Three-Thirty-Three poker
A stud game (sort of), played only in home games, in which
each player is dealt a down card, followed by a round of betting,
and then one or more cards face up. Aces have a value of 1 or
11, face cards a value of , and all other cards have face value.
This is a split-pot game, with the object being to end up with
a total closest to 3 or 33. On each round, players can either
receive a further up card, or refuse further cards. After any
round in which no player takes a card, the players declare which
"way" they are going (3 or 33, sometimes called high
or low), and there is a showdown. (Sometimes there is one more
round of betting before the showdown.) In some versions, once
a player refuses up cards a certain number of times (say, three),
that player can no longer request further cards. The purpose
of this rule is that when a player is in a "lock"
(cannot lose) situation, that is, when he is the only one going
low, and there are more than one player going high and who have
quit asking for up cards, the player with the lock can prolong
the betting by drawing cards to a point at which he cannot hit
without destroying his lock. In some games, being on one side
or the other of 3 or 33 (when no one has exactly that total)
wins over the other side. For example, in some games, 2 loses
to 3, while in others, the reverse is true. The best hand is
three aces, so that the hand simultaneously adds up to 3 and
33. This is a virtual lock scoop hand, but one that can be beat,
so a player must be somewhat careful at declare time in a game
in which the rules dictate that a player who declares for both
ways must clearly win both ways (that is, cannot tie for either).
While this is not really a poker game, it is very popular in
some home games (because it has many of the elements of poker,
including bluffing), though less common than seven-twenty-seven.
