Official Horse Race Game Thread (8 Viewers)

[BSteck]

I think I'm going to go the Blanton's horses route and build a simple board for em. Can someone check my thinking about the odds/numbers of holes in each late?

So the basic odds are easy. 1/36 for 2 & 12. 2/36 for 3 & 11, etc. If I multiply those odds by 2 then I get 2 holes for the 2 & 12 lanes, 4 holes for the 3 & 11 lanes, etc. So far, so good. That gives a layout like this.



The problem comes in that there's one extra hop needed to cross the finish line. So with this layout it actually takes three hops to win in the 2 lane, 5 hops to win the 3 lane. And that whacks the odds a bit. So I think I need to adjust the hole layout so that the actual number of hops are true-odds, right? But that would make the 7 lane way full of holes (would need total 18 hops so 17 holes in the middle). That seems like a lot. Plus I have this total anecdotal feeling when we've played that the 7 lane is a tougher win lane (completely illogical I know) so I kinda like the 7 lane being a little shorter than true odds.

Any thoughts?

 

[ekricket]

I think I'm going to go the Blanton's horses route and build a simple board for em. Can someone check my thinking about the odds/numbers of holes in each late?

So the basic odds are easy. 1/36 for 2 & 12. 2/36 for 3 & 11, etc. If I multiply those odds by 2 then I get 2 holes for the 2 & 12 lanes, 4 holes for the 3 & 11 lanes, etc. So far, so good. That gives a layout like this.

View attachment 889458

The problem comes in that there's one extra hop needed to cross the finish line. So with this layout it actually takes three hops to win in the 2 lane, 5 hops to win the 3 lane. And that whacks the odds a bit. So I think I need to adjust the hole layout so that the actual number of hops are true-odds, right? But that would make the 7 lane way full of holes (would need total 18 hops so 17 holes in the middle). That seems like a lot. Plus I have this total anecdotal feeling when we've played that the 7 lane is a tougher win lane (completely illogical I know) so I kinda like the 7 lane being a little shorter than true odds.

Any thoughts?

I’m waiting for someone to drill holes in their racetrack poker table to actually make it useful.

 

[TheOffalo]

I’m waiting for someone to drill holes in their racetrack poker table to actually make it useful.

Make a meta-game where if you win a poker hand you get to roll the dice. Players having good luck in poker have more of a chance to scratch and build the pot. Race runs as normal, payouts based on pre-dealt cards, so someone winning all the poker hands wouldn't necessarily make money on the horse race. They're just advancing the race.

Alternatively, each player is assigned a horse, and if you win a hand your horse advances. Would have to be equal number of spaces on the track to make it fair. No dice, no scratches, so would have to have another way of betting (or have a "rake" go into the purse).

 

[RocAFella1]

@LeGold

 

[RowlettTexasChipGuy]

I introduced this to my main group yesterday

Played first game at $.25,,$50,$.75, and $1

By the end of the night we played
1,2,3,4
Doubles cost you an extra dollar
If 7 was scratched and you rolled it you paid the man on your left and right an extra dollar
We also played each race with a 2 dollar ante that went to the best poker hand from the cards you were dealt for your horses


Lots of other rules, bets were thrown out that we will add to next month's game

 

[wonderpuddle]

We also played each race with a 2 dollar ante that went to the best poker hand from the cards you were dealt for your horses

Love this. Great idea.

 

[Darson]

It has arrived! Time to make sawdust…

 

[Darson]

So I rummaged through the wood shop and found a piece of cherry. I’m not sure if the board really is cherry but why not…

I started by measuring the width of the horses, dice and cards and I think I only needed about 17mm height in the interior of the box to fit everything. And I only had 3/4” plywood so I wanted to use that for the base. So I cut some cherry boards into this profile:

I figured that the plywood bottom could be routed out to gain some height if I need it so this was the plan:

A few minutes on the mitre saw and I had an open ended picture frame thingy where the playing board slid in nicely.

I checked for square, cut some 3/4” plywood a little wider than the playing board and glued it all together.

That’s all for today. Tomorrow I’ll work out how I’ll make the last side to close the box up. The real work will be making the compartments to hold all the horses and dice.

 

[CrazyEddie]

The problem comes in that there's one extra hop needed to cross the finish line. So with this layout it actually takes three hops to win in the 2 lane, 5 hops to win the 3 lane. And that whacks the odds a bit. So I think I need to adjust the hole layout so that the actual number of hops are true-odds, right?

If you want the horses to win an equal number of times in the long run, then yes. You'll need the total number of moves that each horse needs to win to be a multiple of [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1] including the final hop to cross the finish line. With this arrangement, every horse has exactly the same probability of winning (when calculated after the scratches are rolled but before the racing starts).

Any other distribution of holes means that the horses have unequal chances of winning. For example, if you have a multiple of [1,2,3,4,5,6,5,4,3,2,1] plus one more move for every horse to cross the finish line, then the center horses (e.g. 7, 6, and 8) will be significantly more likely to win than the edge horses (e.g. 2, 3, 11, and 12).

Note that when calculated before the scratches are rolled, the center horses are much less likely to win than the edge horses, because the center horses are much more likely to scratch and thus not even run. This is true regardless of whether or not you fine-tune the odds of winning to account for the extra move to cross the finish line.

But honestly, none of this matters. This game involves no skill and requires no decisions on the part of the players; everything is completely automatic. It's just a complicated way of flipping coins and watching money move randomly around the table. So what difference does it make whether the middle horses win more often? Every player always has equal chances to win or lose, regardless of whether the individual horses themselves have equal chances to win or lose. But if it suits your aesthetic sensibilities for every horse to have equal chances (again, before the race starts but after the scratches are rolled) then yes, definitely, make sure to include all the moves in your counting, including the final move across the finish line.

But that would make the 7 lane way full of holes (would need total 18 hops so 17 holes in the middle).

Your choices for the number of moves are:

[1,2,3,4,5,6,5,4,3,2,1]

or

[2,4,6,8,10,12,10,8,6,4,2]

or

[3,6,9,12,15,18,15,12,9,6,3]

in every case including the final move across the finish line.

I'd recommend going with the second option, which will leave you with two holes each for the #2 and #12 horses - one at exactly the midpoint of the course, and one at the finish line, plus one more hole for every horse at the starting line. It looks something like this

* * * * * * * * * * *  Finish Line
      * * * * *
    *   * * *   *
  *   *   *   *   *
    *   * * *   *
      * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * *
      * * * * *
    *   * * *   *
  *   *   *   *   *
    *   * * *   *
      * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * *  Starting Line
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 T E T  Horse numbers

The downside to a board like this is that the #2 and #12 horses will go from having run only half the course to winning the race in a single die roll, which probably feels anticlimactic. That's probably why the standard board has an extra move for all horses, to make it feel more exciting by having each horse get closer to the finish line before any horse crosses the finish line.

But that definitely skews the odds to make the center horses much more likely to win (after scratches are rolled).

But again, that doesn't really matter, because all the players always have equal chances to win, even if the horses don't.

 

[BSteck]

But honestly, none of this matters. This game involves no skill and requires no decisions on the part of the players

Yep… this is where I ended up too.

 

[TheOffalo]

I introduced this to my main group yesterday

Played first game at $.25,,$50,$.75, and $1

By the end of the night we played
1,2,3,4
Doubles cost you an extra dollar
If 7 was scratched and you rolled it you paid the man on your left and right an extra dollar
We also played each race with a 2 dollar ante that went to the best poker hand from the cards you were dealt for your horses


Lots of other rules, bets were thrown out that we will add to next month's game

Oh man, I’ve been worried whether my buddies will like this game, and now I’m worried whether they’ll like this game too much!

Live game has been rescheduled from last week to this week. Is it Friday yet?!

 

[RowlettTexasChipGuy]

Oh man, I’ve been worried whether my buddies will like this game, and now I’m worried whether they’ll like this game too much!

Live game has been rescheduled from last week to this week. Is it Friday yet?!

they will like it, it is something different, also it gives the guy that never knows what he wants to play during dealers choice another easy option

we played mostly card games, I would say about once an hour did we play the Horses in out 8 hours of cards, i think we really did 9 total races, not counting the 1st cheap one to show and explain it to everyone


I have another group of buddies that we could probably do a whole night of racing and they would be happy happy happy

 

[RowlettTexasChipGuy]

So I rummaged through the wood shop and found a piece of cherry. I’m not sure if the board really is cherry but why not…

I started by measuring the width of the horses, dice and cards and I think I only needed about 17mm height in the interior of the box to fit everything. And I only had 3/4” plywood so I wanted to use that for the base. So I cut some cherry boards into this profile:

View attachment 889759

I figured that the plywood bottom could be routed out to gain some height if I need it so this was the plan:

View attachment 889761

A few minutes on the mitre saw and I had an open ended picture frame thingy where the playing board slid in nicely.

View attachment 889762

I checked for square, cut some 3/4” plywood a little wider than the playing board and glued it all together.

View attachment 889764

That’s all for today. Tomorrow I’ll work out how I’ll make the last side to close the box up. The real work will be making the compartments to hold all the horses and dice.

I may have to drive down south to have you make me a box for mine and grab some hot sauce

love the idea, can't wait to see finished product

 

[LeGold]

Hmmmmm....

 

[TheOffalo]

Hmmmmm....

View attachment 890047

 

[Irish]

OK, I have dumb question after reading through the posted rules. At startup, you're scratching the first 4 horses and are paying 5¢ / 10¢ / 15¢ / 20¢ a card if it matches a roll to scratch a horse. But then paying $1 / $2 / $3 / $4 a card if the scratches hit during the race? Assuming you keep the $ stakes and don't dial it down to quarters, why even bother with the nickels / dimes up front? Wouldn't you get about $2 pre-race and then $4 to $16 per scratched roll during the race? The up front change seem kind of trivial, I'm thinking something like a straight ante (25¢ to 50¢) would be easier, then just pick your scratched horses and off you go to the race. Avoids having all the nickels and dimes then.

WTF am I missing??

 

[chkyrslf]

I ordered my Fineni Board on Amazon last night, couldn't help myself

 

[TheOffalo]

OK, I have dumb question after reading through the posted rules. At startup, you're scratching the first 4 horses and are paying 5¢ / 10¢ / 15¢ / 20¢ a card if it matches a roll to scratch a horse. But then paying $1 / $2 / $3 / $4 a card if the scratches hit during the race? Assuming you keep the $ stakes and don't dial it down to quarters, why even bother with the nickels / dimes up front? Wouldn't you get about $2 pre-race and then $4 to $16 per scratched roll during the race? The up front change seem kind of trivial, I'm thinking something like a straight ante (25¢ to 50¢) would be easier, then just pick your scratched horses and off you go to the race. Avoids having all the nickels and dimes then.

WTF am I missing??

The Fineni rules posted on comment #11 mentions the nickel, dime, 15¢, 20¢ amounts during the Scratch Round, but doesn't mention specific amounts during The Race. It just says "However, if the total on the dice is that of a scratched horse, then that player must pay the amount which that horse is standing on." Which should still correspond to .05/.10/.15/.20. (There are no printed amounts on the board in the Scratch section.)

I'd just play with consistent amounts, so if .25/.50/.75/1, then that's the amount paid during the scratch phase and the race phase. The ante could be any of the amounts, depending on how much you want the starting pot to be.

 

[wonderpuddle]

OK, I have dumb question after reading through the posted rules. At startup, you're scratching the first 4 horses and are paying 5¢ / 10¢ / 15¢ / 20¢ a card if it matches a roll to scratch a horse. But then paying $1 / $2 / $3 / $4 a card if the scratches hit during the race? Assuming you keep the $ stakes and don't dial it down to quarters, why even bother with the nickels / dimes up front? Wouldn't you get about $2 pre-race and then $4 to $16 per scratched roll during the race? The up front change seem kind of trivial, I'm thinking something like a straight ante (25¢ to 50¢) would be easier, then just pick your scratched horses and off you go to the race. Avoids having all the nickels and dimes then.

WTF am I missing??

We are paying the same amount when we discard scratched horse cards as we are when rolling their numbers. So we never play 5 cents. First scratch is $1. Everyone with that card pays a dollar and discards, and that horse is $1 each time it’s rolled. Same for the $2/3/4 horses.

The fineni rules assume you are playing for nickels. We’ve been playing for dollars.

 

[Darson]

To keep it simple, it should be 1x, 2x, 3x, 4x the chosen valve for the scratched horses both at the start and during the race. Of course if you have a pair of cards belonging to a horse that scratches you pay double etc. I do like the addition that during the scratch phase, if someone rolls a scratched horse then they pay and roll again rather than just skipping/rolling again.

 

[TheOffalo]

I do like the addition that during the scratch phase, if someone rolls a scratched horse then they pay and roll again rather than just skipping/rolling again.

That'll penalize the later rollers (unless there's a cap). How do you pick what order people roll the scratches?

Maybe after the first race, it could be that the the winners of that race have to roll later during the scratch phase and potentially have to pay more if they keep rolling already-scratched horses.

 

[Irish]

Ah OK, that makes way more sense. Like I said, stupid question lol

 

[Darson]

That'll penalize the later rollers (unless there's a cap). How do you pick what order people roll the scratches?

Maybe after the first race, it could be that the the winners of that race have to roll later during the scratch phase and potentially have to pay more if they keep rolling already-scratched horses.

I think it's partly fun to make someone suffer for rolling a scratched horse (fair or not) but also if playing multiple games, rotate the starting roller each round.

Another "fair or not" point is how the cards are distributed equally - with 5 players, one will get one less card than the others. So they have a lower chance of getting a scratched horse but also a lower change of having a winning horse. Fair or not?

 

[NotDunric]

Another "fair or not" point is how the cards are distributed equally - with 5 players, one will get one less card than the others. So they have a lower chance of getting a scratched horse but also a lower change of having a winning horse. Fair or not?

So far I've only played 4-handed which was a perfectly even deal every race, so I don't know if there's implications here that I'm not thinking through, but I like the idea of maxing out an even deal with any remainder being left in the muck. So with 5 players everybody would get an even 8 cards, and 4 cards would be left out- meaning that players who have the remaining cards matching those in the muck get a bigger stake in the resulting pot if one of those horses wins.

As mentioned already the whole game is effectively a coin flip anyway, so I can't imagine anyone who is willing to sit down and put $10-20 on these games taking issue with the idea; if anything it would seem like it adds a bit of fun spice to each race if you get the lucky deal with max equity on horse #4, or something.

 

[BPTDirector]

Ive played the extra cards in the middle and first scratched card in turn pays, discards and draws until the extras are gone.

 

[WedgeRock]

For odd cards, what about making those the scratches, and making everyone pay that has them in their hand, pre-race?

 

[NotDunric]

Here's a weird idea stemming from my board gamer brain: simultaneous blind bid on 50% unknown card packets.

Using the evenly dealt five player example, you'd deal out five piles of 8 cards each to the middle of the table (leaving the 4 remainder cards unknown in the muck), dealing the first four cards in each pile face up, and the rest being dealt face down. Each player then simultaneously reveals a bid with their chips (might be tough with full sized poker chips, this process works a lot easier with small board game bits admittedly, lol) and the highest bid gets first pick of which packet of cards becomes theirs, followed by second highest bid, etc. All bids go into the pot instead of a standard ante. You'd know 50% of which horses you're investing in, and have additional unknown equity in others (or more of the same ones potentially!). For added excitement, don't reveal the face down cards until the race is over maybe? I dunno, I'm just typing stream-of-consciousness ideas at this point. I'm sure hyped to get my board later this week.

 

[legonick]

My 2nd Fineni board came in today. Still some warping on 2 corners. Far less than last time, but if you put the board on a counter top and press on the most-warped corner, it does raise the opposite corner.

I'm probably going to pony up for the cherry board in the hopes that the cherry wood with it's tighter grain is less prone to warping.

Look at this pretty bad warping on my first board:

 

[Littleluck55]

If you want the horses to win an equal number of times in the long run, then yes. You'll need the total number of moves that each horse needs to win to be a multiple of [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1] including the final hop to cross the finish line. With this arrangement, every horse has exactly the same probability of winning (when calculated after the scratches are rolled but before the racing starts).

Any other distribution of holes means that the horses have unequal chances of winning. For example, if you have a multiple of [1,2,3,4,5,6,5,4,3,2,1] plus one more move for every horse to cross the finish line, then the center horses (e.g. 7, 6, and 8) will be significantly more likely to win than the edge horses (e.g. 2, 3, 11, and 12).

Note that when calculated before the scratches are rolled, the center horses are much less likely to win than the edge horses, because the center horses are much more likely to scratch and thus not even run. This is true regardless of whether or not you fine-tune the odds of winning to account for the extra move to cross the finish line.

But honestly, none of this matters. This game involves no skill and requires no decisions on the part of the players; everything is completely automatic. It's just a complicated way of flipping coins and watching money move randomly around the table. So what difference does it make whether the middle horses win more often? Every player always has equal chances to win or lose, regardless of whether the individual horses themselves have equal chances to win or lose. But if it suits your aesthetic sensibilities for every horse to have equal chances (again, before the race starts but after the scratches are rolled) then yes, definitely, make sure to include all the moves in your counting, including the final move across the finish line.



Your choices for the number of moves are:

[1,2,3,4,5,6,5,4,3,2,1]

or

[2,4,6,8,10,12,10,8,6,4,2]

or

[3,6,9,12,15,18,15,12,9,6,3]

in every case including the final move across the finish line.

I'd recommend going with the second option, which will leave you with two holes each for the #2 and #12 horses - one at exactly the midpoint of the course, and one at the finish line, plus one more hole for every horse at the starting line. It looks something like this

* * * * * * * * * * *  Finish Line
      * * * * *
    *   * * *   *
  *   *   *   *   *
    *   * * *   *
      * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * *
      * * * * *
    *   * * *   *
  *   *   *   *   *
    *   * * *   *
      * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * *  Starting Line
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 T E T  Horse numbers

The downside to a board like this is that the #2 and #12 horses will go from having run only half the course to winning the race in a single die roll, which probably feels anticlimactic. That's probably why the standard board has an extra move for all horses, to make it feel more exciting by having each horse get closer to the finish line before any horse crosses the finish line.

But that definitely skews the odds to make the center horses much more likely to win (after scratches are rolled).

But again, that doesn't really matter, because all the players always have equal chances to win, even if the horses don't.

Interesting....one of mine follows your sample you laid out except for the 6,7,8 which takes
less rolls.

 

[shenqibaima]

I want to have a set to play with my friends. I'll look for it