An unusual game that I have been playing lately

[Tilt]

I play regularly with a group of family members and friends for low stakes. One late night we came up with this game and we have been playing it alot. We have found it to be very strategic and fraught with mind games. Its a variant of a draw game called "pass the garbage" which I think some people may be familar with.

Everyone is dealt 5 cards. There is a SB and a BB, and it is pot-limit. A round of betting commences after the deal. Then the player who closes the action (ie calls the last bet or checks the BB option) determines how many cards will be passed from everyone's hand into the hand of the player on their left. The options are from 1-4 cards. Then another round of betting, high hand wins.

This game is interesting in the strategic interaction of three rounds/plays:

1) Pre-pass strategy, which is complicated by everyone trying to manipulate who closes the action, is filled with interesting moves. Isolation reraises with total junk and checking with monsters in the BB are common moves, for instance (along with a bunch of others).

2) Passing strategy is interesting because it is complicated by the desire to not only make a hand (and trying to predict what you will get passed), but also by the desire to prevent your opponent from making a better hand.

3) The final round is interesting because of the partial information. You know what you passed, what you got passed, how many cards were passed, who preferred how many got passed, and other information gleaned from the pre-pass raising. And now the pot is often large due to pre-passing moves others have made, so there are ripe bluffing opportunities because the best hand is often weak in terms of rank (a decent pair will usually win the pot).

Anyone play anything like this before? We have had some fascinating hands. Try it sometime.

[Phat Mack]

Sounds interesting.

What strength is the avg. winning hand? (Are straights and flushes non-existent?)

What is the avg. number of cards passed? (It seems as though passing 4 all the time would kill the game...)

Have you ever played it hi-lo? It might be fun played hi-lo with a declare.

[Tilt]

Well, if I had a pair of nines or better in this game I would lead out post-pass most every time. We have had straights and flushes, though, and one straight flush and maybe 3 boats. Plenty of two pairs. This is over maybe 300(?) hands. The average hand is not that much weaker than in 5 card draw.

Strangely, passing 4 seems to happen rarely. There isn't much you can gain from it. For example, if you close on the preflop raiser and suspect he has aces, you will still have to beat ace high. And if you do it to break up a monster and get that monster passed to you, you don't get paid well for it since it becomes obvious based on the action of the player to your right that you have done so. Its better to close with a pair of 3's and force a 2-3 card pass, knowing you wont pass him an ace and hoping to make trips or two pair yourself.

I can't even imagine a hi-lo version as this one already makes my head spin. I think you would need 8-10 players for that; we usually have 5-6. We mix it into cash or tourney play along with a rotation of TDL, stud, and Omaha.

[Alex/Mugaaz]

This game is insane. Basically you should fold every hand unless you are the button. Position isn't important. It's all there is.

[Tilt]

Position changes, however. In the first round, the BB has tremendous power (unless someone takes it away from him and gives it someone else). In the final round of betting the button has the usual amount of poker power, but it is limited by the fact that it is a PL game.

We have foud the game hinges most on predicting what kind of cards your opponent wants and what kinds of cards you can expect to get. This and manipulating the first round are key.

[Phat Mack]

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In the first round, the BB has tremendous power (unless someone takes it away from him and gives it someone else).

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This reminds me of sequential-declare stud, where they players are jockeying to be the last to declare. I wonder what would happen if the right to specify the number of passed cards fell to the last aggressor. It would probably stimulate pre-pass action, but would give big hands too much of an advantage.

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We have foud the game hinges most on predicting what kind of cards your opponent wants and what kinds of cards you can expect to get.

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I've always liked single-pass anaconda for this reason, but found that when buddies sat next to each other, problems could develop. If you're playing with friends and family, that might not be an issue.

As an extension of this game, I wonder what would happen if you added three more rounds by producing a flop, turn and river--then played it as 5-card omaha.

[Tilt]

If you gave all the pre-pass power to the biggest raise it would become an all-in fest. Its the pre-pass dance that I love about this game...two things are in conflict - the desire to raise a strong hand to exploit it and the desire to control the action so you can keep or improve the hand. They are tough to balance...giving the raiser the power eliminates the conflict.

I agree collusion could be a problem more than in most games. It might require reshuffling the seating if played in higher stakes/less friendly situation.

I agree one more round of betting may be a great addition. I think I will try and get the guys to try that. I think the best way to do this would be deal two more cards face up after the pass, giving everyone a 7 card hand. Then you would have a really interesting package of incomplete information to act on.

[MarkGritter]

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If you gave all the pre-pass power to the biggest raise it would become an all-in fest. Its the pre-pass dance that I love about this game...two things are in conflict - the desire to raise a strong hand to exploit it and the desire to control the action so you can keep or improve the hand. They are tough to balance...giving the raiser the power eliminates the conflict.

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I don't understand what you believe to be a 'strong hand' in this game. Raising a strong pair and getting called by a weaker one is obviously great. Raising a strong pair and getting called by ace-high (who then chooses to pass 4) is not so good. Raising with complete trash (or ace-high) and being called by a pair or trips is disastrous. Raising with trips and getting called by a higher pair or by trash is also bad.

That leads to a sort of bimodal hand strength distribution (good 4-card pass vs. good lower-card pass) which makes prepass play somewhat of a guessing game, doesn't it?

Postdraw play is somewhat interesting, although HU in a pass-4 situation it seems to reduce into a fairly straightforward bluffing situation based on the odds of having caught a pair.

So I really can't see there being much in the way of value raises. You are either hoping to be called by a slightly less-strong multi-card holding, or by a stronger high-card hand (so that the swapped kickers will give you the win.) This seems more like a game of blind-stealing than value betting.

[Phat Mack]

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I agree collusion could be a problem more than in most games. It might require reshuffling the seating if played in higher stakes/less friendly situation.


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One way to do this would be to pass to the left--next hand pass to two players to the left--three players to the left, etc.

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I think the best way to do this would be deal two more cards face up after the pass, giving everyone a 7 card hand. Then you would have a really interesting package of incomplete information to act on.

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I like this idea a lot.

Thanks for sharing this interesting game. Lots of food for thought. I may add it to the menu for my next dealer's choice game and see if it gets any play.

[Tilt]

With some experience, you can deduce others hands from pre-pass play. Let me share a hand from one of these games to elaborate on the dynamics. As you might expect the hand is one where I pwned the table...those tend to be the hands I remember!

I was on the button with 33J67. Tourney, 7 handed, chip stacks are close to 2000 each, blinds are 10-25.

UTG open raises - 120 to go. This still keeps the BB with the passing option if he calls. Given his position, and the fact that the BB was loose, it was clear to me that he had a strong hand that would be hard to break up and beat. AA + some medium cards (two pair would be a raising liability, since you would have to pass a pair to your opponent if the pass =4, so I could rule that out) fit the bill.

UTG+1 called. To me that meant he had an ace, and was expecting BB to call and force a 4 pass so he could make a pair of aces. He might also do this with a king.

MP folded, CO called. I expect CO will have a medium pair plus some high cards for this call. 88J9K was my guess.
Now CO is not good, a very predictable and weak player who has been consistently passing low cards and consistently making the draw 3. With a medium pair she will try and make a set. The only other option was that she could see I was contemplating a raise and felt she could call a draw one with a 4 flush hand.

I min-reraise to 240. I plan to pass the option to the CO on the left. I also plan to drive out the SB and BB so I can pass to UTG. I think there is a decent chance CO will pass me a three. SB and BB fold, all others call, and sure enough CO does make it a three pass and passes me a 3. My final hand is 333J9.

UTG opens for the pot - 1000 with aces. Two folds to me and I push. He calls.

Now why the CO did not reraise was a subject of much debate after the hand. He said he did not want to give me the passing option, fearing that I had a pre-pass set and would call for a 2 pass.

Anyway, I hope this gives you a sense of how the pre-pass play is not random, just very, very different than early round play in holedem, omaha, draw, or stud.

[Tilt]

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I may add it to the menu for my next dealer's choice game and see if it gets any play.

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Let me know if you play it and how it works out. If you and your group can think of a good name for it let me know. So far we have been calling it West Sutton draw after where we first played it.

[MarkGritter]

I'm willing to believe that there is a lot of action, I'm just not certain I believe it's correct play. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

How can your raise possibly be correct? The odds of the player giving you a 3, even with your read on her as a small pair, cannot be any better than drawing three in normal draw. You are getting something like 3.1:1 predraw if there is no reraise and all players already in call.

For that matter, your opponent betting the pot post-draw with unimproved AA is no prize either. And calling with low pairs is just asking for trouble--- I can see how this game would be great with those who don't understand normal draw play.

[Tilt]

I am getting 11:1 on my money, including the implied odds of hitting a set in this game against AA. I will stack AA if I hit. Also my 3 card draw is not random, its more likely to be low cards in this case than high cards, so my odds of hitting a set are better than average. Or look at it this way - if CO has a 3, it will get passed to me. What are the odds she has a 3 in a 5 card hand?

[MarkGritter]

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I am getting 11:1 on my money, including the implied odds of hitting a set in this game against AA. I will stack AA if I hit.

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Only because the AA is playing stupidly. Against an uber-predictable opponent, sure, go for it. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

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Also my 3 card draw is not random, its more likely to be low cards in this case than high cards, so my odds of hitting a set are better than average. Or look at it this way - if CO has a 3, it will get passed to me. What are the odds she has a 3 in a 5 card hand?

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This reasoning isn't correct, you are just as likely to get high cards as low cards if she keeps a random pair--- the presence of a pair doesn't say anything about the rank of the remaining cards. 77AKQ is just as likely as 77932. The benefit you get is that the three cards will be distinct--- otherwise she would hang on to two pair.

It's complicated to work out the exact probability given the amount of knowledge you have, but it can be approximated.

About 1.7% of the time she will have both the other 3's.

For the other pairs, there are 42 cards remaining and that gives, very roughly, (42 * 38 * 34) / 6 = 9044 distinct 3-card passes. Of these, about 2 * (40 * 36) / 2 = 1440 contain a 3. (These calculations ignore the fact that a 67J eliminates just 2 remaining choices, not 3, and an A doesn't eliminate any remaining choices.) So your odds are about 5.3:1.

To contrast, drawing a 3 from the deck given the same information (44 cards remaining) has probability
(1-(42C3)/(44C3)) = 0.133, or 6.5:1. But it is not the rank of the 3 that makes the difference here.

On the other hand, the probability that she actually has two pair or trips and is delighted at your raise has to be factored in, too...

[Tilt]

Hey great analysis.

I still think the rank matters though based on my reads. She would not call with 33. And she would be nervous to call and know that she had to pass a king or an ace to me. That adds a little to the odds. I think its close to a 1 in 5 chance if I assume she will pass a 3 if she has one.