Meatball Poker is a poker variant based off Texas Hold 'em, designed for smaller groups of players with increased frequency of exciting hands. It uses all the same rules, but with one big difference. Each player is dealt 3 cards and must decide to keep 2 and to discard one card (the "meatball") face up for the other players to see. After that the game proceeds exactly like hold 'em with blinds, betting, the flop, and so on...
Why Meatball?
If you've played a lot of Texas Hold 'em, you'll know that you can play for many hands, over many hours, with little action. And too often, when you finally do get a good hand and lucky flop, the other players either muck their cards or you end up on the receiving end of a cooler. Long time players will tell you, it's all part of the game. But who has time for that? More over, if you only have 3 or 4 players, it's often not even worth it to start up a game of hold 'em.
Meatball was created to make the game fun again, when you don't want to wait all night or for a large group of friends to show up. It's great for casual games down in the basement with a group of friends. And it's easy to bring new players up to speed if they've played any poker before.
The Rules
If you know how to play Texas Hold 'em, Meatball will be easy to learn. Specifically, the game begins much the same way, with a dealer at the button position, the player to the left obligated to bet the small blind, and the next player to the left obligated to bet the big blind (typically twice the small blind). For a three player game, those would be the only positions. The positions rotate clockwise each hand.
The dealer will shuffle, present the deck for the cut, and then deal 3 cards face down to each player. The big and small blinds are paid. At this point, each player must choose one of their cards, (known as the meatball), to be discarded. This card is moved, still face down, toward the center of the table (typically across the betting line), but still in a position clearly in front of each player. When all players have chosen which of their three cards they will discard, the dealer will announce the flip at which point all players flip their discarded card to now be face up. This could, for example, be announced as '"flip" or "balls up". Each player retains two hidden (face down) hole cards.
The flipped cards (the meatballs) are dead cards, and can not be used in forming a hand. But they represent an important part of the game and must remain face up in front the player who discarded them for the remainder of the game. They give important information about not only what cards may be remaining in play, but also about the potential strength of the hand of their owners. Even players who wish to fold pre-flop must choose a meatball to be displayed face up. Players new to meatball may mistaken choose to fold or muck all 3 cards. The dealer should return the cards to the player as no cards may be folded until after the flip is complete and turn play begins.
The new dynamics of having face up meatballs will be discussed in some detail, but at this point, play continues using traditional hold 'em rules. Betting begins to the left of the big blind, then the flop, another round of betting, the turn card, betting, the river card, and a final round of betting. A burn card should be discarded each time before dealing the flop, the turn and the river. The community cards shared by all players consist of those dealt in the flop, turn, and river. Flipped meatlball cards, are not community cards and can not be used in forming hands. Players may check, raise, call, or fold. Any player who folds, must leave their flipped 'meatball' card in place until the conclusion of the hand. The winner is the player with the best hand per normal poker hand values using the best combination from their two remaining hole cards and the five community cards from the flop, turn, and river.
The Dynamics of Meatball
The presence of the flipped meatballs change the dynamics of the game in three important ways. First, each player gains a little insight into the other players potential hands. For example, if a player chose to discard an 8 of spades as their meatball, you might deduct that it is most likely that player's remaining cards are 9's or higher. However, the player may have chosen to hold on to a pair, like a pair of 7's or may have a suited Ace-6 of hearts or perhaps a suited 2-3 hoping for a flush or straight draw. It can be much more informative if the player discards a higher card, for example a king. Is that player holding onto pair of aces (the nuts)? or perhaps a suited A-K? Being dealt 3 high cards (like A-A-K) is a mixed blessing in meatball since one of those cards will need to be publicly discarded. This is certainly a rare occurrence, but adds to the interesting dynamic of the game.
The second way the game dynamics are changed, is that the frequency of better hands is significantly increased around the table. Players of Texas hold 'em will need to adjust their thinking of the likelyhood that another player will be holding an A or a K, for example. [A detailed analysis of the probability of drawing various hands will be presented in a future post]. For this reason, you'll see big hands more frequently through the night or with small groups of players.
The third important dynamic is in calculating the probability of drawing any of your out cards. 'Outs' are cards that you need to complete your hand. For example if you are holding two suited heart cards in your hand, and two more hearts come up in the flop you might be hoping for a fifth heart at the turn to make a flush. In hold 'em, you have 9 'outs' (13 hearts total - 4 known heart cards). You also know that there are 47 unknown cards at this point (52 - 2 hole cards - 3 flop cards), so the odds of drawing a heart at the turn are 9 / 47 or about 19%. Many hold 'em player use the 'rule of 2' where you multiply the number of 'out' cards by 2% to calculate your odds and decide if a call or a raise makes sense in terms of value. The rule of 2 is conservative, assuming there are about 50 unknown cards remaining (1/50 = 2%), although it gets a little better at the flop (2.13%), turn (2.17%), and river (2.22%).
In meatball, however, the meatball cards are added to the number of known cards. So, using the prior example, if you have two hearts and two more show up at the flop, but you are playing against 5 players, there are now only 42 unknown cards (52 - 2 hole cards - 3 flop cards, - 5 meatballs). So the odds of getting an out cards are 2.38% (1/42). However, if 2 of the discarded are also heart cards, then your total number of outs goes down from 9 to 7, so your odds of drawing that flush on the turn are now 7/42 only 16.7%.
The point here is that you have a lot more information to take into account when making your betting decisions. Maybe you held a pair of 9's as your hole cards, but on the flip you see the other two 9's discarded as meatballs. Your odds of drawing that 3 of a kind set just went to zero and a fold is probably your best move pre-flop. On the other hand, maybe you're sitting on a pair of J's and there are no J's among the meatballs, your odds of flopping a set are now pretty good since there are only 45 unknown cards left. You'll need to temper that enthusiasm knowing that pre-flop the other players would have been likely to hold onto a J and discard a lower card if given the chance.
That's it. Give it a try. Be prepared for more big hands. More coolers. More excitement and a faster tempo. Balls up...
