Home game variations

[KuQuAT]

Here's two (well, one and a variant) that we play. They work well with 4-8 players and are high-low (though I suppose that's not strictly necessary)...

Love Canal:

Deal 6 cards to each player.

Bet.

Each player selects two cards of her six to reveal, retaining four.

Reveal one of two cards.

Bet.

Reveal other of two cards.

Bet.

Declare (again, I suppose you could play "cards speak", but the declare is pretty nice).

Your hand is EXACTLY 3 of your remaining 4 cards with SOME OTHER PLAYER'S two revealed cards. You can swing, using a (slightly) different 3 of 4 and some other players revealed cards. They keys are that you must use precisely 3 of 4 and one other persons revealed cards.

Then you scream at the person who revealed suited cards, as it made someone elses flush :-)

Variant (that we actually play more)...

Chernobyl:
Same game, but select your cards one at a time. That is, don't select your second card until after you've seen everyone else's first card.

The problem with this variant is -- what do you do if someone folds after revealing 1 card? We solve this by having them select a random card from their remaining 5.

Enjoy!

[reubenf]

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Love Canal:

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I love this one. It sounds like a lot of fun to play. Do you reveal, and can you play from, the cards from folded hands? If not, that seems like it could get really random. But from your comments on Chernobyl, I suspect you do get to play from the folded hands. We have to try this one out, thanks!

[KuQuAT]

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Love Canal:


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I love this one. It sounds like a lot of fun to play. Do you reveal, and can you play from, the cards from folded hands? If not, that seems like it could get really random. But from your comments on Chernobyl, I suspect you do get to play from the folded hands. We have to try this one out, thanks!


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It is fun. It's also nice because it plays well from 2-8 players (though short-handed is a much different game). We play that a hand that is folded before any revealing does not reveal, but a hand that is folded after one or both cards are revealed stays in play for use by the others.

Of course, it's a pretty loose game and there's not much reason to bet heavily or fold before any cards are revealed, so there's not much pre-reveal folding. I once wrote a program to try to evaluate the best starting hands, and it's not obvious.

By the way, in games like this, we use an ante. We have the dealer ante for the whole table - saves lots of "OK, who forgot to ante" junk. So, if you're playing nickel-dime-quarter with eight players, the dealer puts in 40 cents before dealing. Works very well.