New Games I've Seen

Quote: gordonm888

Quote: harris

"High Roller Hold'Em" by Galaxy Gaming seems to be being played at a casino in Illinois. You can read more about it here.
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I like this game except that it will be expensive to play (hence the high-roller term in its title) and arriving at a basic strategy will not be quick or easy - I think the game this most resembles is Casino Hold'em because your final wager is either Fold or BET 2x -5x after you have two hole cards and have seen three (of five) common cards. Casino Hold'em has always been difficult to analyze and summarize a strategy for. This game also has some similarities to UTH and Texas Hold'em Bonus; UTH strategy has been well analyzed but its strategy was a major outstanding unknown for some while when the game came out.

HR Holdem

First of all, this is a Texas Holdem variant against a dealer with two unknown random cards and dealer's hand does not have to qualify in any way. This allows us to use standard online holdem calculators to analyze win percentage for various starting hands and post-flop situations in which hole cards and three community cards are known.

The Dealer's advantage is that player must first make equal wagers on the Ante spot and the Bonus spot. These two wagers are lost whenever dealer wins and they only PUSH when Player ties or wins with a hand that is less than a straight. The Ante wager pays 1 with a winning hand of straight or better; the Bonus wager pays 1 with a winning hand of straight or flush, pays 2 with a winning Boat and higher values for 4oak, SFlush and Royal Flush according to a paytable. So these two opening bets create an enormous hole in EV for the player to dig out of.

Of course, the player has advantages. He can make decisions on two wagers:
a) a pre-flop wager where he can FOLD or BET 1X - 3X. This sounds similar to UTH except you cannot check in HRHoldem and once you have BET 1x to 3x you are not done; you are forced to make another decision.
b) there is a post-flop decision in which Player must either FOLD or Bet 2x -5x. If you've had a great flop you cash in with a 5x bet (still realizing that anything can happen). If you 've missed the flop you must decide between FOLDING with at least 3 units already wagered, or BETTING 2 units more on a -EV hand.

PRE-FLOP Decision. HRH will be different that UTH. IN HRH the 1X BET is attractive because it allows you to cheaply buy information on which to possibly bet 5X postflop but alternately on how to make a '2x or fold' postflop decision. Betting 3X preflop may price you out of folding your Post-flop hand.

POST-FLOP Decision: there are still two community cards to be seen and two unknown cards in the dealer's hand, but if your Expected Win Percentage is > 50% you should slam down 5 units and cross your fingers and hope you win. To understand the post flop decision I would probably start by looking at Casino Hold'em strategy as that is for the same situation as the HRH POST-Flop decision (except that in Casino Hold-em the dealer must qualify with a pair of 4s.}

I think I would choose to do a lot of math before playing this game. Making accurate pre-flop and (especially) post-flop decisions are the entire ballgame in HRH.

Collusion comments

I don't know the HRH House Edge and haven't yet done any math. So, I don't really know anything. However, I do count 4 "borderlines" in strategy space.
- Post flop BET 2x or BET 5x
- Post flop: FOLD or BET 2x
- Pre flop: Bet 1x or Bet 3x
- Pre flop: FOLD or Bet 1x

That's four different sets of card combinations that can be close calls between two options. And HRH decisions involve bet sizes that differ by multiple units. These factors could make additional information gained by casual collusion more impactful.
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Thanks Gordon. I think this game will be great for holecarding

Quote: TigerWu

Honestly hope this one catches on. Definitely enjoyed it more than a lot of other carnival games.
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I called the casino and they confirmed that Hi-Lo Mojo is still being played, two-and-a-half months later. I think that's good news for the inventor.

A long time ago I mentioned Run'Em Twice: L&W's clone of Criss Cross Poker. I said it was identical to Criss Cross Poker but it has a new side bet with a ~4% house edge called Ultimate Pairs. I will analyze it later.

Lazy Joker Poker was sent to me by an awesome forum member this morning. I think it’s like DJ Wild but with less possible mistakes since only the joker is Wild : I imagine that deuces being wild forces dealers to think longer or make more mistakes.
I think there is a lot of potential for new games with jokers

I doubt this will be played in casinos any time soon but I wanted to share this website that sent to me by one of the creators via Reddit today.

It's a traditional Jewish game somewhat like blackjack but with a 24-card deck of cards with the numbers 1-12. Hope you like it, this is much better designed than my own website lol

Quote: harris

Lazy Joker Poker was sent to me by an awesome forum member this morning.

The joker in the video looks very different, but cool, I imagine they got it custom-made to demonstrate this game. Would this card be allowed in a real casino? Is there regulation on what the joker has to look like? Can the background color of the card be any color?

Thanks :)

I don't know about regulatory, but from a practical sense there would be issues. This looks custom made and not supplied by a major supplier. It also poses problems from a game protection standpoint, there would be concerns of hole carding being easier.

Quote: zbrownson

This looks custom made and not supplied by a major supplier. It also poses problems from a game protection standpoint, there would be concerns of hole carding being easier.link to original post

It's custom-made but I think it's supplied by a large company: Bee (based on the Ace of Spades visible in the video). I agree that it would make hole-carding much easier. Still I wonder if they could have the joker card depict a DJ (music person) with a jester hat on for the game DJ Wild for example, without changing the background-color of the card.

Quote: harris

Is there regulation on what the joker has to look like?link to original post

Usually a Joker has a picture of a jester on it, with the word "JOKER" on the corner where the suit should be.
Yesterday, I saw a video from Canterbury Park where the "joker" just had an image of a horse on it, and there was a black star where the suit is usually indicated. I guess there is essentially no limit to how different jokers can be, but I assume that other cards are required to show their rank (with a letter) and suit (with a symbol).

I wonder if it would be legal to give the queens mustaches and the kings dresses in order to subvert gender norms. Which I'm sure is a really high priority for Las Vegas' casino corporations.

Gmar ħatima tova

Quote: harris

Quote: harris

Is there regulation on what the joker has to look like?link to original post

Usually a Joker has a picture of a jester on it, with the word "JOKER" on the corner where the suit should be.
Yesterday, I saw a video from Canterbury Park where the "joker" just had an image of a horse on it, and there was a black star where the suit is usually indicated. I guess there is essentially no limit to how different jokers can be, but I assume that other cards are required to show their rank (with a letter) and suit (with a symbol).

I wonder if it would be legal to give the queens mustaches and the kings dresses in order to subvert gender norms. Which I'm sure is a really high priority for Las Vegas' casino corporations.

Gmar ħatima tova
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For some reason, I thought the star index for the joker was Bee specific. I don't have any Gemaco/Paulson or Angels handy to check right now.

The cancelled casino deck seems to have two jesters, where the non-casino (uncancelled) deck has one jester and one guarantee - the guarantee lacking an index. That might be a quirk for the "stinger" back decks; I didn't dig through my pile to find a casino branded deck.

I believe Caesars used to (and may still) use Roman nobility in togas for their court art. When you're ordering custom printed decks, you can get just about whatever you want.

I've just learned about another game that's going to appear at G2E - I don't have information other than the name; I don't believe it's related to any existing table game.

Just eight days before I'll be in Las Vegas :) I will ask card manufacturers at the conference whether there are special rules regarding the appearance of suits, ranks, or jokers.

TCSJohnHuxley is going to be showing a game at G2E. It’s like 3 dice duel / 3 dice Yahtzee but apparently with some influence from Cee-Lo.

This seems like TCSJohnHuxley’s most promising game yet… I don’t think any of their games are played in casinos but I could see this one making it. 50 Cent, the rapper, apparently is involved in this game.

In the article he says that everyone in New York knows the word “headcrack”. Never heard this before but I’ll ask some other people here.

Additionally I saw another independent inventor will be there with a game (not sure what it’s about). The new game I referenced in the previous post will be based on Bourré.

I’m feeling optimistic that this G2E could even have more games than last one!