Jamie Gold Previews 211

Gaming Life Expo, Rio Hotel, July 2008

Hi folks. Welcome to my new poker game. People "LOVED" playing the game and were coming back to play again each day.
Try it out and tell me about it.

Two new interviews online!

LISTEN: "Hosts Chris Cosenza & Scott Long interview Nick Paul"
- Ante Up - "Poker Podcast - WSOP Expo Part 1" 7/18/08

Live from the 2008 Gaming Life Expo floor, Ante Up gets a chance to talk with 211's own, Nick Paul

LISTEN: "Queens versus Kings with special guest Bruce Paul

Queens versus Kings - It's all about position with your hosts Lupe Soto and Joe Pane. Queens versus Kings is broadcast live Thursday nights at 7:00pm Eastern on HoldemRadio.com

About 211 Poker

The Most Exciting New Poker Game in 26 Years

Prepared by Minimax Consulting, LLC 

download the .PDF here

Executive Summary
This document serves as a review and opinion of 2-11, the most exciting new poker game in 26 years. 

While Omaha and Texas Hold’em have induced excitement from gamblers for years, the poker world is now ready for the next new game. From his poker table at home, Bruce Paul has filled that void with an offering that will grace the felt for years to come. Combining the most exciting elements of Omaha and Hold’em with an increased choice given to the players, 2-11 brings a new spark to the game of poker, and with it, new hope and new action.

2-11: The Next Great Poker Game - Game Play The game of 2-11 is not much different in form and function than the currently popular forms of Texas Hold’em and Omaha Hi/Lo. All three games involve making the best five-card poker hand available from a given number
of hole cards and a set of community cards that all players in the hand may use. All three games can be played with anywhere from two to ten players and they all involve ordered betting and a no-ante structure. It is at that point that the similarities end and the unique characteristics of 2-11 begin.

The game of 2-11 allows each player to choose whether to use two or three cards from their four-card hand with two or three cards from the four-card board to make their best five-card high and low hand. While 2-11 uses community cards like Hold’em and Omaha, the flop contains only two cards, while the turn and river both contain one. Further, the game offers two exciting ways to be played. When the game is played in a Hi/Lo format, there is a 7-low condition as opposed to an 8-low condition that is standard in Omaha. While the initial concept of 2-11 was as a Hi/Lo game, it was found to be equally exciting when played in the High-only Pot-Limit format.

The impact of these rule variations on the play of the game was analyzed by Minimax Consulting, LLC. Minimax has also provided its statistical services to Visa, Starbucks, Cox Media, Harvard, and Stanford School of Medicine among other National and International Corporations. Minimax found that the rule changes alter the bluffing frequencies due to the increased player choice regarding which cards to use. This choice increases the number of hands that can be helped by any one card and adds to the game theoretic complexity of a given street.  

Marketability
The main driver of a given card game’s attractiveness is the demand of the game from the card playing public. The recent surge in demand for 2-11, brought about in part by its appearance at this year’s World Series of Poker Gaming Life Expo, provides an exceptional backdrop to the current state of transition in the world of poker. Both Hold’em and Omaha, while still mainstays of card-rooms worldwide, have become rote action to many players. They lack their luster that once shone so brightly. The games’ home-game feel has plateaued and the rate of entry of new players to the games has declined. As a result, a new source of additional players is needed to bring that experience back to the card-room. While that feeling has plateaued for Hold’em and Omaha, it is just now beginning with 2-11.  

Players, including the likes of Jamie Gold and journalists such as Adam Slutsky of Bluff Magazine and Rick Rosen of ESPN Sports have relayed the perceptions of many of the game’s fans in resounding terms. 2-11 brings with it a swell of enjoyment that comes with the draw of an exciting new experience and the prospect of the mastery of a new game.

As a result, there is no barrier that exists to stop 2-11 from being spread. Indeed, the demand for the game has increased to a point where the marginal Hold’em or Omaha table adds less to the satisfaction of demand than the next 2-11 table. The game of 2-11 involves a similar degree of luck and provides an identical, if not an increased amount of satisfaction and excitement. It only takes a small degree of accommodation in order to become comfortable with assessing the possibilities that the choice of cards and the altered board offer the players. Further, from the player’s perspective, the excitement with respect to getting dealt a high hand is more pronounced in 2-11. Indeed, it is so pronounced that the house should be ready to adjust the qualifying hand for the bad beat jackpot.

Additionally, from the perspective of the house, the game’s ability to deal more hands per hour makes it a more attractive proposition than Omaha. Further, fewer players are involved in later streets and the dealers have been shown to make fewer mistakes reading hands since the reduced number of total cards on the board allows for easier assessment of the winning hand.

As time progresses, players are likely to crave new variations of their favorite games in order to derive a similar level of enjoyment from playing them. 

Overall, 2-11 possesses the right mix of luck and skill, the familiarity with rules, odds, and hand assessment, such that it can easily be adopted and only needs a sufficient backing in order to become a successful and powerful addition to the specter of the card playing public.