Double-Deck Holdem - can anyone figure out probabilities for hands?
Hi all,
Thinking of creating a new game - Texas Holdem, but with two decks. It plays pretty much exactly the same, but there are two decks used instead of one. Some things to note:
- 5 of a kind is possible, and will beat a royal flush.
- You can have flushes with pairs/two pairs as well, for example A♥7♥5♥5♥2♥ - and these hands are rarer and therefore stronger than a standard flush.
- Twice as many cards massively increases the number of starting hands, making the game much harder to solve.
- It's much easier to make strong hands, driving action considerably.
- It seems to be easier to make two pair than to make a high card only hand(!) - perhaps this means that 'no pair' could be considered a stronger hand, but that may just confuse things unnecessarily.
Does anyone have any software that is able to do the math on how likely each hand is? Ideally for all of the below:
5 of a kind
Royal Flush
Straight Flush
4 of a kind
Full House
Flush + Two Pair
Flush + Pair
Flush
Straight
3 of a kind
Two Pair
Pair
High Card
I want to make sure I'm getting the hand probabilities/rankings correct, and ChatGPT doesn't seem to totally understand.
The ultimate goal/purpose of this variant is to be able to play 9-handed 8-game mix, and some of the games in the mix require two decks in order to accommodate nine players. I realize that two decks is still not enough to accommodate 9 players in 2-7 triple draw if everyone draws a large number of cards, but there are other allowances to deal with that (such as reusing discarded cards). Many of the games in the mix like Razz and Stud suffer from being hard to make hands in, so adding a second deck - I hope - would increase the action in those games considerably too.
21 Replies
Update - there's actually more nuance than the above for the hand rankings. Could go with something like:
Royal Flush
Straight flush
Five of a kind
Four of a kind with suited pair
Four of a kind
Full house with two suited pair
Full house with suited pair
Full house
Flush with two pair
Flush with a pair
Flush
Straight
Three of a kind with suited pair
Three of a kind
Two pair with two suited pair
Two pair with suited pair
Two pair
Suited pair
One pair
High card
Interested to see the odds for each of these, if anyone has the software to do it. I've tried with ChatGPT but again the results don't look right:
Royal Flush 0.0096%
Straight flush 0.065%
Five of a kind 0.28%
Flush with two pair 0.15%
Four of a kind, all different suits 0.15%
Full house with suited two pair 0.25%
Suited two pair 0.35%
Four of a kind with suited pair 0.50%
Two pair, one pair suited 0.65%
Full house 2.01%
Full house with suited pair 2.09%
Flush with one pair 2.09%
Three of a kind with suited pair 2.03%
Flush 3.51%
Three of a kind 4.75%
Straight 5.2%
Suited pair 7.9%
High card 10.2%
Two pair 21.65%%
One pair 38.9%%
You could even make 6 or 7 of a kind...
FWIW, I am not sure I'd want to add a bunch of other hand rankings beyond 5K, adding suitedness to 2P etc probably will make it more confusing, and off putting for the people in the game you are likely to be making money from.
You could even make 6 or 7 of a kind...
FWIW, I am not sure I'd want to add a bunch of other hand rankings beyond 5K, adding suitedness to 2P etc probably will make it more confusing, and off putting for the people in the game you are likely to be making money from.
Sure, I agree that overcomplicating things might indeed be a net egative.
I guess not...
Why not just try playing with 'normal' rankings, and no exotic hands, other than 5K?
It has the advantage of being simple. New players won't be aggrieved when their nut flush is beaten by a pair plus flush, etc.
As it is, with a 'Nut Flush', you need two nut cards to have the nuts. Weaker players will be upset enough when their Ace High Flush loses to a better Ace High Flush, but that at least they will 'see' that quickly.
BTW, I thought of this variant many years ago. I love the fact that it is MUCH easier to flop a set...
I guess not...Why not just try playing with 'normal' rankings, and no exotic hands, other than 5K?It has the advantage of being simple. New players won't be aggrieved when their nut flush is beaten by a pair plus flush, etc. As it is, with a 'Nut Flush', you need two nut cards to have the nuts. Weaker players will be upset enough when their Ace High Flush loses to a better A
The hand rankings must reflect the probability of making hands, but you're right that keeping it simple is best.
It appears that a flush would beat a full house in this game, like in Short Deck.
Yes it's definitely much easier to flop sets and make strong hands - I think it would be a serious action game, akin to Omaha - and probably need to be pot limit too.
This stuff is pretty easy to calculate with a spreadsheet as long as you have a working knowledge of basic probability.
But I'll play along. You can suppose I have some sophisticated "software" other than Excel that can solve this somewhat clunky but conceptually simple problem for you. My elite expertise in high school math comes at a price though. What percentage of your profits from licensing this game to the casinos are you offering?
This stuff is pretty easy to calculate with a spreadsheet as long as you have a working knowledge of basic probability. But I'll play along. You can suppose I have some sophisticated "software" other than Excel that can solve this somewhat clunky but conceptually simple problem for you. My elite expertise in high school math comes at a price though. What percentage of your prof
I'll give you 0.1%. But if you make a mistake in any of the calcuations then you owe me $10,000 - a fraction of what you'll make when this goes viral.
Deal?
An abomination of a game.
Btw: you should learn basic probability and combinatorics if you are going to try to invent some poker game.
An abomination of a game.
Btw: you should learn basic probability and combinatorics if you are going to try to invent some poker game.
Why an abomniation? It's not much different from PLO or short deck.
I can do basic probability and combinatrics, I'm looking for someone to check my work. Are you able to do this?
I rather spent my effort on something more worthwhile such as 6 card poker (you select 6 cards out of 8 or 9).
Ah okay, so you're just gonna go on forum threads and give critical, useless, throwaway advice that you can't even do yourself. Another toxic pedant. Have a nice day
I don't recommend wasting time trying to develop a card game nobody besides you actually want to play.
I don't see any point in having more than one deck of card, it really doesn't add anything worthwhile to the game as far as i can see, it only makes it worse by reducing the impact of blockers and you also have a mess of trying to come up with some hand rankings.
If you want to allow 5 of a kind a far better option is to add a fifth suit.
I don't recommend wasting time trying to develop a card game nobody besides you actually want to play. I don't see any point in having more than one deck of card, it really doesn't add anything worthwhile to the game as far as i can see, it only makes it worse by reducing the impact of blockers and you also have a mess of trying to come up with some hand rankings. If you want t
I play in a couple of home games with all kinds of variants of poker; people always want to play new games.
An extra deck provides a huge amount of extra action. For example, you have six outs to hit sets, instead of two.
Blockers are often overstated and overused and personally I think it's no bad thing to reduce their influence on the game.
I'm interested to see how hand rankings/probabilities change when adding a second deck. I'm sure a high IQ person who appreciates mathematics in games can understand that.
I play in a couple of home games with all kinds of variants of poker; people always want to play new games.
Then you might want to check out some of my variants, it would be interesting to get a report back, if you do i can help with the mathematics for the 2 deck variant (except 6 card poker and the game after that which i don't really care for). Are some interesting variants i never get around to actually playing myself.
https://vintologi.com/threads/awesome-ca...
I used libreoffice calc and combinatorics to get the handfrequencies for 8 card poker and 6 card poker (estimates).
You can also use a random card generator like 1000 times to see that the distribution is good for the more common hands at least.
Then you might want to check out some of my variants, it would be interesting to get a report back, if you do i can help with the mathematics for the 2 deck variant (except 6 card poker and the game after that which i don't really care for). Are some interesting variants i never get around to actually playing myself.
No chance.
I don't recommend wasting time trying to develop a card game nobody besides you actually want to play. I don't see any point in having more than one deck of card, it really doesn't add anything worthwhile to the game as far as i can see, it only makes it worse by reducing the impact of blockers and you also have a mess of trying to come up with some hand rankings. If you want t
Another reason to play with two decks is that it enables 9-handed variations of games that are usually only played 6-handed, like stud and 2-7 triple draw.
If you use two decks then you're able to play 9-handed 8-game mix, which is a pretty epic setup.
Another reason to play with two decks is that it enables 9-handed variations of games that are usually only played 6-handed, like stud and 2-7 triple draw.
If you use two decks then you're able to play 9-handed 8-game mix, which is a pretty epic setup.
Double deck 2-7TD. That sounds like fun.
