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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