hole cards face up

Hi, I like to try a new way of playing Texas Holdem. All hole cards are dealt face up. And all ante & betting played the usual way. This way there obviously would be no challenge, just simple, easy & fair play. The best hand at the river wins. I think it would be a bit faster play also.

I came to this idea when I played table games over the years & felt strongly that there was some possible collusion and/or other types of cheating going on. I played a lot of video poker also & was discouraged at those games as well.

I thought wouldn't it be nice to just play some straight poker with no hassle or unfair advantage by casinos or colluders. So I came up with this simple idea. And I wonder if the odds would be better for the players also? I imagine the odds would be better by just removing bluffing, etc..

I would like to know your thoughts on this idea. Thank you.

Since you asked Sue, does the word BORING ring a bell ?

You would have to butcher payouts or make some very odd house rule changes. If the players were allowed to know all of the cards, including the dealers hands in which I presume they're playing against... Then they'll just fold when they have the worst hand and raise/call when they have the best hand. Thus, they'll never play a losing hand (example would be UTH calling after the river). This would be a complete player advantage and thus like I said you'd have to butcher payouts/etc to make it somehow fair.

Then I'll agree with muley that it would be severely boring.

Hole card face up? That ain't hole card.

Romes -

The OP is talking about regular poker.


Sue -

Try playing it with your friends. Removing the bluffing option also removes all the skill.

This would be dumb. You would essentially be playing video poker. You would be able to calculate the exact odds of winning and bet accordingly. I prefer winning hands of 56 suited when the board has a rainbow all cards higher than 7.

why don't you just flip a coin? why go thru all the rituals of turning cards?

Quote: andysif

why don't you just flip a coin? why go thru all the rituals of turning cards?

It would be a little more complicated than just flipping a coin. You would still have to make a decision to call on a draw.

Hardly anyone would play it but I would. It would be pure math, and plenty of players would still make mistakes (though most of those players probably wouldn't play this game to begin with). There are a few rare situations where even most good players would make mistakes. The game would be all about bet-sizing, deciding whether to chase, and exploiting the tendencies of which math mistakes your opponents make. Very few players would know how to maximally exploit bad villains in multiway pots.

But I'm not sure if the rake would be beatable unless the players were pretty bad or were pure gamblers treating it like a table game hoping to hit draws.

The main problem and the game killer would be you knew your exact outs and if anyone held the cards that you needed.

Why don't you just play Ultimate Texas Hold Em? Bluffing is a key element of NL. If you can't take the heat get out of the kitchen.

Maybe a game more to the OPs taste would be Blind Man's Bluff. Played like Texas Hold em, but everyone holds their cards up to their foreheads. This way, you see everybody's cards, but the rub is you don't see your own.

I don't think it would necessarily be boring.

It would be really different, though, like those blackjack tournaments where people are making bets based on the size of their own AND other people's stacks, and deviating from basic strategy trying to catch a break, against the odds, to get ahead.

It makes it much more about luck and less about skill, so I could see how that would make it more boring.

Basically, what the OP intends is something similar to 5-Card Stud (1-down, 4-up). That game is dead in the WSOP.

OTOH, a third face-up pocket card would be much more interesting. For example pocket is 1-down, 1 up, bet, flop, bet, turn and river, bet, 1 pocket down, showdown.