Dragon Poker

Quote: Gialmere

It's a long shot but does anyone know where to buy a deck for this game? Apart from the Wizard sites no one seems to have heard of it.

I didn't see any clues on who makes or distributes it. Might be part of their patent protection that they had specialty cards printed up and they are the sole source for the decks.

You can make one pretty easily with 3 decks of regular csrds. 12 rabbits is the largest amount, so they can be all the 2's , and up from there. Your wild can be a joker.

Quote: beachbumbabs

You can make one pretty easily with 3 decks of regular csrds. 12 rabbits is the largest amount, so they can be all the 2's , and up from there. Your wild can be a joker.

Thanks Babs. I might go there but it wouldn't be as fun. I found the distributor using (oddly) an image search. It's "In Bet Gaming". They offer free versions of some of their other games if anyone is interested.

Whoa! Major tweaking. It's now a FOUR card game.

They pulled this game pretty quickly from Foxwoods new game zone when it was still a 3-card game. Total snooze fest. My girlfriend and I only played once. No decisions to make, not really very exciting to even see a dragon in your hand because it rarely matches up. And unless it’s a gold dragon it doesn’t even pay the dragon bonus. There is only one gold dragon in a 53 card deck and you’re gonna pay it 5:1? Boo

Game was mostly fold with a low high card or win with a high card.

Maybe it’s because I don’t belong to this games...target demographic.

That demo doesn’t work well on my phone so I can’t try the 4 card version atm.

Quote: GBAM

They pulled this game pretty quickly from Foxwoods new game zone when it was still a 3-card game. Total snooze fest. My girlfriend and I only played once. No decisions to make, not really very exciting to even see a dragon in your hand because it rarely matches up. And unless it’s a gold dragon it doesn’t even pay the dragon bonus. There is only one gold dragon in a 53 card deck and you’re gonna pay it 5:1? Boo

Game was mostly fold with a low high card or win with a high card.

Maybe it’s because I don’t belong to this games...target demographic.

That demo doesn’t work well on my phone so I can’t try the 4 card version atm.

Thanks VERY much for the real-world report!

Thanks for the updates. Can anyone verify a casino placement of the four-card version? I don't think I'm going to fuss with analyzing it unless it can be played somewhere for real money.

Would definitely like to know what other people think of the demo since it seems we were all on the same page about the 3 card version

I only gave it about 15 minutes because it’s hard to play on my phone, but the 4 card version is a bit of an improvement. Getting pairs is a little more satisfying than figureing out which animal is the high card every time. In 15 minutes though I only had 2 hands that were higher than 1 pair (two pair!!), so the Ante bet almost never paid for me.

I did win more hands than I was expecting but I just wavered between +/- about $70 playing $10 on the two required spots. Never played the bonus bets but I didn’t get a paying hand that I could tell.

This may be irrational but it still irks me how useless the dragons are in a game named for them. They still don’t pair very often so two of the weakest animal (rabbit?) still beat a dragon. And the dragon bonus doesn’t even recognize any single dragon except the gold and the payout still sucks. Why can’t they just pay any dragon 1:1 to make me feel a bit better (EDIT: In this new 4 card version they don’t even pay 5:1 for a single golden dragon.)

This could keep people at the table longer just for the “winning” headspace of getting a pair more often but it wouldn’t have me back.

The IBG website has no placement listings and they would certainly tout one if they could. Obviously the three-card version sank and the four-card is a "Plan B" attempt to salvage it. Here is my kitchen table analysis...

I played 100 hands betting $10 on Ante (thus a forced $10 on Ante Bonus), $5 on 4-Card Bonus and $2 on Dragon Bonus. I only made the Play wager if I had a pair of rabbits or better.

General
30 Folds
70 Play Wagers (each an additional $10)

16 Trips or Better (includes 1 quad)
03 Losses with Trips
04 Folds I Would Have Won

Ante & Play Wagers
23 Lost (out of 70)
46 Won (out of 70)
01 Push (out of 70)
30 Folds (no play wager)
-$120 total return

Ante Bonus ($1000 wagered)
54 Lost
46 Won or Pushed
$490 Won
$540 Lost
-$50 Total Return

4-Card Bonus ($500 wagered)
17 Hits
$485 Won with $85 (17 x $5) returned
$570 Total Return

Dragon Bonus ($200 wagered)
07 Hits
$300 Won with $14 (7 x $2) returned
$314 Total Return

FINAL
$14 Ahead at Session End
(I got lucky on the side-bets with one quad and two 3oak dragons)
It's a tough call between which version I prefer.