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Exotic Poker Variations: Duplicate Hold'em by Nina Hultman
Exotic Poker Variations: Duplicate Hold'em by Nina Hultman 
With all of the free online poker sites available to Internet players, each site employs a variety of strategies to keep players interested and coming to their site.
One such strategy is coming up with new and exotic poker variations to intrigue the adventurous player. An example of this is e-pokerUSA.com’s Duplicate Hold’em.
Duplicate Hold’em will be a welcome poker variation to poker players who complain that they never seem to get dealt good cards. This is because, just as in Duplicate Bridge, your success is determined by how well you play the same hand that those you are competing against play.
The way Duplicate Hold’em works is similar to regular hold’em but with a crucial, game changing twist. Your table is duplicated by up to three other tables.
Everyone in your seat at each table receives the same hand, sees the same flop, turn and river, and faces the same opposition.
Success in each round is determined not by whether or not you win the pot, but by how much you win or lose relative to your counterparts at the other tables.
Each player starts with 1,000 poker chips. These chips do not represent actual money, the amount of money you will risk is predetermined, but you always receive 1,000 chips for the hand. After the hand of pot limit or no-limit Texas hold’em, the difference between how many of these “hand chips” you have and how many your counterparts have determine how much money you win.
In the “winner take all” format, the player who has the most chips at the end of the hand wins money from all of his counterparts. How much each counterpart must pay the winner is determined by a formula based on the difference between the winner’s hand chips and the amount of hand chips of each of his counterparts. The exact formula is provided on the e-poker website. In this format, not all of the prize pool is redistributed. If each player wagered $10, one might lose $2, another $4, another $8, with the winner receiving $14. The other players would retain the rest of the money wagered, so the first losing player would keep $8 from that round, the second $6, and the last $2.
In the “fair share” format, the entire prize pool is redistributed according to a pre-determined formula. If each player from four tables contributed $20, that would make an $80 prize pool. After the hand, a percentage of the $80 would go to each player based on how they finished in chips after the hand.
In the “normalized tournament” format, the game is played like a traditional hold’em tournament. Players receive “victory chips” after each hand based on how well they fared in the hand with respect to their counterparts. Whoever has the most victory chips after a pre-determined number of hands or amount of time is the winner, with the prize pool distributed in order of finish.In all three types, the house takes a small percentage of either the pots or the entry fee as a rake. Duplicate Hold’em is a completely new type of poker that is skill based and where you have the exact same amount of information as your opponents. This may make it appealing to those who enjoy the concepts of poker but are put off by the short-term luck factor of the game.
Duplicate Hold’em will be a welcome poker variation to poker players who complain that they never seem to get dealt good cards. This is because, just as in Duplicate Bridge, your success is determined by how well you play the same hand that those you are competing against play.
Each player starts with 1,000 poker chips. These chips do not represent actual money, the amount of money you will risk is predetermined, but you always receive 1,000 chips for the hand. After the hand of pot limit or no-limit Texas hold’em, the difference between how many of these “hand chips” you have and how many your counterparts have determine how much money you win.
In the “winner take all” format, the player who has the most chips at the end of the hand wins money from all of his counterparts. How much each counterpart must pay the winner is determined by a formula based on the difference between the winner’s hand chips and the amount of hand chips of each of his counterparts. The exact formula is provided on the e-poker website. In this format, not all of the prize pool is redistributed. If each player wagered $10, one might lose $2, another $4, another $8, with the winner receiving $14. The other players would retain the rest of the money wagered, so the first losing player would keep $8 from that round, the second $6, and the last $2.
In the “fair share” format, the entire prize pool is redistributed according to a pre-determined formula. If each player from four tables contributed $20, that would make an $80 prize pool. After the hand, a percentage of the $80 would go to each player based on how they finished in chips after the hand.
In the “normalized tournament” format, the game is played like a traditional hold’em tournament. Players receive “victory chips” after each hand based on how well they fared in the hand with respect to their counterparts. Whoever has the most victory chips after a pre-determined number of hands or amount of time is the winner, with the prize pool distributed in order of finish.In all three types, the house takes a small percentage of either the pots or the entry fee as a rake. Duplicate Hold’em is a completely new type of poker that is skill based and where you have the exact same amount of information as your opponents. This may make it appealing to those who enjoy the concepts of poker but are put off by the short-term luck factor of the game.
