New Game Idea: Strategic War
Then the dealer shuffles one deck of cards and deals 26 cards to each player. House rake is taken, and the players have one minute to arrange their cards any way they want. Then they play war, just the same way it is always played. After each round, they take the cards they have and rearrange them again, until someone runs out of cards and loses, in which case the winner takes all. But either player can surrender at any time and receive n/52* their ante from the pot, where n is the number of cards in their possession, and the opponent gets the rest.
Seems simple, but if you think about the strategy it might be more like gin rummy, a game that anyone can play and everyone has, but also with very complicated strategy if you want to play it well. There are other details that could be added to make it more difficult, like being able to pay a fine to the pot rather than going to war, or to be able to surrender your next card to your opponent rather than going to war.
I think it would be very entertaining to watch and play, more so than poker, and attract the same kind of patrons to a casino that the poker room does, only worse. Ringers vs. belligerent fools, each trying to determine who is which.
If it is the latter, then both players will play the same strategy - put an Ace on top, then assume the opponent played an Ace (otherwise the round is over) and set it up so the next visible card is also an Ace; do this with the remaining two Aces, then the Kings, then the Queens, and so on.
Now, if they have to go through the entire deck before rearranging, you may have something there.
Quote: ThatDonGuyWhat do you mean by "round"? Do you mean going through the full deck, or does a round end when someone wins?
If it is the latter, then both players will play the same strategy - put an Ace on top, then assume the opponent played an Ace (otherwise the round is over) and set it up so the next visible card is also an Ace; do this with the remaining two Aces, then the Kings, then the Queens, and so on.
Now, if they have to go through the entire deck before rearranging, you may have something there.
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Why would we both play that strategy?
We don't each get a full deck to stack; we each get 26 cards dealt from a shuffled deck.
I can see the surrender option being used interestingly, particularly if someone adopts a strategy of deliberately trying to lose a few early rounds, so that they will win many subsequent rounds.
I would suggest that 4 cards be dealt (burned without exposure) to the discard, so that each player receives 24 cards, and some uncertainty is added.
edit: I'm reading "round" in the original post to mean that the player's cards have all been played through, no more remain in the talon.
Quote: ThatDonGuyWhat do you mean by "round"? Do you mean going through the full deck, or does a round end when someone wins?
If it is the latter, then both players will play the same strategy - put an Ace on top, then assume the opponent played an Ace (otherwise the round is over) and set it up so the next visible card is also an Ace; do this with the remaining two Aces, then the Kings, then the Queens, and so on.
Now, if they have to go through the entire deck before rearranging, you may have something there.
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By "round" I mean playing as many cards as possible. So for the first round when they have 26 each, dealt randomly, they will play 26 cards each. Of course they will not have the same cards. So the first decision they will have to make is look at their hands, and if one player's hand is bad enough it will be the best play to surrender half of your bet right there and the game is over. But let's say they play, and after they play all 26 one player has 32 cards and the other 20. Then they will rearrange and play a round of 20 cards (assuming no one surrenders). The player who is ahead can play his 20 best cards, or he can choose to protect some high cards in the 12 he will not be playing and allow the opponent to pick up a few junk cards, increasing his incentive to surrender after the next round. A player can actually be ahead in the card count and choose to surrender, knowing his cards are weak and he will not likely ever have more than he has now.
Yes they rearrange every time one player has played all his cards. Part of the strategy will be protecting your high cards from wars. The likelihood of a war is highest with a 2-2 split on that rank, so any card you have 2 of, you will be inclined to put low cards in the 3 after that and then a high card, hoping both to win the war and to lose only low cards if you lose it. A 3-1 split has a lower risk of war, and if you have 0 or 4 of a rank there is no risk of war. The player who is ahead may or may not want wars, and that will determine whether or not he buries his 2-2 splits or any other warmongering ranks he has in the cards he won't be playing. (Best strategy there I think would be to bury cards he has 1 of, to avoid wars.
The skill of this game will be: looking at your cards and quickly estimating whether playing or surrendering is the better value, then rearranging your cards (knowing that anything you don't have your opponent does) in a manner that you believe will improve your position for the next round, all in a limited amount of time. So it will have a basic poker skill, that of estimating the value of your hand, and then a card ordering skill which makes me think of gin rummy more than anything else, but maybe there are more analogous games.
Quote: AutomaticMonkeyI have this game idea for a War variation. It starts by being teamed up against an opponent, and each player antes. It would have to be a big ante.
Then the dealer shuffles one deck of cards and deals 26 cards to each player. House rake is taken, and the players have one minute to arrange their cards any way they want. Then they play war, just the same way it is always played. After each round, they take the cards they have and rearrange them again, until someone runs out of cards and loses, in which case the winner takes all. But either player can surrender at any time and receive n/52* their ante from the pot, where n is the number of cards in their possession, and the opponent gets the rest.
Seems simple, but if you think about the strategy it might be more like gin rummy, a game that anyone can play and everyone has, but also with very complicated strategy if you want to play it well. There are other details that could be added to make it more difficult, like being able to pay a fine to the pot rather than going to war, or to be able to surrender your next card to your opponent rather than going to war.
I think it would be very entertaining to watch and play, more so than poker, and attract the same kind of patrons to a casino that the poker room does, only worse. Ringers vs. belligerent fools, each trying to determine who is which.
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Interesting game idea, AM! Thanks for including us in the discussion!
One thought regarding surrender:
If I don’t have Aces in my initial deal, I would be tempted to surrender immediately, as a war is the only way to get them. You might consider giving a penalty to whoever surrenders before the first round, such as the opponent gets her full share and he who surrendered covers the rake. Otherwise, they both get penalized by a portion of the rake before the game begins… Still trying to decide whether it’s worthwhile to do this no matter when the surrender takes place. From the casino’s perspective however, ending the game faster would be beneficial…
Quote: camapl
Interesting game idea, AM! Thanks for including us in the discussion!
One thought regarding surrender:
If I don’t have Aces in my initial deal, I would be tempted to surrender immediately, as a war is the only way to get them. You might consider giving a penalty to whoever surrenders before the first round, such as the opponent gets her full share and he who surrendered covers the rake. Otherwise, they both get penalized by a portion of the rake before the game begins… Still trying to decide whether it’s worthwhile to do this no matter when the surrender takes place. From the casino’s perspective however, ending the game faster would be beneficial…
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Unless you have all the aces you would need wars to get the ones you don't have. I think a simple point count would determine the EV of the hand. If the EV is greater than the -50% for surrendering you'd play.
The ability to decline a war and forfeit the trick and your next card would be a huge deal. Let's say you're a War Meister and you have memorized the order of your cards. Now you have a war with 4s. You know your three spoils cards are 3-K-Q, and the deciding card is a 6. You're probably not going to risk the K and Q in a war like that, you're going to just give him the 4 and the 3. You're also going to know all the cards your opponent has left- they're the ones you didn't have minus the ones he's played already. This is why I keep thinking of gin rummy, where you really have to remember every card the opponent picked up and also every card he discarded and declined to pick up, to play at championship level. Scrabble has elements like that too.
Yeah this could be a really slow game. Maybe better for club and tournament play than casinos.
Quote: AutomaticMonkey
Unless you have all the aces you would need wars to get the ones you don't have. I think a simple point count would determine the EV of the hand. If the EV is greater than the -50% for surrendering you'd play.
The ability to decline a war and forfeit the trick and your next card would be a huge deal. Let's say you're a War Meister and you have memorized the order of your cards. Now you have a war with 4s. You know your three spoils cards are 3-K-Q, and the deciding card is a 6. You're probably not going to risk the K and Q in a war like that, you're going to just give him the 4 and the 3. You're also going to know all the cards your opponent has left- they're the ones you didn't have minus the ones he's played already. This is why I keep thinking of gin rummy, where you really have to remember every card the opponent picked up and also every card he discarded and declined to pick up, to play at championship level. Scrabble has elements like that too.
Yeah this could be a really slow game. Maybe better for club and tournament play than casinos.
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Could be used for drawings to see who gets the better prize, especially at places that like to draw them out as long as possible…
Could be something for tables if you figure out a way for more than two to play at a time and/or dealer v. multiple players.
