06-6-6 Poker Variant

Here’s what I came up with for a “crazy game” on tonight’s theme for the poker game. You can download a one-page PDF of these rules as well.

The Omen

This game is played as 7-card stud, with the following variations:

1. An extra hand is dealt, in addition to all player hands. This is referred to as “Damien’s hand”. (This means six or fewer players, since you can have at most 7 hands of 7 cards in a game.)
2. At the showdown, all players remaining in the game showdown first, to determine the nominal winner. This showdown is as for normal 7-card stud, with no extra rules. The winner of this showdown is the only player with a chance to win the pot.
3. The nominal winner then has a showdown against Damien’s hand. The player may use 5 different cards against Damien than he used against the other players. If the player wins, he claims the pot. If the player loses he PAYS THE POT and a new hand begins. If a player can not cover the pot, all his remaining chips are pushed in, and the player must recite the Lord’s Prayer backwards in Latin once for every dollar (or fraction thereof) that he was short.
   The pot is moved aside, and becomes part of Damien’s holdings. It is not used in subsequent calculations of the size of the pot for penalty purposes, but will be claimed by the first player to take down Damien.
4. Every time a six appears (either is dealt to any player face up during play, or is shown by a player at the showdown) Damien’s power grows. For each six revealed, the highest card in Damien’s hand becomes wild. All instances of the card are wild. For example, if Damien has KK Q 1010 7 5, when the first six appears, both kings become wild. Should a second six appear, the queen is also wild. Should a third six appear both tens also become wild, etc.
   Sixes that appear in Damien’s hand also work this way, but additional are considered wild themselves. So if the third six appears in Damien’s hand, and he has K K Q 10 10 7 6, then Damien has six wild cards. This is a pretty good hand.
   Players with sixes in their hole cards do not need to show them, if they do not wish to use them in the 5 card hand they play at the showdown. These buried sixes have no effect on Damien’s hand.
5. For the purposes of the showdown against Damien only (i.e. not for the showdown against other players) the lowest value card (or cards) in the player’s hand are considered wild. This represents the notion that God can be found even in the smallest things. If the player wins using wild 2s, this is referred to as deuces ex machina. If the player’s lowest value card is a six, it is ignored, and the next lowest card is considered wild.
6. Finally, any player who has the Queen of Spades (a.k.a. “Mrs. Blaylock”) down (“hidden”) at the player showdown can use her to eliminate any other player from the showdown. The Queen does not need to be one of the 5 cards that player is using for the showdown. The player announces whom (if anyone) he wishes to eliminate BEFORE any hands are shown, showing the Queen at the time he does so. Use of Mrs. Blaylock strengthen’s Damien’s hand exactly as if an additional six had appeared. If a player’s final hand includes a Queen of Spades that was hidden, but the player chooses not to eliminate anyone, then Damien’s position is not strengthened.

Design Notes

The game is pretty heavily tilted in favour of Damien. With 6 players (the maximum), there could be as many as 35 cards “up” on the table before the showdown, so the odds are pretty good that there will be at least a couple of sixes active every time. This makes sense from a narrative perspective, since the more people are in play, the more likely that Damien will be able to manipulate them against each other while his power builds.

Factor in players who might use a hole six at the showdown, or who might use Mrs. Blaylock (which amounts to ‘making a deal with the devil’ since it takes out an opponent, but also strengthens Damien, making it more likely that he will extract the penalty from you in the endgame), and Damien’s hand is always looking pretty good. This makes sense from a narrative perspective, since the AntiChrist is probably going to be able to win a poker game with a bunch of shmucks off the street.

This has the effect of concentrating all the money on the table in the pot, cleaning out all the players over the course of a couple of hands. This would be the Armageddon effect :). (We should probably have a rule for what happens if Damien cleans everyone out…)

If there is a winner, it will likely come in subsequent rounds, when there are fewer up cards in play, and hence a greater likelihood of Damien having a weaker hand. In story terms this amounts to the triumph of someone who has eluded Damien’s notice until the moment when the lowering of his guard concides with some divine assistance.