The Origins of Glass City Draw

Everyone knows there are ups and downs in poker. Even the best players on the planet know what it feels like to be stuck at the end of the night, or even month. I'm sure you can relate to that horrible feeling in the depth of your belly, the feeling that comes when you get all of it in before the flop with pocket aces. I mean all of it and, well, you know how the rest of the story goes. Have you ever known without a shadow of a doubt that you were the best player in a game only to lose hand after hand, or night after night, or week after week after week? It was that very feeling that spawned the creation of my favorite brand of poker, Glass City Draw.

I play in a home game every Monday night about 20 minutes from my home. I discovered the game by calling a number that was posted on the internet; the home owner was looking for players to fill his game. I've played with the same guys there for a few years now, I guess. There are some colorful characters, there is usually some pretty entertaining conversation, there's even a good looking girl. What there isn't, is a single decent card player among the entire group. When I started playing with these guys they were playing mostly tournament style NLH (no limit hold'em). They had, apparently, become infatuated with the game along with the rest of the country. Every week we would play a small stakes NLH tournament and then play dealer ante dealers' choice games late into the night. These guys must have known, between the six or seven of them, every form of poker known to man. They were all pretty good at explaining the rules to me, and each of them seemed to have an incredible knack for making horrible poker decisions. To put it straight, they had absolutely no clue what they were doing.

I liked these guys on a personal note, great group of guys. I respected them as human beings, especially the "good looking girl". I even started going out with some of them away from poker night. At the table, however, I looked at them as my prey. They were nothing but fish, tiny little fish that existed solely for my dining pleasure. Sorry if that sounds harsh, just remember, I'm a frickin' zombie with poker chips for eyes, I eat people's brains, OK, it could have been a lot worse. Right, anyway, I guess you know the type I'm describing. Early thirties, all-in every other hand, never fold an ace before the flop. When they had garbage they'd raise huge, when they had the nuts they would check. Utterly helpless players who had not a prayer of stopping their bankrolls from slipping into my dead, green clutches.

One night it occurred to me while I was on my way home from this friendly little home game that I was leaving a loser for the fourth consecutive week. How had that happened, I wondered, and why? I agonized over the thought that these, exceptionally bad, players were able to beat me down for a month solid. After reliving every play I made, every pot I won or lost, and every beat I took, I became entirely convinced that I had fallen victim to dreadfully bad luck. I surmised that my losing streak was mostly due to enormous suck-outs while contesting major pots. I was "out lucked". I know that no one wants to admit that they are somehow to blame for their losses in poker. When we win, it's all skill and when we lose it's always luck, I know. That's not what we're talking about here. These guys were total suckers.

I can recall, with painful distinction, one hand specifically. This hand occurred while we were playing a $1-$2 no limit cash game and eventually spawned the creation of one of the most skill intensive games you'll ever play, Glass City Draw. We had switched the format up a bit from our usual $50 buy-in sit 'n' go style tourneys. I was under the gun at a table of six and decided to limp in with KK to try to trap one of the aggressive players behind me. Everyone folded to the maniac on the dealer button who decided to put in his standard $15 bet into a $5 pot, "brilliant", right? So, the blinds folded and I moved my last $65 into the pot (I'd only bought in for $100 that night, and was on a run of bad cards). So, the "brainiac" on the button called without hesitation. I figured he was overplaying a pocket pair or AK. I was wrong. This guy cheerfully called the $40 re-raise with a queen and a ten of spades (QTs). Yes, I'm serious, and no you can't have their phone number; this is my game. (Get your own!) I flipped over my Kings as everyone at the table gave him the same look, you know the look. It was that, "Will you play me heads-up, with higher stakes, every night for the rest of my life so I can quit my job?" look.

I stood up to shake his hand and apologize to him, "sorry". A deeply uncomfortable silence fell over the room as his face began to turn red with frustration and embarrassment. "They're suited" he defensively proclaimed. "There suited", can you believe it? I didn't say it but I was thinking to myself something like, "Yeah, that's why you have a 16% chance of winning instead of a 14% chance, great call!" The flop was a relatively harmless one, it did put a spade out there giving him a runner-runner draw, but that didn't really concern me, well, not until the second and third spades hit the board. Yup, runner-runner flush, and down go the kings in flames. That was the first time I can remember thinking to myself that there had to be some way to take some of the luck out of this game, and that I was going to figure out how.

After carefully recollecting countless nights of bad beats and nightmarish suck-outs, I went to the drawing board. My mission was simple. I was going to create a game that was so skill intensive that it could boil the element of chance, in even a single session, down to nearly nothing. The game had to be exciting enough to keep bad players in, despite there repetitive losses. The game I would eventually introduce to my regular Monday night dealers choice sessions had to have an allure to it, something that made it fun and different. It also had to offer a nearly undefeatable edge to the most skilled player(s). After running countless dummy hands of stud and draw variations and playing fake tournaments and cash games with myself several hours a day for a week solid, it came to me. The game in question is... "Glass City Draw."

♣ Read the official Rules for Glass City Draw Poker.

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