Well TPE peeps,

I have been mighty busy this festive season! This is why I have been largely absent from the forums here at TPE. But fear not! I hold this site very close to my heart, and I have not abandoned a single one of you! I have been thoroughly enjoying making my blog, which so far has 44 views, and I think 43 of them were mine. The other one was from my mate, Ed, who has been very helpful as an editor: I wrote a philosophy essay which, amongst other things, argued that sexual orientation is probably pre-determined by nature; because of this, I argue in the piece that perhaps many paedophiles cannot help their sexual orientation. Ed was utterly disgusted by this, and so I took another look at the essay. Whilst I stand by the argument, I concede it needed re-wording. I am very OK with the fact that the thing has had so few views, because it is not yet ready for public consumption. Regardless, it is great fun to write! I took philosophy at university…so just call me Ludwig Wittgenstein!

More importantly, after seven years in the career abyss, with no hope or prospect of employment in my profession, I have all of a sudden been swamped by interest it seems! I was even invited to a selection day at DHL Air UK, but this was a bittersweet experience from the minute they sent me the invitation…they gave me five days in the run-up to Christmas where I am working 15 hour days six days a week to prepare for multiple tests on 16 exams I passed 14 years ago! There was no way I could be ready, but I did my best. I failed the mental arithmetic test so badly a part of me is actually proud. They wouldn’t let us use a pen! I must have looked like a drooling moron counting on my fingers. And I failed the tech. test also. Never mind, it was a fantastic learning experience for me, I presented myself very well I feel, and I am already studying in anticipation of the next invite, for which I am determined to be ready! I just hope I get one. At my age (41) I cannot afford to be dropping the ball too often.

Anyway, enough of me. I have been thinking for a while now that everyone is moaning that they fear the days of profitable poker might soon be coming to an end. This would be mighty unfortunate for me personally, because I haven’t even begun to play profitable poker yet. The end will have come before the beginning, and this is simply unnatural. Yes, guys are moving into PLO and whatever, but there is a part of me every time which thinks: hold on a cotton pickin’ minute Tex, there are some extremely intelligent people around TPE, surely it is possible we as a group could come up with a new variant of poker?

Well, I am not entirely stupid. I realise that this will most likely end up as a Riceman thread over which blows the tumbleweed. I am certain it will be completely ignored. But I feel there is some mileage in it possibly, although I do realise it will require a lot of effort. 

I propose to call our new variant “Riceman Stud”, simply because I feel those two words sit together naturally.

Ahhh! This is a temporary name only. Once we have a serious playable variant decided upon, we can give it a more sensible name.

OK, so considering I started this thread, I feel that it falls to me to make the first suggestions:

1) I propose multiple decks, ie two decks. (I have absolutely no idea whether this is utterly pea-brained of me to even suggest?).

2) The winning hand is the best 10 card hand comprised of 4 hole cards from 2 decks, and 10 community cards. (OK so thus far I have simply taken NLHE and multiplied it by 2, but it is a start). Perhaps the ultimate hand could be called a “Double Royal”, comprising of, for example: 10s Js Qs Ks As 10c Jc Qc Kc Ac. Mate, this would be a once in a lifetime hand!

OK so I am partially having fun, but can we not try to come up with some workable ideas?