In the last post I described a version of Football Poker that divides the game into drives, i.e., one hand for every drive. Now I will describe another way to divide the game up, and this leads to a different version of Football Poker, with a different deck, and different strategies. It will be interesting to see if players prefer one version of Football Poker over the other!
With Next Score, rounds start whenever there’s a kickoff (at the beginning of each half, and after each score), and end the next time a team scores, or at the end of the half or game. (Note: “safeties” count as turnovers in this game, so the round keeps going.) In other words, most of the rounds go from one score to the next, which is why we call it Next Score. This same division of the game into rounds also works well for soccer and hockey. But it does not work as well for baseball or basketball! Can you see why?
Not every drive ends with a score, so there are not as many hands per game in this version of Football Poker. In fact we can quantity this to some extent. Less than 40% of drives end with a touchdown or field goal in the modern NFL. On the average, there are about 5 touchdowns per game all together, and about 4 field goals. So, if you add in the kickoffs at the beginning of each half, that’s about 11 hands per game – plus or minus. This is about half as many hands as you can play with Drive Poker.
Fewer hands means less fun? Not really. It depends on what you like about poker. If you just want to play lots of hands, then Drive Poker wins for sure. Next Score is less rushed. But Next Score can be more exciting in other ways. Longer hands tend to have more betting, and therefore bigger pots. Remember, in Sports Poker games you can bet whenever you want, so longer hands yield more opportunities to bet.
But the length of the hands is not the most important difference between the two games. The Next Score deck is quite different from the Drive deck.
The Drive deck was designed to closely resemble a standard deck of cards. We could do that because (coincidentally) there are four possible outcomes of a drive – touchdown, field goal, punt, and turnover – and there are also four suits in a standard deck. Most of the cards in the Drive deck are “suited” cards whose values depend on the outcome of the drive.
Most cards in the Next Score deck correspond to which team scores next, and how. The cards are therefore color coded, with red corresponding to one team (the Red team) and blue corresponding to the Blue team. For example:
The first card is worth 9 points if the Red team scores next (TD or FG), the second card is worth 13 points if the Red team scores next, and it’s a touchdown, and the third card is worth 11 points if the next score is a Blue field goal. Purple cards correspond to events by either team (red + blue = purple). For example:
The first card is worth 21 points if either team kicks a long field goal (more than 50 yards), the second card is worth 8 points if the next score is a touchdown by either team, the third card is worth 9 points per punt by either team during the round. There are also purple “Clock” cards that are worth points if the half or game ends before the next score.
Like all our current Sports Poker varieties, Football Next Score Poker has hands of 5 cards, and the value of a hand is the sum of the card values. Players can exchange (draw) up to five cards during the round in Next Score – one at a time, or all at once.
Strategically, the Next Score game can be very interesting. As an obvious example, every time possession changes during a round (after a punt or turnover) the strengths of the hands change suddenly because of the Red and Blue cards. For example, here are two hands:
Suppose the Red team has 1st and 10 on their own 40 yard line. Then the first hand (Player One) has a big edge since there is a very good chance Red will score on this drive. Player One’s hand is worth 26 points if Red scores a touchdown and 17 points if they score a field goal, plus more if there were some previous punts in the round. Player Two’s hand is worth zero if Red scores (unless there were turnovers in the round). However, if Red ends up punting or there’s a turnover, Player Two regains the edge. But if Blue does not score on that drive then Player One has the edge again! This is why there can be a lot of betting in hands of Next Score Poker.
If Player One makes a bet when Red has 1st and 10 from their 40 yard line, what should Player Two do? Tough call! If Red is moving the ball and looks unstoppable, it might be smart to fold. On the other hand, if Blue’s defense can hold, then Player Two has the edge, so a call is probably the right move – especially with a big pot. Another possible strategy for Player Two is to raise the bet (a bluff!). This is actually a perfect “semi-bluff” since a Red score is not guaranteed.
Can you see the kinds of strategic battles you can get into? And remember, there will usually be more than two players!
I hope players will try the Drive and Next Score versions of Football Poker and let us know what they think!