Texas Shootout

This weekend, like normal, I visited a casino. This time I went with my lawyer. My lawyer wants to go to the casino because it’s 1) close to her place and 2) doesn’t have a cover unlike the comletely packed club next door. I was in charge of being her wingman while she cruised for guys.

What does this have to do with gambling???

So after sitting there for a couple of hours and watching “Champions of Poker II” or whatever new poker on TV show they were showing America, she had to go out and play some games.

The poker table was packed, and they were playing a multi-deck $1-3 for the most part. Oh - this was at the Ironhorse Casino in Auburn, in case you’re following along at home looking for a good place to play outside of Tacoma. Actually the dealers are really good, fun, and friendly at all table games at the Ironhorse, I really recommend it.

But the Ironhorse packs in a lot of “new” games. Games where they come up with new rules just to spice things up, to catch people off guard, and to generally find new ways to keep you from playing blackjack. They had only two blackjack tables operating - a completely packed $5 minimum table and a completely empty $25 minimum table. What did they have? A lot of completely new games marketed to casinos.

Marketed to casinos? Yes. There are companies that do nothing but develop new games and then “sell” them to the casinos. And we were stuck with most of these games. What she decided to play was Texas Shootout Poker which even, lucky for us, came with a how to play card that looks like a playing card!

How do you play? Well, in a nutshell, don’t; but each player bets, then gets four cards face down and discards two and places the other two faceup next to their bet. The dealer does the same and then places a five card flop and if your hand beats the dealer you win. There is also a “shootout bonus” which is the same ridiculous risk treatment you get in another Galaxy Gaming game called “Lucky Ladies”. There’s a pay scale of odds for the game on my handy card, allowing such things as 2 to 1 (against your shootout bonus bet, not your regular hand bet) for getting a flush, etc. The advantage is that these pay even if you lose.

There is an article in the August 2004 Playboyprofiling three men who create these games as well. I recommend checking it out.

Good luck, good rolls, good cards.