Guts Tournament
 

I've turned a lot of folks onto the game of 3 Card Guts lately. I know it's a silly game, but it's a lot of fun and it's something different for a change. A couple folks have asked me about organizing a guts tourney. My question is, how would this work? In guts you need to have enough chips in front of you to match the pot if you lose, so I am looking for a fair way to circumvent this issue in a tournament (since you cannot add more chips, after rebuys end at least). Any suggestions would be welcome.

Re: Guts Tournament
 

Guts is a lot of fun in a freindly home game. I am going to have to say that organizing a guts tournament is probably not a good idea. If u wanted to give it a try, start each player with a ton of chips, and make the ante very low in realation to the stacks, and try to double the antes every 20 minutes or so.

Re: Guts Tournament
 

can someone explain guts 4 me? thks

Re: Guts Tournament
 

[ QUOTE ]
Guts is a lot of fun in a freindly home game. I am going to have to say that organizing a guts tournament is probably not a good idea. If u wanted to give it a try, start each player with a ton of chips, and make the ante very low in realation to the stacks, and try to double the antes every 20 minutes or so.

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That's good advice, but it does not answer my question --- what should be done if a player doesn't have enough chips left to match the pot if he loses?

P.S. Here are rules for 3 card guts:

http://www.superiorpoker.com/thegames/guts.html

Re: Guts Tournament
 

What he has left goes into the next pot and he's eliminated. He does NOT get cards on his all in hand... he's just gone. Guts doesn't have a table stakes rule.

Re: Guts Tournament
 

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What he has left goes into the next pot and he's eliminated. He does NOT get cards on his all in hand... he's just gone. Guts doesn't have a table stakes rule.

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That's if a player must match a pot and can't, right?

Re: Guts Tournament
 

Change it to a limit format, instead of matching the pot?

Re: Guts Tournament
 

I'm not sure what you mean by that... in guts, the loser must match the pot, up to a certain limit.

Re: Guts Tournament
 

[ QUOTE ]
That's good advice, but it does not answer my question --- what should be done if a player doesn't have enough chips left to match the pot if he loses?


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Seems to me that would be the way that people would be knocked out of the tourney. Having a pot get so big that you'd essentially be all in were you to decide to play.

Re: Guts Tournament
 

[ QUOTE ]
can someone explain guts 4 me? thks

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Read the link in one of the previous posts. It's a pretty good explanation of the game.

If a player loses and has to match the pot but doesn't have enough chips he should be eliminated. However, unlike previously mentioned, I think he should get a hand for his all in. He should automatically be all in and if he wins he should get his chips back. If there were two losers he should only win his share of the others chips from the other players.

Also as a general rule, taken from the website given earlier, the chip stacks must be at LEAST 100x the inital ante. I'd start the tournament with $50 in chips or something like that, and have the antes start at a dime. Then double or simply raise them as you want. Maybe every 10 minutes you raise the ante another dime. This could be fun, maybe PM me when you see how it goes, I'm interested.

Maybe I'll run one tonight and let you know how it goes [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

JMB

A different question?
 

I don't mean to hijak your post but I think you got a lot of decent responses already so here goes.

What's the biggest pot in relation to the antes you've ever seen in a GUTS game? I played in a game with a $.25 ante and the biggest pot of the night was approximately $117 if I remember correctly.

Crazy...what about you guys?

JMB

Re: A different question?
 

how did the pot get that big?

Re: A different question?
 

Multiple losers, apparently.

@the OP: Yes, that's if a player has to match a pot and can't.

Re: Guts Tournament
 

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If a player loses and has to match the pot but doesn't have enough chips he should be eliminated.

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Agreed.

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However, unlike previously mentioned, I think he should get a hand for his all in. He should automatically be all in and if he wins he should get his chips back. If there were two losers he should only win his share of the others chips from the other players.

[/ QUOTE ]

This I'm not so sure about. Simply because once he's already lost all his chips, he's been eliminated and therefore cannot afford to ante.

FWIW, I would probably start each player with about 400 antes. The maximum 'match' amount would start out big while the antes are small (and rebuys are still permitted) As the tournament progresses, the match amount would be smaller, compared to the ante.

Re: Guts Tournament
 

After reading what you wrote I agree. Once you lose and can't match the pot all your chips should replace the pot and you're elminated.

I hope to play a GUTS tournament in about 2 hours here, so I'll post my results if we end up playing. It may not work out as we'll probably play NLHE, Razz and Badugi before we play GUTS but I'll give it a try [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

JMB

Re: Guts Tournament
 

Looking forward to hearing how it goes. I am guessing that the hardest part would be figuring out a good antes/maximum 'match' schedule.

P.S. What's 'Badugi'? I've seen a few threads about it on here, but am unfamiliar with the game.

Re: Guts Tournament
 

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I'm not sure what you mean by that... in guts, the loser must match the pot, up to a certain limit.

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What I meant was, change the match to X number of bets as a general rule, for the tourney.

But, since it's a tourney, why not just make an exception and go table stakes?
"In guts you need to have enough chips in front of you to match the pot if you lose"

Give the short stack an advantage (they already have the short stack disadvantage) and let them pay off less than the pot match if they lose, as you would in normal games with table stakes. They're still out.

Re: Guts Tournament
 

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What I meant was, change the match to X number of bets as a general rule, for the tourney.

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I like this idea. I always like keeping my blind/ante schedules as simple as possible. Now I just have to figure out the ante schedule, and starting chip amounts. That shouldn't be too rough.

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But, since it's a tourney, why not just make an exception and go table stakes?
"In guts you need to have enough chips in front of you to match the pot if you lose"
Give the short stack an advantage (they already have the short stack disadvantage) and let them pay off less than the pot match if they lose, as you would in normal games with table stakes. They're still out.

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This is pretty much what I had in mind. If they have a short stack, they donate and are out if they can't afford to match the whole pot (or can't afford to ante).

If they win, they still win the entire pot though. In my cash game last week, we allowed people to continue to play with a short stack, however they couldn't win the entire pot. In a tourney, they'd be able to win the entire pot, but would be eliminated if they lost. During the first few rounds, they could rebuy to keep playing.

Re: Guts Tournament
 

For a guts tourney, I would probably go with 200 starting antes. Maximum pot match would be fixed at 20 times the ante, and play would be short-handed (6-max). So the most a player could lose on a hand during the first round would be about 10% of his or her starting stack.

Re: Guts Tournament
 

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I know it's a silly game

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This is very untrue. 2-card is even more fun - with straights, flushes, and straight flushes, its CHAOS. It's fun, but IMO it will make a horrible tournament game.

Ah, the good old days before we discovered hold'em...

Re: Guts Tournament
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I know it's a silly game

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This is very untrue. 2-card is even more fun - with straights, flushes, and straight flushes, its CHAOS.

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I ought to try that sometime! First I must do the math though, so I know my odds [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Check out www.oshkoshpoker.com to see the odds for 3-card guts. I did the math last week!

Re: A different question?
 

[ QUOTE ]
What's the biggest pot in relation to the antes you've ever seen in a GUTS game? I played in a game with a $.25 ante and the biggest pot of the night was approximately $117 if I remember correctly.

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I remember a three card guts game with nickel antes that got up to $52. I won a $30 pot during that very game. I think two people had to give out IOUs after that game.

-Blank Frank