I was co-chilling with my poker-playing cousin and the rest of his family shortly after
Christmas when an opportunity to 🍋 play some cards with his neighbors came up. Never one
to pass up such an opportunity, I made the short 🍋 trip to the neighbors and once
introductions were complete, we were gambling it up.
And I mean gambling... we first
played 🍋 7-Card No-Peek Baseball. In this house, five-of-a-kind beats straight flushes,
and I skillfully flipped over quad queens with my first 🍋 5 cards, only to be outdone by
quad kings. Of course, I had 2 cards to go and one was 🍋 a wild. Thank you for the
5-of-a-kind hours rule! :) After a couple cracks at follow the queen (the variant 🍋 where
the queens are always wild, of course) we settled in for a long game of Acey
Deucey.
The Game
If you 🍋 don't know the rules, here it is. Everybody antes into the pot.
Each player takes a turn, starting with the 🍋 left of the dealer until there is no money
left in the pot. A turn consists of two cards being 🍋 dealt face up and the player
betting an amount of money whether or not the third card will fall in 🍋 between the first
two (thus, the name "In-Between"). A player may bet anything from zero to the pot. If
the 🍋 third card is in between, the player wins from the pot the amount that was bet. If
the card is 🍋 outside the first two cards, the player has to add the bet into the pot. If
the third card matches 🍋 one of the first two, the player must pay twice the bet into the
pot.
The best possible two-card combination is 🍋 an ace and a two: you only lose if an
ace or a two comes up. Thus the other name 🍋 "Acey Deucey".
Some variants include:
You
can only bet up to half the pot until everybody has a turn (so the game 🍋 can't be over
right away)
As the first two cards are dealt out, if the first card is an ace, the
🍋 player can call it to be high or low. The second ace is always high
If the first two
cards dealt 🍋 out are the same, you can get two new cards or you can bet if the third
card is higher 🍋 or lower instead of in between
You can bet an amount and call "inside"
or "outside". This creates more action (people 🍋 will make bets when a six and and an
eight come out instead of just passing
You must bet some minimum, 🍋 regardless of the two
cards
What Happened
So all seven of us antedR$1 and I was first. I saw the and and
🍋 thought "jackpot". I bet the pot, and my cousin promptly dealt the off the deck. Nice!
I'm in forR$14 more. 🍋 It goes around a few times and the host graciously only bets about
half the pot both times he's dealt 🍋 so the game can keep going. I get dealt another
great pair: and bet the pot again only to see 🍋 a . Wow. I run out of money and go meet
my friends for dinner.
The good news is I'll be 🍋 invited to future games after
droppingR$30. To them, I was a gambling fool who didn't care about losingR$30. To me, 🍋 I
maximized my value by betting the pot whenever it was the right move. Which got me
thinking...
The Solution
Disclaimers: This 🍋 solution assumes:
Your bankroll is large
enough that you can handle some crazy swings!
You aren't counting cards in order to
calculate 🍋 your exact outs (it's as if the deck is reshuffled each time)
The rules are
as above with no variants (most 🍋 importantly, you have to pay double your pot when the
third card matches and you can pass or bet zero)
The 🍋 Ace will always be high
Bet the
Pot when there are 8 ranks in between your cards: or better, or better, 🍋 or better, or
better.
Pass or Bet Zero all other times
With only 7 ranks in between, the bet is
completely even 🍋 money. You have 28 outs to win your bet, there are 16 cards that cause
you to lose your bet, 🍋 and 6 cards cause you to lose twice your bet.
With 6 or less
ranks in between, it's a losing bet.
Considerations
You 🍋 probably aren't playing this
game solely to make a profit. Sometimes it's fun to betR$1 that you can hit that
🍋 one-outer. Or at least the minimum bet just to juice the pot a bit and seem
friendly.
If your bankroll is 🍋 not big enough to handle losingR$40 at a time, you may
want to only bet the pot when you have 🍋 6 or 10 ways to lose instead of 18 ways as the
solution suggests.
Also
If you like to be nasty, you 🍋 can also call this game "Between
the Sheets". LOL.
