Guts

As it's quite obvious from its name, Guts is an exceptionally vicious poker variant, in which, it indeed takes a lot of guts on the part of the players to win. I have never heard or seen Guts offered by any online poker room, and by the time you get to the end of this brief description you'll probably understand why.

It would appear that the people who invented Guts must've been bored by the multiple betting rounds before a single showdown, as it's the case in most any type of poker, so they kind of decided it'd suit them better to have a showdown after every single betting round. So far nothing unusual. Two hole cards are dealt to each of the players around the table, after which they ceremoniusly decide to stay in or out of the proceedings. (they're supposed to have both their hands under the table - don't get any wrong ideas here – and place a chip in one of their fists, or not. After that, they hold that fist out over the table and open it. If there's a chip in it, it means the player is in on the action, if there ain't any, it means he/she is out. Why they can't simply declare verbally what they intend to do, beats me, but who am I to challenge the rules). The players who decide to stay in, will receive a third card and then they'll show down their hands. The guy with the best Three card hand (best combo is 3 of a kind) will take the pot, the others (who stayed in and lost) will have to match the pot. In some variants not all losers need to match the pot, only the guy with the lousiest hand , but then he'll need to double it. Thus being formed, the next pot will be fought over by all players again (including the ones who were out on the previous pot) the same way as before. If nobody stays in on the hand (the dealer is the last one to declare) the pot goes to the dealer, if he has at least a pair or better. Sometimes, upon the sight of only the dealer staying in, all players get a second chance to declare. If there's nobody gutsy enough to go in that time around, the pot goes to the dealer no matter what cards he holds.

Naturally the second pot will be at least as big as the first one but usually two or more times bigger. (depending on the number of players who risked staying in) This will significantly raise the stakes over a short period of time and this is where the problems the gameplay presents, start showing. Normally the game goes on, until only one player has the guts to stay in (be that that dealer or anybody else), but sometimes a loser decides to make up on lost dough by posting more and more money until he/she wins. By the nature of the progressive pots he/she is bound to recover all his/her losses by taking a single big-enough pot. This can lead to several players adopting the same strategy and thus the game degenerates into chaos, or simply, there will be no way to end it on reasonable terms.

In order to prevent this, players sometimes enstate a rule that says the game is over once the pot reaches 50 or 100 times its original size.

At any rate, this game is probably too 'gutsy' for me. What's that? Calling me a yellow-belly coward aye?
Go ahead...see if I care...