What's your favorite (variation or made up) home game?

[stu-unger]

Black Mariah
7 stud high spade in the whole splits the pot just like chicago ,but to make it interesting if the Qs shows her face u re-ante and re-deal until u finally get a hand where mariah shows. also for an extra bet on the end u can get the option to have your river dealt face up in order to give mariah another chance to show.

[MrBrightside]

we play mariah, but different. If you have the Q spade as a down card you can "play" it anytime the action is on you (even if you are due to call a bet) and that resets the hand, just like the mariah coming as an up card. Also, anyone who has folded is NOT in on the next round (this keeps it from going all nite).

Interesting variation is to play it hichicago (hi sqade down splits pot). If you have the Q spade, you have an interesting decision.. is it good for half or do I throw it in).

[Lottery Larry]

"The first card is turned over and players can bid for it. High big takes the card, then discards a card from his hand. Then players bid on that card. When no one bids on the card, it is turned over and the second card is turned up. This continues until all five cards are finished with. Then you bet on your hand and winner takes all"

But don't you know everyone's hand? I guess if this is limited to the original 5 board cards, there's some deception. How well does this game play?

[Lottery Larry]

I've made up a version called "Assassin" where the Queen can be used at the end to knock out another hand of your choice

Another version was "Bomb" where getting the Queen knocked the lucky receipient out of the game.

They didn't prove to be that popular.

A few that haven't been mentioned.

"Dots" 7 card stud only the person with the most dots down the center of thier cards gets half the pot. For example a 3 is 3 dots, a 10 is 2 dots, a face card/4/6 is zero dots, Ace is 1 dot.

"Tropical dots" Same as dots only spades count all the dots on the card. (as some cards are different, always assume 10 dots for the Ts or 6 dots for the 6s)

"Ped" Each person gets 5 cards. There is a flop, turn, and river, and like in Omaha you must use 3 on the board and 2 in your hand. Hi/Lo split with NO qualifier.

"fake nickel" 7 card stud, all black 5's and the card following the last face up black 5 is wild. K of hearts face up kills the black 5's (any hand with a black 5 must be folded), but does not kill any wild card that followed a black 5. The low diamond in the hole (the real money) takes half the pot. The only final twist is that if one player has the three K's (natural) in their down cards they are royalty and take the entire pot. (this has only happened once in all the times I've played this game)