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Official Horse Race Game Thread (12 Viewers)

philhut said:
Have you or any other players here considered some method whereby players draw cards btw Ace thru Queen (1-12) or however many horses are in the game and use this as a method to race of chips during color ups in tournaments instead of just drawing for high cards. You could literally race your chips as horse entries......drawn randomly with cards?
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Cool idea but IMO would be far too time consuming, especially since I haven’t raced off chips in years, these days I just round up the odd leftover chips.
 
We implemented a new rule or two, probably already mentioned in the thread. Everyone antes one dollar or two for the jockey who throws the winning roll. Also of roll a 2 or a 12 everyone pays you a buck, and of course doubles roll again.
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WedgeRock said:
One chip per horse? So each horse has the same chance of being scratched? I think that goes against the point of probabilities.
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TheOffalo said:
So with dice, the 7 horse has the highest probability of scratching and therefore generating more money for the pot. Maybe that’s part of the pot building.

But since the share cards are random and scratched numbers are discarded, the chance for each non-scratch horse to win is relatively similar (not exactly the same as you pointed out). So picking the horse randomly using chips probably doesn’t alter the way the game works too much, except for the size of the pot?
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WedgeRock said:
If the 7 horse is scratched, its much more likely (theoretically), that a 7 horse will generate more fines.

If the 3 horse is scratched, the pot will theoretically be much less.

The likelihood of a bigger pot should be related to the likelihood that a particular horse will be scratched, IMO, not an even likelihood.
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Sorry, I've been away all week. But yes he had one chip per horse. Each horse had an equal chance of being scratched. It changes the game some, especially when more than one of the 2, 3, 11 or 12 chip come out. The pot doesn't get as big, which also takes away from some of the fun. You always get that laugh or moan when someone rolls that expensive scratched horses number. It was the closest I've ever seen the 7 horse come to winning though. I don't think we've ever had the 6, 7 or 8 horse win a race.
 
So to throw in my experience, and ask for suggestions on how to integrate this game....

This past Friday was a poker night for me. I picked up the game and figured we could play before the tournament, a round or 2, maybe 3. Doors opened at 7, game at 8. It's been rough getting people lately, so I had only 6, then got a 7th at the last minute, confirmed to play in the tournament.

Anyways, 1 guy got there right at 7, another a few minutes later. Then a big gap, and a few others came in later. I had set up for the horse game, so I was explaining it a bit, but didn't really want to play too short handed.

Anyways, as this is not really a group of heavy gamblers, we decided we'd play a round without money so people could get used to it. So we played with 5, just to get a feel for how many chips would be swinging around. It was a lot of fun, and people were getting the hang of it, and when the last 2 guys showed up right before start time at 8, they asked what all the hooting and hollering was about. But then it was time to clean up the horses and get to the "main event", and so we did.

The winning horse was a 4-way chop, I was the biggest loser as I was the 1 guy without a stake in him, another guy was 2nd biggest loser because he was scratching like crazy, but at least he'd get paid out his 1/4 pot.

So based on that, I'm thinking I might need to run a "horse night" or something like that. With this group, I don't think I could ask them to buy-in for more than the $20 buy-in that's already there for poker, or well, I should say, at least a few of them would balk at that.

Anyways, can one make an entire night of horse racing? A good amount of my guys are in the "friends" category and don't really like sweating the poker action anyways. Maybe they'd be more willing to get off their asses for a game night if there was no poker. But I'm not sure horses could sustain an entire night...maybe it should be paired with some other awesome game? Or maybe just variance in stakes would make it fun for a longer time? Like play 3 really small games, like $0.05/$0.10/$0.15/$0.20, then 3 medium games, $0.25/$0.50/$0.75/$1.00, then 1 big game for anyone who really wants to gamble it up, $1/$2/$3/$4?

Thoughts? Thanks for any input you guys have. This is a great thread!
 
Quick question for youse guys - for the pre-race "scratch round", are you having just one person roll for all 4 scratches or are you having different players roll for the scratches? And if different players, what happens if someone rolls the number for an already scratched horse (before all 4 scratches have been chosen) - is there a penalty or just keep rolling until a new scratch is rolled?

Also, has anyone found a cool bang for the buck transport/storage option? I looked at sub gun cases, dj mixer cases, computer monitor bags, guitar pedal board bags, etc. Didn't find one that I really liked. Just ordered one of these as a temporary solution until I find something better or finally decide to cut my boards and add hinges to make them more easily transportable in a back pack or something.

https://www.cabelas.com/shop/en/bas...ZrJHoVNsR2mp6VFZPKhoCIy0QAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

It's a tad oversized, especially the depth, but I figure it's got room if I wanted to add an additional board or for a plastic container for the game pieces, dice, and cards. And maybe a towel and a couple of racks of chips would help fill the space?
 
legonick said:
So to throw in my experience, and ask for suggestions on how to integrate this game....

This past Friday was a poker night for me. I picked up the game and figured we could play before the tournament, a round or 2, maybe 3. Doors opened at 7, game at 8. It's been rough getting people lately, so I had only 6, then got a 7th at the last minute, confirmed to play in the tournament.

Anyways, 1 guy got there right at 7, another a few minutes later. Then a big gap, and a few others came in later. I had set up for the horse game, so I was explaining it a bit, but didn't really want to play too short handed.

Anyways, as this is not really a group of heavy gamblers, we decided we'd play a round without money so people could get used to it. So we played with 5, just to get a feel for how many chips would be swinging around. It was a lot of fun, and people were getting the hang of it, and when the last 2 guys showed up right before start time at 8, they asked what all the hooting and hollering was about. But then it was time to clean up the horses and get to the "main event", and so we did.

The winning horse was a 4-way chop, I was the biggest loser as I was the 1 guy without a stake in him, another guy was 2nd biggest loser because he was scratching like crazy, but at least he'd get paid out his 1/4 pot.

So based on that, I'm thinking I might need to run a "horse night" or something like that. With this group, I don't think I could ask them to buy-in for more than the $20 buy-in that's already there for poker, or well, I should say, at least a few of them would balk at that.

Anyways, can one make an entire night of horse racing? A good amount of my guys are in the "friends" category and don't really like sweating the poker action anyways. Maybe they'd be more willing to get off their asses for a game night if there was no poker. But I'm not sure horses could sustain an entire night...maybe it should be paired with some other awesome game? Or maybe just variance in stakes would make it fun for a longer time? Like play 3 really small games, like $0.05/$0.10/$0.15/$0.20, then 3 medium games, $0.25/$0.50/$0.75/$1.00, then 1 big game for anyone who really wants to gamble it up, $1/$2/$3/$4?

Thoughts? Thanks for any input you guys have. This is a great thread!
Click to expand...
You can definitely have a night of just horse racing. We accidentally did that the day my board arrived. Planned on playing poker but did just horses for like two hours and most guys loved it. Now we just rotate the horse race in once per orbit or so and it works well that way. But you could just dedicate a night to the ponies pretty easily.

Personally, I can’t see playing at $.05 stakes. That would likely mean 1/4 pot is taking home like $1.50. Once you account for what you paid in penalties, it would be hard to profit more than a buck or so in any game. If your crowd is too tight to risk $1 on a fun gambling game, then this game probably isn’t their thing. At $1/2/3/4 stakes, the most anyone has lost at just horse racing with multiple races in our game is under $100, and that was with several back to back to back bad luck races. I would think quarter stakes would be about as low as you could go to make it fun for a group willing to gamble $20 or so on a night of racing.

Quick question for youse guys - for the pre-race "scratch round", are you having just one person roll for all 4 scratches or are you having different players roll for the scratches? And if different players, what happens if someone rolls the number for an already scratched horse (before all 4 scratches have been chosen) - is there a penalty or just keep rolling until a new scratch is rolled?

We pass the dice for each scratch as that takes randomizes who gets to actually start the race. We have been just passing the dice if you hit a horse that’s already scratched but I think we need a new rule for that. Maybe add to the jockey purse.

Samuel said:
Also, has anyone found a cool bang for the buck transport/storage option? I looked at sub gun cases, dj mixer cases, computer monitor bags, guitar pedal board bags, etc. Didn't find one that I really liked. Just ordered one of these as a temporary solution until I find something better or finally decide to cut my boards and add hinges to make them more easily transportable in a back pack or something.

https://www.cabelas.com/shop/en/bass-pro-shops-padded-propane-stove-carry-case?ds_e=GOOGLE&ds_c=Shop|CAB|TopPerformers|Camping&gclid=CjwKCAiA4KaRBhBdEiwAZi1zzh4Zx7oOcjdkkcyKcIAC1fmMKy3oMQ_P5VNZrJHoVNsR2mp6VFZPKhoCIy0QAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

It's a tad oversized, especially the depth, but I figure it's got room if I wanted to add an additional board or for a plastic container for the game pieces, dice, and cards. And maybe a towel and a couple of racks of chips would help fill the space?
Click to expand...
I like that option. My hands were full last night. Thinking a bag would be more convenient.
 
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Samuel said:
Quick question for youse guys - for the pre-race "scratch round", are you having just one person roll for all 4 scratches or are you having different players roll for the scratches? And if different players, what happens if someone rolls the number for an already scratched horse (before all 4 scratches have been chosen) - is there a penalty or just keep rolling until a new scratch is rolled?
Click to expand...
From the rules sheet in post #11:

The Scratch Round
1) Place the horses at the starting gate.
2) Four horses must be scratched before the race starts. The scratched order is as follows:
3) The player to the left of the dealer rolls the dice, and the number on the dice will be the first horse to be scratched. That horse is moved back to the first line. (For example, if a three and a five were thrown with the dice, a total of eight, then the horse number eight would be moved back to the first line. All players would then check their cards and pay five cents for each number eight card in their hands. The eights are then discarded.)
4) The next player then rolls the dice for the second scratch. That horse moves back to the second line and costs ten cents for each card that you have in your hand, and discards the scratched cards.
5) Continue with the third scratch and fourth scratch, moving to the third and the fourth lines, respectively paying the fifteen cents and twenty cents, and discarding the scratched cards accordingly. If you roll the number of a horse that is already scratched, you pay the amount on that horse's line and pass the dice to the next player.
 
Samuel said:
Quick question for youse guys - for the pre-race "scratch round", are you having just one person roll for all 4 scratches or are you having different players roll for the scratches? And if different players, what happens if someone rolls the number for an already scratched horse (before all 4 scratches have been chosen) - is there a penalty or just keep rolling until a new scratch is rolled?

Also, has anyone found a cool bang for the buck transport/storage option? I looked at sub gun cases, dj mixer cases, computer monitor bags, guitar pedal board bags, etc. Didn't find one that I really liked. Just ordered one of these as a temporary solution until I find something better or finally decide to cut my boards and add hinges to make them more easily transportable in a back pack or something.

https://www.cabelas.com/shop/en/bass-pro-shops-padded-propane-stove-carry-case?ds_e=GOOGLE&ds_c=Shop|CAB|TopPerformers|Camping&gclid=CjwKCAiA4KaRBhBdEiwAZi1zzh4Zx7oOcjdkkcyKcIAC1fmMKy3oMQ_P5VNZrJHoVNsR2mp6VFZPKhoCIy0QAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

It's a tad oversized, especially the depth, but I figure it's got room if I wanted to add an additional board or for a plastic container for the game pieces, dice, and cards. And maybe a towel and a couple of racks of chips would help fill the space?
Click to expand...
The way I've played it so far was:
  1. Roll for who gets first card. Highest 2x dice roll gets first card. If tied, re-roll until winner. This is important as if there aren't a divisible number of cards, the first guy will get the extra, and so on around.
  2. First card guy also gets first roll. That horse is scratched, guy to the left rolls 2nd scratch, and so on. If at any point they roll an already scratched number, they pay the penalty into the pot! Only 1 roll per person.
  3. Once all 4 are scratched, the next to the left rolls for the start of the race. I don't bother resetting the dice. Let the others play some too!
 
I've seen two separate "house rules" mentioned about rolling 2 or 12:
  • If 2 or 12 is scratched, then the bet is doubled when a 2 or 12 is rolled during the race. Is it also doubled right from the beginning for discarding cards? Do people play with a cap on the doubling, or can a scratch really be worth 8x?
  • If 2 or 12 is rolled during the game, then everyone pays the roller an amount of money. Do people pay the 1x amount or something more/less?
I wondering how people like playing with either of these rules, or if you have experience with both in different races, which do you prefer?

I was thinking about a hybrid house rule, where if 2 or 12 is scratched, then when a player rolls a 2 or 12 then all other players pay the pot rather than paying the roller (and rather than the roller paying the pot), but maybe skip doubling the bet to not over-inflate the pot since all but one player will be chipping in when rolled...

(I don't even have the game, and I'm enjoying this thread. My next live home game won't be until late April, so still trying to decide which version of the game I might want to get.)
 
wonderpuddle said:
You can definitely have a night of just horse racing. We accidentally did that the day my board arrived. Planned on playing poker but did just horses for like two hours and most guys loved it. Now we just rotate the horse race in once per orbit or so and it works well that way. But you could just dedicate a night to the ponies pretty easily.

Personally, I can’t see playing at $.05 stakes. That would likely mean 1/4 pot is taking home like $1.50. Once you account for what you paid in penalties, it would be hard to profit more than a buck or so in any game. If your crowd is too tight to risk $1 on a fun gambling game, then this game probably isn’t their thing. At $1/2/3/4 stakes, the most anyone has lost at just horse racing with multiple races in our game is under $100, and that was with several back to back to back bad luck races. I would think quarter stakes would be about as low as you could go to make it fun for a group willing to gamble $20 or so on a night of racing.

Quick question for youse guys - for the pre-race "scratch round", are you having just one person roll for all 4 scratches or are you having different players roll for the scratches? And if different players, what happens if someone rolls the number for an already scratched horse (before all 4 scratches have been chosen) - is there a penalty or just keep rolling until a new scratch is rolled?

We pass the dice for each scratch as that takes randomizes who gets to actually start the race. We have been just passing the dice if you hit a horse that’s already scratched but I think we need a new rule for that. Maybe add to the jockey purse.


I like that option. My hands were full last night. Thinking a bag would be more convenient.
Click to expand...
Yeah I feel like the $0.25 is best stakes for the $20-ish night.

2 hours is a lot of racing, but how long do you usually play poker for? I usually have a tournament that targets 3.5 hours, not counting breaks, so often goes to ~4 hours. 8 PM ET - 12 PM ET...I think. I need to double-check stat.s on that though, LOL.
 
legonick said:
Yeah I feel like the $0.25 is best stakes for the $20-ish night.

2 hours is a lot of racing, but how long do you usually play poker for? I usually have a tournament that targets 3.5 hours, not counting breaks, so often goes to ~4 hours. 8 PM ET - 12 PM ET...I think. I need to double-check stat.s on that though, LOL.
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Fair point. We play poker a lot longer. Average probably is 6-8 hours per session. 7pm until 1-3am most nights.

I think the ideal way to incorporate the horse race game into poker nights is some combinations of:

-pregame racing before poker starts
-racing on the side when hosting a tourney as people start to bust out
-racing once per orbit or two (or once per hour or so) during cash games

But starting off with a more horse race focused night is a good way to gauge how interested your group is. It really is fun and I think most people who try it will love it. Most of our guys are still hooked, but guys also want to play cards. So keeping it to once per orbit or so has been a nice mix for us.
 
legonick said:
Anyways, can one make an entire night of horse racing?
Click to expand...
Our tournament ended at 11pm last week. The plan was to play our cash game (poker) then throw in horse racing once an orbit or every other orbit. We didn't play poker at all. We did horse racing till 3am (4am if you count the time change.) We also had left, right, center and shut the box on hand which are also dice game. Those didn't make an appearance either.
Samuel said:
Quick question for youse guys - for the pre-race "scratch round", are you having just one person roll for all 4 scratches or are you having different players roll for the scratches? And if different players, what happens if someone rolls the number for an already scratched horse (before all 4 scratches have been chosen) - is there a penalty or just keep rolling until a new scratch is rolled?
Click to expand...
We pass the dice. If someone rolls a scratched horse they pay the fee and pass the dice.
 
Samuel said:
that board has no Scratched area/holes
Click to expand...

WedgeRock said:
Easy to fix with some buttons from BRPro. For the first scratch, discarded the cards and cap it with a button marked "1x," the 2nd scratch cards get capped with "2x" and so on.
Click to expand...

Here is a picture of my buddies chips that we pulled from the bag to scratch the horses. We also left those chips out so people could easily see which horses were scratched. We also lined up the discards and capped them with the amount each horse was scratched at.
Capture.JPG
 
TheOffalo said:
From the rules sheet in post #11:

The Scratch Round
1) Place the horses at the starting gate.
2) Four horses must be scratched before the race starts. The scratched order is as follows:
3) The player to the left of the dealer rolls the dice, and the number on the dice will be the first horse to be scratched. That horse is moved back to the first line. (For example, if a three and a five were thrown with the dice, a total of eight, then the horse number eight would be moved back to the first line. All players would then check their cards and pay five cents for each number eight card in their hands. The eights are then discarded.)
4) The next player then rolls the dice for the second scratch. That horse moves back to the second line and costs ten cents for each card that you have in your hand, and discards the scratched cards.
5) Continue with the third scratch and fourth scratch, moving to the third and the fourth lines, respectively paying the fifteen cents and twenty cents, and discarding the scratched cards accordingly. If you roll the number of a horse that is already scratched, you pay the amount on that horse's line and pass the dice to the next player.
Click to expand...
LMAO that's what I get for Not RTFM! Where's the facepalm emoji?
 
DrDysfunctional said:
Here is a picture of my buddies chips that we pulled from the bag to scratch the horses. We also left those chips out so people could easily see which horses were scratched. We also lined up the discards and capped them with the amount each horse was scratched at.
View attachment 881793
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I like that too!

I played for the first time last night, just for fun, with my brother in law and his 10 year old son. My BIL doesn't like gambling and doesn't play poker but he liked the horse race game and even though we were just playing for pretend (with denom chips), I think he would play it for real $ - and his son liked it too (but he's at that age where everything is pretty cool and fun anyway so... haha).

We were using my Derby Dash kit (which doesn't have a scratched area/holes and has "true odds hole counts" for each horse). I haven't gotten around to drilling holes for scratches so we ended up putting the horses alongside the board to show scratch and position (1-4) and skipping the first hole for horses #4-10 during play.

This kit has numbers on the plastic horses but the numbers are different colors and not exactly easy to read. I will probably redo them at some point and the layout shown above will definitely help.
 
WedgeRock said:
My thoughts as well.


Nice.

Playing $1/$2/$3/$4 scratches with five players, we were getting $60 pots four- and five-handed. I was thinking of maybe playing 25c/50c/75c/$1 scratch fines for more modest $20 pots.

Other house rules I have considered to start everyone one more equal footing:
  • I was considering doing the scratches (and removing the scratch cards from the deck), then dealing out the cards. That way, no one gets hit with too many scratches (and therefore, too few shares).
  • I also considered giving everyone an even number of cards and just killing the extra cards (44 cards less 16 killed on scratches = 28 cards; if you have 5 players, each player gets 5 share cards and the extra three cards are dead; if one of the horses with only three cards out there comes in, share holders get one-third the pot each instead of one quarter).
Click to expand...
Yep … we’ve developed a few house rules too.
- Deal the cards evenly and kill the extras
- Pay the scratch fine as suggested before
- Whoever rolls the final ‘winning’ roll gets any leftover odd chips after the 4-share split.

Also… this must be played before each race:
 
BSteck said:
Yep … we’ve developed a few house rules too.
- Deal the cards evenly and kill the extras
- Pay the scratch fine as suggested before
- Whoever rolls the final ‘winning’ roll gets any leftover odd chips after the 4-share split.

Also… this must be played before each race:
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Jabezuz!!! I didn’t realize there were FOUR PAGES to this thread. Im so two thousand-and-late.

Fwiw… got the cheapo $20 Amazon board and don’t hate it. Of course I can totally see an upgrade in my future.
53A0D47D-74B0-431B-A1A5-28CA8EFA6FF1.jpeg
 
Moxie Mike said:
I found this as well but the site seems less than 100% reputable. It seems odd to me that this is the only site that seems to have them.

EDIT: Their FB page shows that they're a mall store... so having a B&M presence seems more legit. I'll probably go ahead and place an order.
Click to expand...
they are legit. I got this the other day.

9D805163-BE84-4929-BE26-D96E5F9DCB9E.jpeg
 

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