Dealer's choice questions

[smoore]

Right now we play a micro spread limit holdem at my home game with blinds of 0.10/0.20 and a max bet/raise of 0.50. My table is oval, with a dealer tray (don't ever do that to your home poker table but I had illusions of dealing pro) and we have a dedicated dealer. I'm going to be going to a round table so we can pass the deal efficiently. When I do this, I will be changing to a dealer's choice, casino games only format. I will also be changing the limits and holdem/omaha will go to a standard .50/1 structured game.

When we do dealers choice someone will want to deal draw, someone else 7stud or razz (I don't know why he likes that damn game). How do others handle blinds/antes in this situation? Should we just post blinds, even when it's draw or stud? How do you handle action and the bring in with stud if you use a blind? Is there even a bring in or do you go in order like holdem? I know that draw is pretty easy to play with blinds, but I can't get my head around stud.

Since 7stud has more betting rounds and I'm one of the best stud players in my group, can't I gain a serious advantage by playing stud for my choice? I'm thinking this because people just chase for crap; the pots are huge whenever we play stud. Would it be out of line to reduce the betting to .25/50 for stud? Would we then increase to something like 0.75/1.50 for draw?

I'm also considering using a dealer type puck to mark who's "choice" it is, then we would play a whole orbit of thier game with the corresponding blind or ante structure, anyone else do this?

I will only allow "casino" games to be played at this table, no follow the queen, no chicago, no "crazy omaha" (don't ask, basically it's any of the nine cards to make a five card hand). Do I allow crazy pineapple? It's a crap game, but they do play it online in "casinos". Hell, I may do it just to keep the wild-card types happy.

[ddss6_99]

At my home game, we have .5/1 blinds, but blinds are only in effect if the dealer chooses Hold 'Em ( sucks for whoever sits 2 to my left because I always pick hold em). For all other games (omaha, 7cs, razz, 5 card draw, 7 card draw to 5, cincinati, hartford (made up game, don't ask), we have it where you are delt your cards and then it's .25 to see the flop, draw cards, or continue playing pending the game. A bit odd, but everybody seems to like it so it's alright with me.

[Hedge Henderson]

When we switched from antes to blinds in our home game, we did away with "dealer's choice" for the most part. We all take turns calling a round of poker now. The first player may call hold 'em, and we play a round of that so everyone's paid the same blinds. The next player may call a round of stud or draw, and so on. This seems to work pretty well for us.

[Luskmonster]

For 7 Stud we usually have the blinds post, everyone gets the first three cards, then all the other players call-raise-fold and the fourth card is dealt to all remaining players. From this point on everything works the same as it normally would. I know this is totally weak, but there's really no way around it outside of forcing each dealer's choice to have to go around the table once before it ends. However, even with that you're going to get people who only like to play THE and Omaha getting grumpy because they have to pay a round's worth of antes for a game they don't like that much.

[warewulf]

The way my dealers choice game works is when it's your turn to deal, you put up $1.50 which is considered everyones antes. We have the dealer do it because we got sick of figuring out who forgot to put it in, etc. This way you don't have to do an entire round. It works well because you don't have to chose the same game for your "round" and it keeps things interesting because the game keeps changing.

If you do blinds at all, you're pretty much locked into an entire round of each game. RE: 7-stud -- Play like the casinos play: low card brings it in for the minimum bet.

As far as varying the betting depending on the game, we play fubar (5 stud high/low declare roll your own). Our limits are normally $1 max, but for a 5 stud game we have a max $2 bet on last round.

[KungFuSandwich]

In declare hi/lo can you declare both Hi and Lo, If so what happens if you win one and not the other?

[LetsRock]

Probably the best thing you can do in this type of dealer's choice game is to play one game for a full orbit and then let the next guy pick the game for the next orbit. For one thing, certain games (holdem, omaha, draw) always give the dealer a positional advantage - that advantage should be shared by everyone an equal amount of times. The betting structures are also different (some use blinds, others antes and bring-in bets etc) and this can create disadvantages as well.

If you play each game for an orbit, all the pitfalls and advantages are equally shared and will also ease the prseeure of getting the betting strucures right for each game.

[Gurney]

In our home game, you have to win both the high and low hands in order to gain the entire pot. You forfeit the entire pot if you tie with either the high or low hand, i.e. you have the high pot with Ace high flush, but tie with a wheel for low. This keeps it interesting when deciding when to declare both directions. When you declare in only one direction and tie, than that pot is split. I.e. two players have a wheel, low pot is split.

[chesspain]

Just have the "choice" of game be for an entire orbit, which also allows you the option of having the dealer post everyone's antes in stud/draw games, which enables you to do away with the smallest denomination chips that might only be used for antes.

[warewulf]

[ QUOTE ]
In our home game, you have to win both the high and low hands in order to gain the entire pot. You forfeit the entire pot if you tie with either the high or low hand, i.e. you have the high pot with Ace high flush, but tie with a wheel for low. This keeps it interesting when deciding when to declare both directions. When you declare in only one direction and tie, than that pot is split. I.e. two players have a wheel, low pot is split.

[/ QUOTE ]

Exactly.

Going for both is called "Pig". Like he said, you have to win both, so if you tie or lose on either, you're screwed! That's the beauty of declare games -- it adds a huge element of strategy. You can miss your high and declare low if you don't think anyone else will. Happens all the time. Sometimes BOTH people miss and call the opposite of the way they look. That's hilarious!

The way it's usually done -- everyone takes 2 chip under the table. 0 chips = low, 1 = high, 2 = pig Everyone must open their hand at the same time. Don't drop onto the table because you might have someone pull a fast one and claim he had a different amount of chips.

Rule of thumb -- if you must play with wild cards, the game should be high only with no declare. I can't stand wild cards, but one of my games allows them. I picked up a few pots because we had a high/low declare with wilds and you end up with more than one wheel, one guy never learns -- has gone pig twice and tied both times. Always a relief when you have a wheel and declare low and see some moron go pig. 7 stud high/low declare is probably my favorite dealers choice game.