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Went to a fun home game with a buddy and they played a couple interesting games I hadn’t heard of before. At least one of them is their own invention but I figured it’d be worth it to write down some thoughts on the rules and general play to aid my memory.

Pucker

Dealer antes (common practice in this group) and each player gets 2 cards. Player to the left of the dealer can choose to contend for a low by sliding their cards to the middle. If no one challenges the player gets a leg. If one (or more) challenge then the players exchange hand (hidden from others) and pay off the size of the pot to whoever they’re wrong. So for example:

Pot of $5

• I’m first and slide in 73 for the low
• Next player slides in cards as does one other
• We rotate the other hands and peak at them and I see that there’s a 53 and a 32
• I pay both the 32 and the 53 $5 – the size of the pot
• The 53 pays $5 to the 32 – since I just paid him $5 it costs him nothing

After that round each player gets a 3rd card and you content for the high hand as above. Then a 4th is played low and a 5th high. On all the low hands there’s an additional ante from all the players so the pot continues to build. We played a max $30 cap on what you would have to pay another when contending for a leg but the pot in the middle continues to build. First player to 3 legs wins the pot. If no player has 3 legs after 5 cards are dealt the pot remains, the deal rotates and another round commences from the beginning.

A couple interesting variations we came up with:

• play 3rd street like a 3 card poker hand so straights and flushes count and hand ranking becomes: straight flush, 3 of a kind, straight, flush, pair, high card.
• play 5th with a “pussy rule” where if everyone declines to contend for the high, everyone has to flip their hand and the actual high pays a penalty – discourages nitty play and leads to more trash talking which is key

It’s kinds of a complicated game to explain but fun and quite an action game. Because you can get paid while contending for a leg you can win money even if you don’t take down the ultimate pot in the middle. It’s pretty easy to take a big swing and win or lose twice the cap while contending for a leg.

Strategy wise it’s a game where position is a massive advantage and bluffing is huge. Because the pot in the middle can grow large and the pot can’t be won if you’re challenged you’ll see people challenging a guy with 2 legs even with little chance of being correct. I can see a potential situation where players would essentially refuse to let the game end because the pot was so large and the max penalty for losing a challenge is capped but this didn’t arise in practice. It’s probably important to play this game in a “friendly” environment.

I’m not sure if this game goes by any other names but I couldn’t find anything out there on this game so it could be a local invention.