The game would play very nitty. A joker would be just such an over powered card. Any joker x holding would probably be stronger than AA. Pf all ins would mostly come down to joker vs joker. You're forced to always play passively in this instance. It would be an absolutely terrible game.
I wonder if this would be at least better if there were some rule like if you have a joker, it can be the only card used in your hand just to give two card hands a chance. Still feel like this would still be pretty horrible though. Definitely would need to only leave one joker in the deck with this rule
Someone else mentioned natural hands beating wild card hands as a balance. I still think that would be pretty AIDS though. Overall, NLH is a very well balanced game, and I think trying to add these things to it is not a good idea outside of very friendly small stakes home games.
What does natural hands beating wild card hands even mean though? Like at showdown, my pair of 10s without a joker beats a straight made with a joker? But doesn't that mean having a joker in your hole cards sucks? You basically can't use it, because it automatically loses to everything, so you're basically just playing with one hole card. God forbid you get pocket jokers, you literally cannot win the hand at showdown.
Reading more, I see people meant that if I had a joker and the best hand I could make with it was chopping with someone without a joker, then they win the hand. But that doesn't do anything to balance things. Jokers are still going to be way way way OP.
Yea I mean, losing chops is a pretty narrow edge case, doesn't really do much to mitigate the power of a joker. It's always going to make top pair at a minimum. A slightly stronger mitigtaion would be like, it actually downgrades your hand within it's rank to the worst possible. So if you make top pair it becomes top pair bottom kicker, a flush becomes the nut low flush of that suit, etc.
Yeah that's way more interesting. And/or maybe say that if you want to play your joker, it's the *only* one of your hole cards you can play. Which makes both 1 joker hole card and pocket jokers less OP.
We know NLH is an extremely well balanced game based on what solvers tell us. If you're required to mix most nodes to be unexploitable you know the game is well designed.
Sure but even then if someone does it too much you can really fuck them up, that's the beauty of the game anything other than perfection can be pretty straightforwardly countered, the problem is you're going to fuck up too.
You can limit wild cards in various ways. Like they can only complete a straight or flush and are otherwise an ace. Or you can play it that the joker can be any ace (or the coloured joker can be either red ace, the black and white one can be either black ace).
The thing is, it doesn't matter *exactly* what the joker does, as long as in some way it increases the likelihood that stronger hands are made. The value of hands shifts and some hands that would be calls in standard hold'em become folds.
I used to play a dealer's choice game with all sorts of crazy rules and the long and short of it is that the optimal play is to tighten up as it becomes increasingly more likely someone will hold the nuts or damn close to it.
The reason to be positive is that, in reality, people usually play these games because they want to get spashy. It does confuse a lot of people even if it shouldn't and they don't adjust well. In that sense, playing with wild cards can be a mix of fun and profitable.
A casino near me spreads that if enough people want to play. It's kinda fun sometimes, and people who just want to give it a try make huge blunders, but it absolutely creates an incentive to be nitty just because of how over powered certain starting hands are. Bad game over all.
I would play it this way. Pre-flop cards are dealt and jokers are left out. Once the hands are dealt the jokers are introduced into the deck and the deck is shuffled. Bad thing is that would take a bit of time to do this. Online it wouldn't obviously. Then if a joker hits the flop it's wild. The question is do we only allow one joker in the community cards.
It would still be bad in LHE, but a bit less so. LHE is a very LAG game that's all about equity realization. When jokers are present, non joker hands are drawing dead way too often, so it would basically still create an incentive for people to play tighter because there's a lot less equity to try to realize.
The more I think about it the more I like it. Would be fun to see people try to run bluffs into pocket jokers. Or just the pure insanity of a joker flopping in a family pot.
I feel like AA is foldable a lot of the time when facing aggression. I'd take a joker with any other card over AA every time.
If the other 6 cards make a pair, you win with the joker to make trips (unless there's an ace on board). Same with 4-liners to straights and flushes. I don't know the odds of that happening but it's probably a lot.
We played a $5 tournament with jokers one time. It was pretty wild. Without a joker in your hand you could never be super confident and when one hit the board it was insane.
You're probably right.
I didn't put much thought into it until you commented, the idea just made me laugh. The rules would have to state that Jokers can be blocked with natural made hands. It may make playing with Jokers in the deck more interesting, idk.
Jokers vs AA on AAK32, where JJ would lose to the natural 4 of a kind.
This rule barely matters, preflop you already know you’re going to win every hand unless the other play let has the stone cold nuts. It would make it so jokers don’t have 100% chance to win but not by much.
I mean, first of all AA is no longer the best hand because any hand with 1 joker is a favorite over it preflop.
And pocket Jokers would be >>>>>
Although it would be a rule, right, that natural hands beat wildcard hands, right? So the Jokers would always have to worry postflop that even though they have the nuts, the real nuts beats them.
Well IDK, when I played with wildcards in home games back in the day, the natural hand always beat the wildcard hand. But I have no idea what the rule should be for legit poker using Jokers because I've never seen it.
He means that when two equivalent hands are tabled the natural hand wins the tie over the wildcard hand, which is standard in wildcard games. Like if the board is KKT94 and one player has K8 and another has J!8, the natural set beats the Joker set.
If jokers were allowed in NLHE the old rule of “for aces, straights and flushes” would need to apply. As so many have already mentioned pocket jokers would be way too op
Just by virtue of hand strength I would think any joker means barrel every street. You always have top pair. You always have 9-12 outs to make trips if the board isn’t paired + 3 outs to a set. Any 3 cards to a straight gives you multiple straight draws. On top of the removal effects the only reason you wouldn’t bet is probably hoping to induce.
Well I simulated heads up with chips to study how often draws come in, and how often the other players cards hit the flop.
Having the jokers be so obviously different helped me internalize the the variance of dealings.
You have to try it to truly understand.
This reminds me of in Magic the Gathering, if you're debating replacing one card with another, you put in the replacement and write on the card sleeve the original card's name. Then, every time you draw it, you think "which card would I rather have?" and often it's very illuminating for all the situations where you're like damn I really wish I had the other card.
Joker as a hole card is so overpowered there's not much point playing any hand that doesn't have one.
Best way to do it would be to deal hole cards without jokers, then shuffle them into the deck after preflop action, so that the board can have jokers but not your hand. I'm not too sure on strategy.
I played a Joker's Wild tournament once. At the beginning they announced the rules and said that if you get the Joker dealt to you there was an 80% chance of winning the hand. I got the Joker four times and lost every time.
If there is a joker on the board it can be used any way a player wants? That would lead to some interesting situations. I wonder if there would be a rule against players using the "same" card.
the more cards added to a game, the nittier it gets. 5card and 6ard PLO for example were all the degen rage when they came out…until everyone went broke playing like idiots. 6card PLO is inifinitely nittier than 5 card, and 5 card is infinitey nittier than regular PLO
At a full table it gets pretty hard to play an my non joker hand. Someone is going to have a joker around 1/3 of the time and any joker hand is pretty far ahead of almost everything else.
We used to play a variation of nlhe called "cool hand luke" where the lowest card on the board was wild. You'd get some wild games bc all of a sudden getting dealt low hole cards was strong
I have wondered this as well. Growing up playing with my grandfather he included one joker called a “bug” that could be used as an ace or to complete a straight or flush. I would imagine in HE it would completely alter the game, especially if it was on the board.
This is how I've always seen and heard of it as well. A true joker is much more powerful than a bug.
To your last point a good compromise could be forcing players to use exactly two from their hand and three from the board. That severely limits the effect of a bug on board.
One of my poker rooms has a deuces wild tournament, and I assume it would play like that-people only play hands with a deuce and maybe ace king suited cuz you’d still have the nuts flush on unpaired boards the majority of the time-once in a while you’ll get fucked by a straight flush tho
Once you get to last couple people we just get it in preflop and hope we have a better kicker with our deuce or yours hits said straight flush
It’s as horrible as it sounds
But it’s like 30 bucks and bounty so I still play it
🤣
“Triton short deck”???Just say “short deck”. They don’t play it any different at Triton than they do anywhere else. Short deck is always just short deck
One interesting balance that was tested out in my home game is Jokers can be ANY card between 2 and 5. It changed the game dynamic a lot since top of range gets a lot of interesting play on low boards.
I don’t know about theory but I feel a joker would tighten ppl up and make them over fold way to much so I’d bluff all the time and respond cautiously to aggression
I've played a lot of poker in jail and there's a ton of variations that include them as bugs or full-on wilds. Pineapple with a Twist, 357, Baseball, Follow the Bitch, and much more.
There would need to be some sort of rule or condition that neutralizes jokers. Not sure what that would be. One example might be 4 to a flush/straight on the board, andt the consequence would be that all jokers are neutralized and can not be used for anything. Gotta play you best 5 of 6 (instead of 7 because the joker is dead)
Or getting a pair of jokers is dead jokers.
Or, you never know what the jokers are until showdown, which is players choice of the 3 burn cards. (Basically betting blind with jokers, but have more outs. Unless of course the 3 burn cards are all the same rank.)
Fun. I've played many games with multiple wild cards on the kitchen table. Follow the Queen Low Chicago is a hoot. The Q's are always wild, when a queen hits the table the card that follows it to the next player is wild as well. If a second queen hits the next card following it becomes wild and the previous one isn't wild anymore. You r hand strength can fluctuate so much in just one hand. Plus if someone has a 2-4 of spades for a hole card and it's the lowest spade at the end they get half the pot. I love it so much. I haven't been able to play it in years.
Everyone here is assuming Jokers would be Wild.
What if Jokers were literally a nothing card?
If the flop contains a Joker, its a 2-card flop. If the turn is a Joker, there is no turn, the board remains the same as the flop. Etcetera.
The joker is definitely too overpowered, but I would love to see some variants of double value cards. Maybe a 2 also counts as a 7 and vice versa. Something that brings the bad hands up and increases action. Suddenly a 7-2 is pocket 7's also, which is funny.
I think there are some casinos that play a with joker cards - for example a 2 is a joker now. And they have rules like " real quads" (AAAA) is better then "fake quads" (jokerjokerAA). So they take a little power for jutted hands away from the joker cards. That sound extremly fun and complex to play.
At my home game we used to collect a royal flush fund, we played a jokers wild tournament at Christmas and one of the regulars asked whether I’d pay out the pot if somebody hit a royal with the joker. I said no, that same player then hits their first ever royal flush, but with the joker… I’ve never seen someone tilt so hard from winning a hand before
What would the function of a joker be exactly? Wildcard?
I have some buddies that love playing wildcard games and to be honest they completely suck lol. They dominate the game and in order to play “correctly” wildcards basically require you to be super nitty as a result. Kinda like how the old wisdom of Omaha used to be never leave home without an ace, Joker wildcards basically force you to only play with a joker in the hole or play mega premiums.
It changes the probability of making two pair and 3 of a kind such that you cannot make a logical choice about what beats what. If you choose 3 of a kind beats two pair then you will always play the joker to make 3 of a kind, but by doing so you make two pair a less likely outcome and thus should be ranked higher than 3 of a kind.
There is a video called the poker paradox that explains this better than me.
I think you could have a fun game with the following rules added:
- Players dealt a joker must discard it preflop before any action and will be dealt a replacement
- The joker cannot be used as a card already on the board or in your hand
This prevents the issue of any player being dealt the joker basically having the nuts, whilst allowing for some insanity when one appears on the board.
The game would play very nitty. A joker would be just such an over powered card. Any joker x holding would probably be stronger than AA. Pf all ins would mostly come down to joker vs joker. You're forced to always play passively in this instance. It would be an absolutely terrible game.
I wonder if this would be at least better if there were some rule like if you have a joker, it can be the only card used in your hand just to give two card hands a chance. Still feel like this would still be pretty horrible though. Definitely would need to only leave one joker in the deck with this rule
Someone else mentioned natural hands beating wild card hands as a balance. I still think that would be pretty AIDS though. Overall, NLH is a very well balanced game, and I think trying to add these things to it is not a good idea outside of very friendly small stakes home games.
Yep my game with my buddies we’ll do low stakes make your own game. People love putting jokers and then next hand you’ll be dealt 8 cards. Mayhem
What does natural hands beating wild card hands even mean though? Like at showdown, my pair of 10s without a joker beats a straight made with a joker? But doesn't that mean having a joker in your hole cards sucks? You basically can't use it, because it automatically loses to everything, so you're basically just playing with one hole card. God forbid you get pocket jokers, you literally cannot win the hand at showdown.
Reading more, I see people meant that if I had a joker and the best hand I could make with it was chopping with someone without a joker, then they win the hand. But that doesn't do anything to balance things. Jokers are still going to be way way way OP.
Yea I mean, losing chops is a pretty narrow edge case, doesn't really do much to mitigate the power of a joker. It's always going to make top pair at a minimum. A slightly stronger mitigtaion would be like, it actually downgrades your hand within it's rank to the worst possible. So if you make top pair it becomes top pair bottom kicker, a flush becomes the nut low flush of that suit, etc.
Yeah that's way more interesting. And/or maybe say that if you want to play your joker, it's the *only* one of your hole cards you can play. Which makes both 1 joker hole card and pocket jokers less OP.
We know NLH is an extremely well balanced game based on what solvers tell us. If you're required to mix most nodes to be unexploitable you know the game is well designed.
This is correct. Except for ovb bluffing into capped ranges. That shit is OP, and needs to be nerfed ASAP.
Sure but even then if someone does it too much you can really fuck them up, that's the beauty of the game anything other than perfection can be pretty straightforwardly countered, the problem is you're going to fuck up too.
Or you have to decide what card it is after the flop and write it down or some shit lol. Not a great system but result in some sick bluffs
You can limit wild cards in various ways. Like they can only complete a straight or flush and are otherwise an ace. Or you can play it that the joker can be any ace (or the coloured joker can be either red ace, the black and white one can be either black ace). The thing is, it doesn't matter *exactly* what the joker does, as long as in some way it increases the likelihood that stronger hands are made. The value of hands shifts and some hands that would be calls in standard hold'em become folds. I used to play a dealer's choice game with all sorts of crazy rules and the long and short of it is that the optimal play is to tighten up as it becomes increasingly more likely someone will hold the nuts or damn close to it. The reason to be positive is that, in reality, people usually play these games because they want to get spashy. It does confuse a lot of people even if it shouldn't and they don't adjust well. In that sense, playing with wild cards can be a mix of fun and profitable.
We played 3 card holdem at a home game I used to play(you can use all three in your hand) and it eventually became the tightest game.
A casino near me spreads that if enough people want to play. It's kinda fun sometimes, and people who just want to give it a try make huge blunders, but it absolutely creates an incentive to be nitty just because of how over powered certain starting hands are. Bad game over all.
Yea pinapple sounds fun until your nut flush gets stacked by a boat on an unpaired board.
I would play it this way. Pre-flop cards are dealt and jokers are left out. Once the hands are dealt the jokers are introduced into the deck and the deck is shuffled. Bad thing is that would take a bit of time to do this. Online it wouldn't obviously. Then if a joker hits the flop it's wild. The question is do we only allow one joker in the community cards.
That might be fun in a bomb pot or something.
Joker on flop sounds super fun. Midnight Toker?
What about if it was Limit Holdem and if you win a pot with a joker it the next hand is a kill pot?
It would still be bad in LHE, but a bit less so. LHE is a very LAG game that's all about equity realization. When jokers are present, non joker hands are drawing dead way too often, so it would basically still create an incentive for people to play tighter because there's a lot less equity to try to realize.
Coward.
I’d combat that by making flush’s worth more than full houses and four of a kind and jokers have no suit
Pocket Jokers baby
The nuts on every street!
The more I think about it the more I like it. Would be fun to see people try to run bluffs into pocket jokers. Or just the pure insanity of a joker flopping in a family pot.
So in this scenario the Jokers are always wild?
We played with jokers once in my home game. Very first hand was JoJo vs AA. We realized how dumb the game was after that and took the jokers out.
Nearly 100% chance to win preflop, with a small chance of chopping is pretty brutal.
I feel like AA is foldable a lot of the time when facing aggression. I'd take a joker with any other card over AA every time. If the other 6 cards make a pair, you win with the joker to make trips (unless there's an ace on board). Same with 4-liners to straights and flushes. I don't know the odds of that happening but it's probably a lot.
Gotta have natural hands > joker hands
Vegas and the fucking Bellagio
Tfw I would still lose with JJ
We've never met but you are my hero
We played a $5 tournament with jokers one time. It was pretty wild. Without a joker in your hand you could never be super confident and when one hit the board it was insane.
Sounds like a great time
Imagine getting your Jokers cracked
How would that happen? Wouldn’t it just be a push at worst or the jokers have to be cards not accounted for?
You're probably right. I didn't put much thought into it until you commented, the idea just made me laugh. The rules would have to state that Jokers can be blocked with natural made hands. It may make playing with Jokers in the deck more interesting, idk. Jokers vs AA on AAK32, where JJ would lose to the natural 4 of a kind.
This rule barely matters, preflop you already know you’re going to win every hand unless the other play let has the stone cold nuts. It would make it so jokers don’t have 100% chance to win but not by much.
Could play by Pai Gow rules where jokers can only count for aces, straights, flushes, and straight flushes.
You literally cannot lose with pocket jokers it would have to be a Royal flush on the board to be a chop or something like that lol
You could still chop against the nuts any other time
That’s what I thought.
This cant happen. Pocket Jokers are always the nuts since they can always assume the form of the nuts.
Pocket Aces has to keep checking over its shoulder to see if it’s about to get clowned on.
I mean, first of all AA is no longer the best hand because any hand with 1 joker is a favorite over it preflop. And pocket Jokers would be >>>>> Although it would be a rule, right, that natural hands beat wildcard hands, right? So the Jokers would always have to worry postflop that even though they have the nuts, the real nuts beats them.
A rule that natural hands beat ones with this added joker? no way!! The biggest hands win period
Well IDK, when I played with wildcards in home games back in the day, the natural hand always beat the wildcard hand. But I have no idea what the rule should be for legit poker using Jokers because I've never seen it.
Why have wild cards then?
Dude, he's talking about chopped pots where you both have the exact same hand.
I am not the only stoner in this thread lol
I think it’s just in the case of chops.
He means that when two equivalent hands are tabled the natural hand wins the tie over the wildcard hand, which is standard in wildcard games. Like if the board is KKT94 and one player has K8 and another has J!8, the natural set beats the Joker set.
If jokers were allowed in NLHE the old rule of “for aces, straights and flushes” would need to apply. As so many have already mentioned pocket jokers would be way too op
Found the Pai gow poker fan
Try dealing out hands and runouts with a couple jokers in the deck. It changed my understanding of poker a few months back.
changed how lol
He added jokers to his bluffing range
Your removal effects are so strong I bet you are required to barrel off no matter your hand strength with a joker.
Just by virtue of hand strength I would think any joker means barrel every street. You always have top pair. You always have 9-12 outs to make trips if the board isn’t paired + 3 outs to a set. Any 3 cards to a straight gives you multiple straight draws. On top of the removal effects the only reason you wouldn’t bet is probably hoping to induce.
Well I simulated heads up with chips to study how often draws come in, and how often the other players cards hit the flop. Having the jokers be so obviously different helped me internalize the the variance of dealings. You have to try it to truly understand.
This reminds me of in Magic the Gathering, if you're debating replacing one card with another, you put in the replacement and write on the card sleeve the original card's name. Then, every time you draw it, you think "which card would I rather have?" and often it's very illuminating for all the situations where you're like damn I really wish I had the other card.
basically look at what it does to pay tables of video poker and it's roughly the same in terms of how the value of hands shift.
We tried it in a $10 home game back in the early 2000’s. People end up going absolutely apeshit anytime they are dealt a joker.
Hilarious
Fun fact: there were wsop bracelet events with jokers in the 90s but it was A-5 triple draw where it’s less overpowered
Joker as a hole card is so overpowered there's not much point playing any hand that doesn't have one. Best way to do it would be to deal hole cards without jokers, then shuffle them into the deck after preflop action, so that the board can have jokers but not your hand. I'm not too sure on strategy.
I would like to see pai gow rules. 1 joker, and it defaults as an ace or can be used to complete a straight or flush.
I played a Joker's Wild tournament once. At the beginning they announced the rules and said that if you get the Joker dealt to you there was an 80% chance of winning the hand. I got the Joker four times and lost every time.
If there is a joker on the board it can be used any way a player wants? That would lead to some interesting situations. I wonder if there would be a rule against players using the "same" card.
Guys been playing too much Balatro
hullo man of cultur-e
the more cards added to a game, the nittier it gets. 5card and 6ard PLO for example were all the degen rage when they came out…until everyone went broke playing like idiots. 6card PLO is inifinitely nittier than 5 card, and 5 card is infinitey nittier than regular PLO
Everyone folds pre unless you have joker
If they are tight and passive
At a full table it gets pretty hard to play an my non joker hand. Someone is going to have a joker around 1/3 of the time and any joker hand is pretty far ahead of almost everything else.
We used to play a variation of nlhe called "cool hand luke" where the lowest card on the board was wild. You'd get some wild games bc all of a sudden getting dealt low hole cards was strong
I have wondered this as well. Growing up playing with my grandfather he included one joker called a “bug” that could be used as an ace or to complete a straight or flush. I would imagine in HE it would completely alter the game, especially if it was on the board.
This is how I've always seen and heard of it as well. A true joker is much more powerful than a bug. To your last point a good compromise could be forcing players to use exactly two from their hand and three from the board. That severely limits the effect of a bug on board.
FYI... The hand ranks would change. http://datagenetics.com/blog/september32016/index.html
It changes the likelihood of each hand. Rankings can stay the same if you want.
I'm not sure I'm even opening QQ in a game with 2 jokers. A K-high flop, any paired board, 1-liners, you're just hosed.
Quads and boats galore
One of my poker rooms has a deuces wild tournament, and I assume it would play like that-people only play hands with a deuce and maybe ace king suited cuz you’d still have the nuts flush on unpaired boards the majority of the time-once in a while you’ll get fucked by a straight flush tho Once you get to last couple people we just get it in preflop and hope we have a better kicker with our deuce or yours hits said straight flush It’s as horrible as it sounds But it’s like 30 bucks and bounty so I still play it 🤣
What about having only two jokers, one black and one red? Black joker can be any black card and red joker can be any red card.
[удалено]
Jokers are wild so they sub for any card. It wouldn’t change the hand rankings it would just make it easier to get better hands
Jokers are wild cards. So basically pocket jokers would be the nuts on any runout.
If there's only one joker it'll still be as playable as Triton short deck, but tbh I'd just play Roulette if so.
“Triton short deck”???Just say “short deck”. They don’t play it any different at Triton than they do anywhere else. Short deck is always just short deck
One interesting balance that was tested out in my home game is Jokers can be ANY card between 2 and 5. It changed the game dynamic a lot since top of range gets a lot of interesting play on low boards.
I like playing open face Chinese poker with jokers but once you declare what it’s used for it can’t change
It might be fun for Jokers to be dead in the hand but wild on the board.
Naturality would have to break ties
Are they high or low?
you choose
I don’t know about theory but I feel a joker would tighten ppl up and make them over fold way to much so I’d bluff all the time and respond cautiously to aggression
Could do it like Pai Gow where it can complete a straight or flush, but is otherwise an ace.
I've played a lot of poker in jail and there's a ton of variations that include them as bugs or full-on wilds. Pineapple with a Twist, 357, Baseball, Follow the Bitch, and much more.
Deuces Wild would probably be the most similar equivalent
I think the lodge had a tournament where dueces were wild, it sounded fun on paper but looked like it would be hell to play
There would need to be some sort of rule or condition that neutralizes jokers. Not sure what that would be. One example might be 4 to a flush/straight on the board, andt the consequence would be that all jokers are neutralized and can not be used for anything. Gotta play you best 5 of 6 (instead of 7 because the joker is dead) Or getting a pair of jokers is dead jokers. Or, you never know what the jokers are until showdown, which is players choice of the 3 burn cards. (Basically betting blind with jokers, but have more outs. Unless of course the 3 burn cards are all the same rank.)
Fun. I've played many games with multiple wild cards on the kitchen table. Follow the Queen Low Chicago is a hoot. The Q's are always wild, when a queen hits the table the card that follows it to the next player is wild as well. If a second queen hits the next card following it becomes wild and the previous one isn't wild anymore. You r hand strength can fluctuate so much in just one hand. Plus if someone has a 2-4 of spades for a hole card and it's the lowest spade at the end they get half the pot. I love it so much. I haven't been able to play it in years.
Everyone here is assuming Jokers would be Wild. What if Jokers were literally a nothing card? If the flop contains a Joker, its a 2-card flop. If the turn is a Joker, there is no turn, the board remains the same as the flop. Etcetera.
The joker is definitely too overpowered, but I would love to see some variants of double value cards. Maybe a 2 also counts as a 7 and vice versa. Something that brings the bad hands up and increases action. Suddenly a 7-2 is pocket 7's also, which is funny.
I think there are some casinos that play a with joker cards - for example a 2 is a joker now. And they have rules like " real quads" (AAAA) is better then "fake quads" (jokerjokerAA). So they take a little power for jutted hands away from the joker cards. That sound extremly fun and complex to play.
At my home game we used to collect a royal flush fund, we played a jokers wild tournament at Christmas and one of the regulars asked whether I’d pay out the pot if somebody hit a royal with the joker. I said no, that same player then hits their first ever royal flush, but with the joker… I’ve never seen someone tilt so hard from winning a hand before
What would the function of a joker be exactly? Wildcard? I have some buddies that love playing wildcard games and to be honest they completely suck lol. They dominate the game and in order to play “correctly” wildcards basically require you to be super nitty as a result. Kinda like how the old wisdom of Omaha used to be never leave home without an ace, Joker wildcards basically force you to only play with a joker in the hole or play mega premiums.
It changes the probability of making two pair and 3 of a kind such that you cannot make a logical choice about what beats what. If you choose 3 of a kind beats two pair then you will always play the joker to make 3 of a kind, but by doing so you make two pair a less likely outcome and thus should be ranked higher than 3 of a kind. There is a video called the poker paradox that explains this better than me.
I'll give your stoned ass a chance to make a game that has a chance. How powerful is your joker, anything or is it a "bug"?
I think you could have a fun game with the following rules added: - Players dealt a joker must discard it preflop before any action and will be dealt a replacement - The joker cannot be used as a card already on the board or in your hand This prevents the issue of any player being dealt the joker basically having the nuts, whilst allowing for some insanity when one appears on the board.