Tournament / Dealers Choice

[hachkc]

Anybody ever host a NL tournament that allowed a mixture of games like Hold'em, Pineapple, Omaha, Omaha/8b, etc?

Just looking for some feedback.

[JohnnyG]

We've never done it tournament style but we have had cash games dealers choice, we called the game and dealt it around once then after it had been dealt around the table once the next dealer could call a different game. It worked out well and made the Holdem haters happy but not sure how this would work in a tournament structure.

[TripKings]

Yes, we used to play NL tournements that way. Each dealer was allowed to call any one of the standard "flop games": Omaha, Omaha 8b, Pineapple, Crazy Pineapple, Hold 'em, Tahoe, or Tahoe 8b(we rarely played the last two). Mixed game NL can get very confusing for the rookie-types, which is who you want to be comfortable in the game. With everybody and their sister wanting to play NL in the touney setting - we just made it easier and play HE only... which is what everyone sees on tv and wants to play anyway(and everyone is a pro at after only one night).

Other than that if you have a core of knowledgeable players a mixed NL tourn can be fun, but we found that O-8b, and to a lesser extent Omaha, could get pretty crazy as NL.... allowing rebuys are almost a necessity in that case. I say give it a try and see how it works for your group - what everyone likes/wants will evolve from there. How it worked out for us was NL HE tourneys about 50% of the night and limit dealers choice flop games the other 50%. Good Luck.

[hachkc]

Thanks for the replies.

We do play ring/cash games this way but I'm looking for a way to make the tournaments a little more interesting. I personally find HE only tournaments kinda boring and thought this might liven it up. It should also mean the more skilled players (broader experience in this context) should do better.

By the way, what is Tahoe?

[JohnnyG]

Tahoe Poker is a variation of Pineapple Poker, which is a variation of Hold'Em Poker. Like in Hold'Em, Tahoe Poker usually begins with players posting a small blind and big blind. The player to the left of the dealer posts the small blind. The player to the left of the small blind posts the big blind.

The dealing begins with each player receiving three cards facedown, the pocket cards. The first round of betting starts with the player to the left of the player who posted the big blind and proceeds clockwise. All bets and raises are set at the lower limit. The maximum number of bets per player during any round is four.

The dealer then reveals three face up community cards, the flop. The second round of betting begins with the player to the left of the dealer. All bets and raises are again set at the lower limit.

Another community card is then dealt, the turn. This is followed by another round of betting, set at the higher limit.

The final community card is then dealt, the river. This is followed by the final round of betting, at the higher betting limit, and the showdown. At the showdown, players can use none, one, or two of their down cards (but not three) to form their best five-card hand in combination with the five community cards. When played high-low split, a different set of cards can be used for each direction, but no more than two for either direction. Also called Lazy Pineapple.

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[Drunken Monkey]

We have what we call variety tourniments where every player picks a game. Each player had to choose a different game. We strayed away from Omaha H/L because people didn't like me going All-in every time I had the low and they were unsure about their high hand.

The structure was somewhat poor because they didn't want to play orbits of games, which I would recommend.
To stop the same person being in the BB in the same game each time we made Hold'em customary to add one more game than the number of people. This kept the BB moving one spot to the right each revolution for that particular game. Also, if player A choose Pineapple, for instance, and he got knocked out Pineapple would no longer be played after his elimination. It was quite funny how many people targeted the guy who always played Blind Man's Bluff because most of the group didn't want to play it.

We have considered doing time slots for games, like 30 minutes of Stud, then 30 minutes of Hold'em, but no such tournement was ever organized for my group so I wouldn't know to much on how smoothly one would go.

[smoore]

Tournaments are rigorous and structured. Dealers' choice isn't. I say if you want a mixed tournament play HORSE.