In keeping with our experimentation with new forms of flop games, Lyndon called a variation of Omaha Hi-Lo where players were only dealt three cards down. All other rules still applied: You had to use exactly two cards from your hole cards and three cards from the board to make your hand, and low had to be 8-high or lower.
Not surprisingly, people weren’t making low hands very often. However, we were surprised to see a lot of really high hands.
On one flop of 9-J-9, Bill bet, Mark DeVol raised, Paul re-raised, and Mary re-re-raised! Bill and Mark then folded, and Paul called Mary’s bets all the way to the river. Mary won with pocket jacks for a big full house. Turns out Bill had initially bet with just a jack, Mark had raised with a 9, and Paul had re-raised with a 9.
On another hand, the flop was Q-K-Q, and Mark slow-played the K-Q in his hand till the river when he took down a pot from Mary and Bill.
But on yet another hand, Mark got lucky after forgetting an important rule. The board ended up A-K-Q-J-3 rainbow. Mary bet, Mark raised, and Mary called. Mark showed just one of his three cards, a lone 10, for what he thought was the straight, not realizing he had to play two cards from his hand. Lucky for him he also had a queen.
The evening was fairly tame until a little after 9:30 when Mary called Buck ’em. It would turn out to be the last game of the night.
The game started out real slow, with everyone passing through the first two deals.
Then on the third deal, Mary went in low on the first round (two cards out of three), and Bill went in high on the button. No one called either of them. On the next round (three cards out of five), Mary again went in low, and Bill again went in high. But this time, Mark DeVol was dogging. He showed Bill three kings to win $14.25. (Mark got a fourth king on the next round to win jackpot.)
On the very next deal, Bill went in high on the first round, and Mark looked down at A-2-Joker. Mark checked Bill off for another $19.00. Mark went low on the next round and took a leg when no one called.
During the next few deals, Lyndon was up and down when he lost a two-out-of-three low to Paul, but then won a three-out-of-five low from Mary. He also got a leg along the way.
Then, with the pot at $47.50, Lyndon went in low playing five cards out of seven. Mark took a long time to think about what he was going to do, but finally called Lyndon off. Mark had 6-4-3-2-A, Lyndon had 7-6-5-4-Joker, and Mark won a big payoff. Had Lyndon gone high with his straight instead of low, he wouldn’t have gotten a leg to win the game (because Mark would have gone in low), but he wouldn’t have lost anything either.
Bill would eventually win the game with little fanfare several deals later when the pot was around $60.00.
| Mark D |
+$79.00 |
| Mary |
‑$56.00 |
| Paul |
+$49.00 |
| Bill |
+$44.00 |
| Lyndon |
‑$99.00 |
Card Night Blog 