December 14, 2008 by ChicagoMike.

Interesting situation came up yesterday in the Kansas Championship. I was TD on the No-Limit mixed games tournament and in a round of No-Limit deuce-to-seven Kansas City Lowball the following happened:

 1) The starting hands were dealt out and the first round of betting was completed.

2) The dealer was forgetful and set the stub out of their hand on the table.

3) During some confusion either a mucked hand or some cards discarded (for draw replacement) out of sequence were hopelessly mixed into the stub. Further to that, when this dealer reached for the stub there was some confusion as to whether they may have inadvertently started mixing up the stub as though the round was over. All this occuring while players presumably were deciding which cards to toss.

4) When I was called over the top 15 or so of the stub cards looked pretty well intact, sitting on a less orderly set of cards.

5) I pointed to the “intact” set of cards and asked everyone if they had any doubt that this was indeed the original stub in it’s original order. Nobody was particularly certain that it was.

6) Add to this there were a few discards sitting away from the “stub mass”. When I asked the table about it, they were certain those were discards, but they were equally certain that at least some discards and/or mucked cards had found their way into this stub mass.

 Because we couldn’t ultimately be certain the correct original order of the stub I had decided to re-shuffle it. Correct?

The question in my mind was whether to add the small pile of known discards to the stub before the re-shuffle. What would you have done?

Ultimately, I did add ALL the discards to the stub… reason being that because some of the discards were already blended into it, that ALL the discards should be. If it had happened another way, where NONE of the discards had reached the stub, and the only thing had happened was a scrambling of the ORDER of the stub, I wouldn’t have added the discards, but because some discards were blended hopelessly into it, I decided it was better procedure to blend them all into it, re-shuffle, cut and deal the draw cards.

I haven’t found an exact rule on this… how would you have handled it ?

Posted in Fouled Decks, Missing Cards, etc., Fouled Hands, Lowball & Razz, Mucking, Dead Hands, Etc, Dealer Errors, Bad Flops, Etc. | Print | 1 Comment »

February 11, 2008 by -EvelcyclopS-.

this is one the racing post can’t solve!

 Our 4th annual society poker series is coming up, and we always schedule in  HORSE game… in our first year, the organisers ere ignorant of the fact that the WSoP played 7stud8 rather than the PLO8 we played. The year later, they were a little wiser, and opted to play the “official” version, and has been played like this to this date. now i am in charge, and having played in the original HORSE (with PLO8) game, i felt it was a far more enjoyable experience, and i wish to revert back to the format. HORSE as it is, i find quite turgid, with it mostly being 7stud format games, but takes on a frsher character with plo8. I’m facing objections from one person in the society (ex chair no less). basically his argument is that it is not right and proper to play the unnofficial version of the game. With this view, i would be also obliged to revert back to holdem on the final table (which will not be happening during my reign). I also think its a pretty lame argument:- the WSOP is not the be all and end all of poker, i play poker for enjoyment, and i presume most of our members do too, and i find the official version just too much to bear. With his view i cant see why we shud ever play any other game, or format that does not carry a bracelet… However, i’m a man of reson, so i’ve come to see what an experienced director thinks of the quandry

Posted in Official Rules & Guidelines, General, H.O.R.S.E. Variations, Chaos: Sloppy Mgmt of Tables & Tournament, Lowball & Razz, Other Games, High-Low Games, Uncategorized | Print | 4 Comments »

December 30, 2007 by Mayhem_VI.

  I’ve run a couple H.O.R.S.E. Tourneys and participated in a couple of live games.  The issue always comes up regarding the placement of the button, and I have a simple solution.  Keep moving the button through the Razz, Stud and Stud/8 games and keep dealing to the left of the button.  After the last hand of Stud/8, the button gets moved, and the two players to the immediate left post the small and big blinds respectively.  It doesn’t matter who got knocked out of the tournament, who got moved to another table, or who left (or came into) the live game.

  Now, every time I’ve made this suggestion, it gets rejected immediately, and I don’t know why.   Finally, Roland Waters at the Wildhorse PRU suggested that I come here.  I think I’m getting him convinced, but he says when he brings it up with others in the TDA (again) they shake their head and change the subject.  As a system, it has worked like a charm in my tournaments and after watching closely and getting feedback from my players, I still don’t see a downside.  Personally, I like a button in Stud tournaments anyway as it takes away any advantage/disadvantge to the players sitting on either side of the dealer (I, myself, have a pathological hatred for the seat to the dealers right, and this system clears that right up). 

  Anyway, I would like some feedback on this.  And do me a favor please.  At least give it a try or a simulation before you tell me how full of crap I am.  Thanx.

Posted in Lowball & Razz, Start Chips, Blind Raising Structure, Tourney Timing, Official Rules & Guidelines, General, H.O.R.S.E. Variations, Buttons & Blinds, Tournament Directors, Event Structure & Management, Omaha, Other Games, 5 and 7-Card Stud, Texas Holdem | Print | 3 Comments »

January 30, 2007 by ChicagoMike.

The game is 5-card lowball… with 2 players remaining.

The Player A requests 1 card, then Player B also draws 1 card…

NOW it is discovered that the dealer read the button placement incorrectly and Player B should have been the first to receive a card.

We had this happen yesterday, fortunately I happened to be standing at the table and neither player had looked at their draw card and it was very obvious which they were so we could swap them without a problem.

However, what if the plot thickens, how would you handle it inthe following situations:

1) Player has mixed the new card into their hand but they haven’t looked at it.

2) Player has looked at the new card but hasn’t mixed it into their cards

3) Player has mixed the new card into their hand and they’ve looked at it.

Assume that this is a case of dealer error and the players did nothing to provoke the action.

Posted in Fouled Hands, Lowball & Razz, Mucking, Dead Hands, Etc, Dealer Errors, Bad Flops, Etc., Misdeals | Print | No Comments »

September 24, 2006 by ChicagoMike.

Welcome to the Poker TDA Blog. Read and post in this category on topics related to “low” poker games including Razz and Lowball. To get started, click on Register and create a new account.  Then login and post your blogs.  To post a blog, click on “Site Admin” under the meta heading, then click on “Write a Post”.

Posted in Lowball & Razz | Print | No Comments »