Half-Deck Poker

In this Death Match, bet, call, and fold effectively while playing two hands of 1-card poker at once.

Designer(s): RedsToad	Match Type: DM (for 2 players)
Featured in: Master Of All Trades

This death match is played with a deck of 10 cards, labeled from 1 to 10. Each betting round will use a new deck of cards.

Each round, 4 of the cards are going to be placed on the table, two cards for each player, one opposite another. Remaining 6 cards are divided in two groups of 3 and different groups are shown to each player.

Thus, every player knows 5 cards: 2 in front of him and 3 that the opponent doesn't have.

Every player has two cards to bet on: Alpha and Beta. After the round of betting two Alpha card and two Beta are compared, and the player with the higher numbered card wins and takes the corresponding pot. This is pretty much identical to playing 2 hands of 1-card poker at once.

Every player gets 40 chips to be used in betting. Each betting round is divided into 4 phases: Raising, Swapping, Calling, Payout.

In raising phase player A bets on their Alpha card, and player B bets on Beta card, aka the card on their left.

Afterwards, in the swapping phase the player who bet more chips in raising phase may swap the positions of their Alpha and Beta cards. Note that the bets themselves will not switch, only the cards. This will have implications in Payout phase.

Afterwards, in the calling phase each player simultaneously bets on the other card, either calling the opponent bet or folding their card and giving the pot to opponent. Note that raising is not an option in this phase.

Afterwards, all cards are revealed and payout phase starts.

Firstly, the winner of each battle takes the pot.

A player who folded against a 1 pays 5 chips to the bank.

A player who folded against a 2 pays 2 chips to the bank, unless he had a 1.

Following occurs only if the swap happened and only to the player who swapped:

If a player wins with the card that has the lower value than his other one, then the opponent has to pay to the opponent the number of chips bet on the card to their left.

If a player loses with their higher numbered card then they have to pay to the opponent the number of chips bet on the card to their left.

No matter whether swap occurred or not, both players pay 1 chip to the bank every round.

As payout system is complicated I will provide an example.

Player A has cards 4(Beta) and 8(Alpha) on the table.

Player B has cards 9(Beta) and 2(Alpha).

During raising phase, player A bets 3 and player B bets 4.

As player B bet more chips he decided to swap his cards.

Now player A has cards 4(bet 0) and 8(bet 3)

And player B has cards 2(bet 4) and 9(bet 0)

Player A, suspecting a big card, folds Beta. Player B calls Alpha.

Payout phase starts. B has won both battles, so he gets 10 chips from the pot.

A has folded against a 2, so he pays 2 chips to the bank.

B has won with their card that was numbered lower, so B gets 3 chips from A.

Finally, both players pay 1 chip to the bank.

Thus, the results of the round are A losing 9 chips and B gaining 5 chips.

When the round ends all cards are collected and a new deck of 10 cards is shuffled and dealt on the table. New round of betting starts and play continues.

The player who runs out of chips first loses the DM and is eliminated.

As for time controls, every action will have a time limit of 1 minute.

Here is also a flowchart to aid in understanding the payout system

Clarification: Players will see different groups of cards, not the same group. Rules have need edited to reflect that

...I forgot an image

As you can see, Alpha is to the left of P1, and Beta is to the left of P2

Half-Deck Poker

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