush.

If you have a fifth Ace, its suit is hippogriffs. /forums/images/icons/smile.gif

[Jason Pohl]

IMO, Player 2 wins. AA high flush.

--Jason

[Easy E]

Traditionally, wild cards cannot duplicate a card already in your hand (5 of a kind being an unusual exception, i'll get to that) when creating a 5-card hand. Wildcards are a SUBSTITUTE for missing cards- therefore, if they are NOT missing, you cannot claim another one (if you had two Ace of clubs in a non-wild card deck, you'd be fighting with SOMEONE...)

5 of a kind adds a rank card of a non-suit, IMO. If you need to, call it the Ace through King of Eagles (an attempt to add a fifth suit called the Eagle was tried early in the century, supposedly).

Therefore, for your case, AKQ95 beats AKQ65.

Now, with lots of wildcards in a game, you COULD add a two-part tiebreaker rule that reward natural hands (NOTE- neither tiebreaker below would have helped with your situation):

1a) Player with the most natural (non-wild) cards wins, when the two hands tie EXACTLY in rank, as the first tiebreaker.
So, if one player has A-W-Q-W-T of hearts and other player has W-K-Q-J-T of spades, the second royal flush would win since it was the harder hand to make, by only having one wild card vs. two.

1b) Highest natural card is a second tiebreaker- If the natural cards match in number, the highest natural card wins it. So, if the hands were A-K-Q-W-W vs. A-K-W-J-W, the first Broadway hand would win with the Queen over the Jack

As to whether 5 twos beats a royal... if you only had one wildcard (joker, or 'bug' in CA), then hand probabilities make it easier to get a royal flush vs. 5 of a kind (24 vs 13), so 5 of a kind beats a royal.
For the same reason that getting a non-pair or higher hand does not beat a "real" hand when playing with multiple wildcards, and because you'd have to recalculate ALL of the hand rankings (pairs, straights, houses, etc) to get the true "what beats what" hand rankings with wildcards involved, traditionally the confusion is avoided by not changing the traditional hand rankings after adding the 5K on top.

Hope that makes sense for your group..
Easy E

[Louie Landale]

Looks like a great game: playing "Low Hole" and TWO players get to the showdown with nothing but flushes... Eeeeck.

I dislike Easy E's suggestions a LOT: adding natural/wild tie breakers and adjusting hand rank based on how many wild cards were possible would be an administrative NIGHTMARE and can only lead to ill-will. Keep the rules as simple as possible.

The need to establish this wild card rule before you play far exceeds any decision you make. If the rule is "Wild card is any card you don't already have" then there would be no such thing as "5 of a Kind". Nothing wrong with that. If a "Wild card can be any card" then AAxxx flushes are possible, as are 5-of-a-kind.

Another such rule would be when playing hi/low declare. Do you "Eliminate the Scoop hands first" or "Eliminate the one-way hands first". Example: A has the lock low and a good high and "Scoops". B has the lock high and goes "High". C has nothing and goes "Low". Who Wins? If you "Eliminate the Scoop hands first" then A is eliminated, leaving B and C to split it. If you "Eliminate the one-way hands first" then C is Eliminated, then B beats A's high and B gets the whole pot. Better get that one straight before the game starts.

Write the rules down.

- Louie

[Jay]

Sometimes during our home games we have an occassional wild card game thrown in, and our Poker Club uses the wild card as the same "weight" as any other card and can be any other card including the suit.

I believe Easy E mentioned 5 of a kind, and for that fact we use the wild card as any card (since you can't have 5 of a kind without duplicating a suit and we argue that if a wild card can be any value why can't it be any suit). So when we use wild cards in a game an AWW82 flush (AAA82) beats an AKQJ9 flush because the wild cards are considered aces and don't "weigh" less than the natural hand.

I would imagine though the rules are up to the host of the game. In fact we "published" a set of rules for our club to help in these situations. It's worked pretty well. The other big issue is misdealt cards. Such as playing stud and the dealer accidently flips the last card up to one of the players. Or isn't paying attention is flips the turn card up before the action is complete on the flop in holdem. It doesn't happen very often but occassionally when the night is into the wee hours.

[Easy E]

"adding natural/wild tie breakers and adjusting hand rank based on how many wild cards were possible would be an administrative NIGHTMARE and can only lead to ill-will. Keep the rules as simple as possible."

Reread my post- I said that you DON'T change hand rankings, BECAUSE it's a nightmare and confusing, even with the wild cards. You add 5 of a kind as the top hand, everything else stays the same.

The tiebreakers were just a suggestion, if they didn't like ties, to give more weight to the hand that was harder to make. Personally, I prefer to just split the matching hands, just as in non-wild poker.

"The need to establish this wild card rule before you play far exceeds any decision you make. If the rule is "Wild card is any card you don't already have" then there would be no such thing as "5 of a Kind". Nothing wrong with that. If a "Wild card can be any card" then AAxxx flushes are possible, as are 5-of-a-kind."

Of course, you can do anything you want with wild cards, as long as it's clear beforehand. You could go with the California "bug" rule, where the Joker/wild card is wild only for straights or flushes (or straight flushes, of course) and is an Ace otherwise (i don't know, however, how the Joker is handled as a wild card when you have A28J of hearts vs. AKQ94 of spades- is this an AAJ82 heart flush- a winner- or AKJ82- a loser?)

Just to be completely clear, here's how we play:
a) Wild cards cannot duplicate cards in your hand, when used for flushes.
b) 5k (or 6K+, if you play some crazy 7-card hand) are allowed as the only exception to the "don't duplicate rank and suit" rule... and they are the top hand, beating royal flushes.

Caveat emptor

[tim.daughters]

Thanks for the opinions. I did ask my group to vote for future reference. Also, we do have the rules written down. We have agreements on check-raising, cards speaking, how many raises, etc. We just never thought to make an agreement on that one. Actually, it is a pretty friendly game, as you might have guessed since the players involved in the dispute politely agreed to split--each seeing the other's point of view.

OK, now the new subtopic, since Louie brought it up. This didn't happen in my game, but I heard about it from a friend. They were playing some hi-low game where you had to declare which way you were going. There were two players at the showdown, and both decided to scoop, but one had a better low and the other hand the better high. What do you do with the pot? The two contestants wanted to split the pot. I think that is perfectly logical. In reality, all the players at the table voted, and they decided to play it off in the next hand with everybody in. That is totally ludicrous as far as I am concerned. All of those folded hands have given up their chance at that pot when they folded.

Anyway, does anyone have any other way to handle the scoop vs. scoop problem, other than splitting?

[happyjaypee]

When I first started playing poker, we used to play many wild card games. Our rule regarding flushs was that a wild card count for a zero of that suit.

In your exemple, the hands would look like this:

Plr1: K /forums/images/icons/spade.gif Q /forums/images/icons/spade.gif 9 /forums/images/icons/spade.gif 5 /forums/images/icons/spade.gif 0 /forums/images/icons/spade.gif

Plr2: A /forums/images/icons/club.gif Q /forums/images/icons/club.gif 6 /forums/images/icons/club.gif 5 /forums/images/icons/club.gif 0 /forums/images/icons/club.gif

So plr 2 would take down the pot whitout the AA high flush rule since plr 1 can't use is wild as the A /forums/images/icons/spade.gif .

That proved a good rules since natural cards get the money.


OT:

Playing King&low wild draw, I once showdown 5wilds against my budy's 5-Aces. Was I the winner or was it a split pot???


-Happy /forums/images/icons/laugh.gif

[Louie Landale]

Sorry, I'm a poor reader especially when reading quickly.

Its been a long time since I played California Draw high, but if memory serves the "bug" can be a second Ace in your flush.

Otherwise, the "Bug" rule works when there are at most 2 of them in the deck. More than that and EVERYBODY will understand the power of Aces and even the live guys will play much more reasonably selective.

You allow "6 of a kind"? Do you also allow "3 pair"? How about a 6 card flush or straight? Or a straight-and-a-pair? Or a double-full? Or 4-of-a-kind-full? Don't do that; stick to "best 5 cards play".

- Louie

[Easy E]

Unless you had a rule about natural cards winning, your wilds split the pot.

If you DID have a rule, your 5 wilds woulda been outta luck.

The 0 flush rule is interesting- not sure if I like it, but it seems pretty straightforward. I assume that AKQ32 would beat AKQ30....

[Easy E]

There's been a number of discussions about this in the past- search for it, you'll find extensive arguments on both sides.

As to the situation:
"There were two players at the showdown, and both decided to scoop, but one had a better low and the other hand the better high. What do you do with the pot? "

In my version of the pig rule, where you knock out the pigs BEFORE you determine the winners of the high and the low, both contestants would be knocked out of the pot, because they declared both ways and didn't WIN (not tie, WIN) both ways. If you go pig, and don't win, you CAN'T win. Therefore, the pot would remain for the next game as a lucky bonus for everyone playing, including the folders....

[happyjaypee]

5 wilds vs 5 Aces:

We had no rule but, logicaly, a wild can only substitute an existing card so I offered my budy to split the pot and we made the rule official. (we were playing .10$ ante back then so it was more about having fun then the money.)

-Happy /forums/images/icons/laugh.gif

[Easy E]

If you are showing down against anyone, and they have the card that you're duplicating with your wild card, you can't call that card!

Example- You have 2345A rainbow, with the Ace of spades. I have KQT7W of spades, and Sally has A6432 of hearts. Because you have the real Ace of spades, I only have a King-high flush and lose to A6432.

Wouldn't THAT start some nice arguments???