Imagine playing a game of poker where luck is taken out of the equation and you get to choose your own hole cards. Well that’s what one California software developer has done and he’s called it Texas Block’em Poker. Just like in Texas Hold’em, the cards community cards are randomly dealt however in Block’em players get to choose their own hole cards as to what they see on the board, and should 2 players choose the same hold card then that card is then blocked.
The inventor of the game is Arthur M Pfeiffer and it will be released online in 2014 via his software company Thwart Poker Inc and Pfeiffer himself says that, “In regular poker, each player relies heavily on the fixed laws of mathematics to calculate the probability that the cards dealt will give him a winning hand, in Texas Block ’Em, each player relies heavily on his sense of human psychology in reading opponents to determine the probability that he can pick the right cards for a winning hand.” A real money version of the game will be available online, and more importantly, it will be available to US poker players due to the fact that, in the words of I. Nelson Rose a law school professor and gambling law expert, "Texas Block ’Em is a contest and not gambling because it doesn’t have the element of chance." Looks set to be interesting however we are sure players will hold judgement on the game until they have actually seen it played. 79 year old Pfeiffer has created a few strange variations of the game and has patents on 2 games that are available for iPhone and iPod Touch called Hold’em Battle and Hold’em Blitz.
