Could somebody analyze this game???

[college kid]

One of my poker buddies came up with this. He said this was similar to Texas Showdown or whatever that stupid new casino table game is--the one with all the hoopla about the side bet.

I make a minimum bet, get two hole cards, decide if I want to raise my bet (not a fixed raise) or keep it at the minimum, then get two more cards. Then out of the four, I pick two. My buddy then deals himself four and picks two. We then turn them up, deal a five card board and the best hold em hand wins. If I win, he pays even money on whatever my bet (or bet and raise) amount is and if I lose, he gets it.

I figure I have some kind of an edge because I get to raise when I am dealt good two cards to begin with, and I also will pick the two optimal cards based in a chart of heads up starting hands (e.g. KTs is better head up than KQo). He neither gets to raise or say I cannot raise, nor will he always pick the best heads up hand. Since we each start with four cards, I am only raising if I get a high pair or slick to begin with because the average two card hand will be better when we get to pick from four.

Can somebody analyze this any better?

[Iceman]

[ QUOTE ]
One of my poker buddies came up with this. He said this was similar to Texas Showdown or whatever that stupid new casino table game is--the one with all the hoopla about the side bet.

I make a minimum bet, get two hole cards, decide if I want to raise my bet (not a fixed raise) or keep it at the minimum, then get two more cards. Then out of the four, I pick two. My buddy then deals himself four and picks two. We then turn them up, deal a five card board and the best hold em hand wins. If I win, he pays even money on whatever my bet (or bet and raise) amount is and if I lose, he gets it.

I figure I have some kind of an edge because I get to raise when I am dealt good two cards to begin with, and I also will pick the two optimal cards based in a chart of heads up starting hands (e.g. KTs is better head up than KQo). He neither gets to raise or say I cannot raise, nor will he always pick the best heads up hand. Since we each start with four cards, I am only raising if I get a high pair or slick to begin with because the average two card hand will be better when we get to pick from four.

[/ QUOTE ]

As I see it, you have a huge edge. If you're dealt AA as your first two cards, couldn't you raise $10,000 and he'd have to call?

In the real game Texas Shootout, players aren't allowed to raise and the dealer wins ties, making the house advantage about 3% against perfect play.

[college kid]

That's pretty much what I think. Of course we each only have like twenty bucks on the table, but I will play that over our normal home game every time.

[randomstumbl]

Optimal strategy is probably pretty tough in this game. Anytime you're dealt AA, KK or QQ it's pretty easy. Other hands are tougher though.

With small pairs, he will usually be able to get close to a coinflip (and he has the advantage of knowing about dead cards). Sometimes, he'll get you at a 4:1 disadvantage too.

When you pick two high cards, he won't ever be an enourmous dog either.

I think you have the advantage, but it's not as big as it seems. Most of the value of this game is waiting for the few times when you'll have a big advantage and bet the max. If you don't do that, I could see players being bad enough to lose even with the advantage.

[joshman1204]

This actually sounds like a pretty cool game, has your buddy though about presenting to a casino gaming company? Add a max to the amount you can raise to make it easier to calculate the house advantage and you could possibly market this to casinos.

[parttimepro]

The player definitely has the advantage with this game. Most poker-style casino games require that players either raise or fold, which creates HA. Also, the dealer usually folds if he doesn't meet some criteria about the quality of his hand. By allowing you to check, and forcing the dealer to always call, there is a huge advantage for the player.

This would be a very popular game (for obvious reasons) but if you changed the rules to create a HA, it would probably look very similar to Sklansky's new casino poker game.

[joshman1204]

I think it would be very similar to sklanskys new game but I would rather play this game due to the slightly higher level of player skill involved with picking the best 2 cards out of your 4. This game would probably be more popular due to the fact there are going to be many more playable hands with 4 cards than with 2 so it is going to give the appearnce of more action. After all this is a carnival game at best and nobody wants to fold there antes forever in a carnival game.