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888poker to Introduce Pick’Em 8 Poker

PokerStars has been introducing new poker variants to their software for a while now and it seems there’s a new experimental game coming out every couple of months. Now, 888poker is looking to get into the act, but they are going a different route.

According to an article by Dan Katz of FlushDraw.net, 888poker will be releasing Pick’Em 8 sometime in the near future. He ran across a landing page on their website and dig a little digging to figure out what to expect from the game. Be forewarned that this is more of a poker casino game rather than a true variant of poker.

What is Pick’Em 8?

Pick’Em 8 is a Texas Hold’em style casino table game that starts by offering you eight hole cards. From those cards, you must pick two cards to play. If you do not choose two hole cards, then the game will automatically choose two for you.

It appears that players will all be presented the same eight hole cards to pick from. After you pick your cards and the other players in the game pick their cards, the board is run out. The players with the best hand will split the prize pool

For example, let’s say that out of eight cards, you pick A-K of hearts and the board runs out with three additional hearts. You and any other players that chose A-K will split the prize pool. Let’s say that eight players bought in for $1 each and two players picked A-K of hearts. In this case, you both would half of the prize pool.

According to the article on Flushdraw, the rake for this game will be about 9%, or nine cents out of each dollar. In our example, that would mean only $7.82 would go into the prize pool with the winners getting $3.64 each.

These games look to be set up to run frequently, but there’s no information on whether there will be a minimum number of players or a maximum number of players in the hand.

Keep in mind that this play just like a casino table game with the exception that you won’t be playing against the dealer. From there, the game will be more luck based over standard poker as you cannot force players out of hands.

Would You Play Pick’Em 8?

The question now is whether poker players will bother to try this game out or if it will be a fad that fades quickly. For those that just like to gamble it up and play flips, this could be a fun game to play. Think of it more akin to Video Poker, just without the house edge.

The strategy for this game is pretty straightforward as you would be consistently picking the best hands to give yourself the best odds at winning. If anything, this game would be a great exercise in learning the values of starting hands.

One thing I like about this game is that it looks to be offered in stakes from .25 to $1. Again, this is a lot like playing video poker. The .25 levels would be the equivalent to playing nickel video poker where the $1 games would be like playing .20 per credit video poker.

I can see gamblers flocking to this game to try to play a lottery style of poker by playing crazy holdings hoping to catch a fortunate board. Serious poker players cannot afford to let themselves get too emotionally involved as the game is predominately luck based.

Personally, this is a fun game that I would try out but not something that I would stick with for the long term. It’s a fun little game to “gamble it up” a bit or for a change of pace from standard poker games.

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