The simplest way to split a baseball game up into rounds is by half innings, and that’s what we have done. There is always a long TV commercial break between half innings, so there is plenty of time to finish one hand and start the next. Baseball seems like it was designed for Sports Poker!
For short, we call the resulting deck the Inning Deck. The cards in the Inning Deck need to correspond to things that can happen in half innings. Anybody that follows baseball knows that there are dozens of possible card types. The cards in the Inning Deck correspond to things that happen reasonably often, so every card is potentially a good card. But every inning is different, so the same hand that is strong for the top of the 3rd inning, could be weak in the bottom of the 3rd. All the cards award points on a per-instance basis.
For example:
The first card is worth 6 points per strike out in the half inning, the second card is worth 10 points per walk. The third card is worth 21 points per home run, the fourth card is worth 9 points per fly out (outfield fly, line out, or foul out), and the last one is worth 21 points if it’s a 1-2-3 Inning.
Most of the cards in the deck are in 7 categories: strike outs, walks, hits, runs, ground outs, fly outs, and left on base. They all have values 6 – 11; with two of each for 6 – 10, and one for 11. That’s a total of 77 cards. There are also seven cards: home run, double/triple, double play, stolen base, pitching change, error, and 1-2-3 inning (one of each in the deck) that are worth 21 points per occurrence. That’s a total of 84 cards in the deck.
As with our other current Sports Poker games, players are dealt 5 cards at the beginning of the round. Players can exchange up to three cards during the half inning – one at a time, or all at once. The value of a hand is the sum of the 5 card values, which is easy to compute, as long as you can remember how many of each event occurred! Use the tracker app (our web app that works on your phone or tablet) or any other way you want to count. Just note what happens after each at bat.
Consider these two hands:
The first hand (Player One) has an excellent hand if it’s a big inning, especially if some of the outs are ground outs. If it’s not a big inning, the only hope is if the outs are ground outs.
Player Two has the 1-2-3 Inning card, so if it is 1-2-3 then it’s a good hand, especially if some of the outs are strike outs or fly outs. If the pitcher is pitching well, a quick bet to sweeten the pot might be in order. If someone reaches base then the 1-2-3 Inning card becomes worthless, and Player Two should trade it in for a new card. From that point on, Player Two will be hoping for strike outs, walks, and fly balls, otherwise the hand will never win.
What if the leadoff batter hits a double, and Player One bets. What should Player Two do? Well, the first thing to do is trade in the 1-2-3 Inning card. If the pitcher has been striking out a lot of batters, it might be a good idea to call, but otherwise it doesn’t look good for Player Two.
What if the first batter strikes out, and Player Two bets? What should Player One do? Unless the pitcher has been dominant, I would call. There are still lots of ways Player One can win. But what if the first two batters strike out, and then Player Two bets? What should Player One do? Of course, Player One doesn’t know how good Player Two’s hand really is. But it looks like a fold to me in any case.
There are usually scenarios where any hand can win in Inning Poker – just like in Texas hold’em – so call/fold decisions can be difficult. And most of the time you will be playing more than one opponent!