Friday, November 19, 2010

Poker Survivor

I haven't posted anything here in a long time, partly because my life has gotten much more complicated recently, but also because I haven't been as enthusiastic about playing/watching poker as I used to be. I think this is changing, as I am once again getting the itch to play poker more often, and to watch and talk about poker.

I've still been running the monthly poker tour that I've been a part of for the past 8 years, and this months tournament is the first one in a while that is building a bit of hype, as it is our 2nd edition for Poker Survivor. The basic style of poker for this format is Hold'em, but it varies from a standard tournament in a few different ways.

Each table is their own tribe, and unlike normal tournaments, you don't balance tables after eliminations, and the tribes are dispersed only at the Merger, which for smaller sized tournaments would mean the final table. Every blind raise (or every 30 minutes) a card is dealt face-up to each player at each table. The player to receive the lowest card is sent to Exile Island, where they will face the other Exile(s). The chip leader can declare immunity to this prior to the cards being dealt face-up.

Each Exile must take 50% - 100% of their chip stack to Exile Island, without knowing how much their opponent(s) will be taking with them. Play continues as normal at the Tribal tables. The Exiles battle and each time a player is eliminated, the person who claimed the elimination gets the Immunity idol.

The eliminated player returns to their Tribal table with whatever chips they left behind, or they are eliminated if they took all their chips to Exile Island. Once only one player remains on Exile Island, they are sent back to their Tribe.

The immunity Idol can be used by it's owner to prevent bad beats. When all-in, but before any hole cards have been revealed, the owner of the Idol can play it to prevent him/her from losing any chips in this hand. If he does lose the hand, he gets all chips back that he put in the pot. If he wins the hand, he still takes it all. Basically, he's free-rolling, but once the Idol has been played, it is lost.

As always, I'm interested in hearing other peoples variations on poker, or their thoughts on this format.