Manila.. who's played it??

[JacksonTens]

Curious to see if anyone plays Manila? It's the second biggest game at my B&M.

JT [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]

[Tom Bayes]

Sorry, never heard of it. How is it played?

[MarkGritter]

Here are a couple of rule pages:

http://www.gambling-poker.com/manila_poker.html
http://www.pokertips.org/variants/article/99.php

Played with a stripped deck, 7s and higher. Two downcards + one community card before the first round of betting. 4 additional rounds of betting after each of 4 more community cards. Best hand using three community cards wins (i.e., like Omaha Hi). Flushes beat full houses.

Let me ramble for a bit here:

The inversion of flushes and full houses (due to the stripped deck) is interesting, I'm kind of curious how that affects the strength of suited hands. Probably decreased because they are harder to make.

The two-card requirement makes bare aces much less worthwhile, so low suited aces are probably junk hands even cheap.

Two-pair hands are somewhat less likely to be counterfeited because your opponent can't play a bare kicker. Or does the stripped deck make it more likely?

The cost to see community cards is much increased. Instead of paying 1 small bet to see the first three cards you must pay 2 SB. This probably means that suitedness/connectedness is much less valuable because you cannot 'flop' a monster draw. You may have to play in a somewhat stud-like fashion and fold '4th street' (2nd round) fairly often.

On the other hand, you do get to see a community card for free. Seeing a set in the first round has to be worth something. Having your opponent see his set vs. your AA is not so good.

All in all, I think this game probably has to be played fairly tightly, I don't see a lot of value in suited connectors or anything worse than a top pair hand. Draws are expensive. Kings or queens can probably be thrown away if there's an ace up on the first round of betting. Three to a straight flush might be playable if you can see 4th street cheaply.

[timprov]

I imagine you could do pretty well using stud high starting hands.

[MarkGritter]

[ QUOTE ]
Three to a straight flush might be playable if you can see 4th street cheaply.

[/ QUOTE ]

Let me try to work this out:

If you have 4 to a flush with 3 cards remaining, there are 5 of your suit remaining in 32-4 = 28 cards. So your chance of getting at least one is 5/28+(23/28*(5/27+22/27*5/26) = 46%. Any straight possibilities are weaker hands but still gravy on top of that. You don't have to worry about boats.

So ignoring the straight possibilities you need something like 9:1 implied odds to see 4th and continue with the rest of the hand. Easy with three big streets (that's 6SB HU), assuming players don't autofold when the third flush card hits.

[stripsqueez]

i have played a heap of manilla - in fact i'm about 90 minutes away from my weekly fix

it plays a lot like omaha hi in the sense that you need to get the nuts and not draw to hands that arent going to be the nuts - its commonly played 12 or 13 handed

you would always play a 3 card flush draw because like i said making the big hands is where the big money is - the big pocket pairs play as long as the first community card isnt bigger - you can play some straight cards but very carefully

every straight has a J and a 10 in it so J10 can always be played and is kind of a powerful hand (J10 is commonly known in Oz as "the greek flag") - however its crap if the first community card is a J or a 10 or ofcourse if the board pairs

the big traps are dodgy straight draws - ie playing KJo on a Q and playing hands that make a low pair with the first community card with an average or crap kicker - these hands can be played with a back door flush possibilty or in the right spots but they are usually played by chooks in middle position for a raise

betting structures vary but its always limit - usually the bet size doubles for the last 2 cards or as in my regular game quadruples for the last community card

3 coming in is obviously a rock but AKs on say a 7 or 8 of that suit is otherwise my favourite starting hand because again a bit like the omaha concept of having multiple draws i have flush, straight, and full potential

if player numbers drop below say 6 or 7 its also often played 3 carded - ie you get 3 cards and have to use 2 of them (not throwing a card away as in crazy pineapple)

stripsqueez - chickenhawk

[stripsqueez]

[ QUOTE ]
The cost to see community cards is much increased. Instead of paying 1 small bet to see the first three cards you must pay 2 SB. This probably means that suitedness/connectedness is much less valuable because you cannot 'flop' a monster draw. You may have to play in a somewhat stud-like fashion and fold '4th street' (2nd round) fairly often

[/ QUOTE ]

unless the second community card is a disaster most starting hands are good to pay to see the third community card - you are normally getting huge pot and implied odds to see the last 2 cards so for example the big pairs are nearly always playing to the end if the board is paired and there are no higher community cards

stripsqueez - chickenhawk