Cards4Couples
Medium · 3/5Poker-based / inventedInvented game (Eliott Adkins)

Ocean's Eleven

A clever two-player poker duel with no betting: each player has their own 52-card deck and reveals cards one at a time to build competing poker hands. The player who's behind must either add a card or concede. First to win 6 of 11 hands takes it.

You'll need: Two standard 52-card decks, one per player. Twos are wild; hands rank as in standard poker.

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Objective

Be the first to win 6 poker hands.

Setup

  1. 1Each player shuffles their own deck and flips the top card face up to begin their first hand.
  2. 2Compare the two face-up hands.

How to play

  • Whenever cards are revealed, compare each player's best poker hand.
  • The player with the WEAKER hand must choose: deal another card to their own row to try to improve, or concede the hand.
  • If the hands are equal, both players must deal another card.
  • This repeats until someone concedes. The winner keeps a marker to track hands won; both discard their used cards (out of play for good).
  • There is no limit on how many cards the trailing player may deal, except that running out of cards forces a concession.

Comparing hands

  • Each player makes their best five-card poker hand from their row.
  • With fewer than five cards, missing slots count as worthless non-cards (so a bare pair beats an incomplete higher hand only per normal ranking).
  • You may not have two identical cards in your row, so there is no five-of-a-kind and a flush holds only one ace.
  • If best hands tie and someone has extra cards, the surplus forms a second hand to break the tie.

Scoring

Scored in hands won · play to 6

Good to know

  • Best of 11 hands; first to 6 wins. If both decks run out, most hands won wins (a tie is a draw).

Winning

The first player to win 6 hands wins the game.

Game mechanics referenced from pagat.com (John McLeod); rules text is our own wording.

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