No-Peek Baseball

Full rules

1. Overview
2. Hand ranking
3. Betting in short
4. Setup
5. Playing a hand
6. Winning the game
7. Tips for beginners
8. Variants

Overview

No-Peek Baseball – also called Night Baseball or Midnight Baseball – is a home-poker game of pure nerve. Everyone gets seven cards face down and nobody may look at them. In turn, players flip their cards face up one at a time until their face-up cards beat the best hand showing on the table, and then there is a round of betting. As in Baseball, 3s and 9s are wild, and flipping a 4 earns you an extra card. Whoever shows the best five-card poker hand at the end wins the pot – all the chips bet in that deal.

• Players: 3–6, each for themselves.
• You need: one standard 52-card deck without jokers, and chips (or counters, matches, buttons) – the same amount for everyone at the start, e.g. 100 each. You play for chips, not money.

Hand ranking

Cards rank A K Q J 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2; the Ace can also be low in the straight 5-4-3-2-A. Suits are all equal. At the end you use your best five cards. From best to worst:

Any hand of a higher kind beats any hand of a lower kind. Between hands of the same kind, the higher cards win: first the most important cards (the four, the three, the higher pair …), then the rest from the top. If all five are equal, the hands tie and share the pot.

Wild cards: every 3 and 9 is wild – it stands for any card you like (but not a copy of a card you already have, except to make five of a kind).

Comparing unfinished hands: during play people have fewer than five cards face up. Compare them the same way; a card beats a missing card, so 8-5 beats a lone 8. Straights and flushes only count with five cards.

Betting in short

All chips bet go into the pot in the middle. Before each deal everyone pays a small ante (e.g. 1 chip) into the pot. When it is your turn in a betting round, you can:

• Check – bet nothing, if nobody has bet yet in this round.
• Bet – put in chips.
• Call – put in just enough to match the highest bet so far.
• Raise – match the highest bet and add more.
• Fold – give up and drop out of this deal. You lose what you have already put in.

A betting round ends when everyone still in has put in the same amount. Agree limits before you start, for example: bets and raises of 1–5 chips, at most three raises per round.

Setup

1. Everyone gets the same number of chips. Choose a dealer; the deal passes to the left after every hand.
2. Everyone pays the ante. The dealer shuffles and deals seven cards face down to each player, one at a time clockwise. Don't look at them. Keep them in a neat face-down pile in front of you.

Playing a hand

1. Start: the player to the dealer's left flips their top card face up and begins the first betting round.
2. Beat the table: the next player still in (clockwise) flips cards one at a time until their face-up cards beat the best hand showing – a tie is not enough. As soon as they do, they stop and begin a new betting round.
3. Keep going: the turn passes to the next player still in, who must beat the new best hand, and so on around the table, again and again. The player who currently shows the best hand doesn't flip – the turn passes to the next player.
4. Struck out: if you flip all your cards and still don't have the best hand showing, you are out of this deal. There is no betting round; the next player carries on.
5. End: play ends when only one player is left or all the cards of the players still in are face up. The best hand wins the pot; tied hands share it.

Flipping a 4: whenever you flip a 4, the dealer at once deals you an extra card face down onto your pile. You flip it later like your other cards.

Example: Anna flips K♠ and bets 2 chips; everyone calls. Ben flips 7♦ (K beats 7-high), then J♣ (K still beats J-7), then 3♥ – wild, so he now has a pair of Jacks. He stops and bets. Carla flips 4♠ and gets an extra card, then Q♥ (Q-4 loses to a pair), then 9♣ – wild: pair of Queens, which beats Ben's Jacks. Carla starts the next betting round. Now it's Anna's turn again: she must beat the Queens.

Winning the game

Play as many deals as you like, or until an agreed time. Whoever has the most chips at the end wins; anyone who runs out of chips drops out.

Tips for beginners

• Nobody knows their cards, not even you – so betting is all about what is showing and how many cards each player still has hidden.
• A player with many hidden cards left has many chances; one who has flipped almost everything is weak.
• Count the 3s and 9s already showing: the fewer are out, the more likely they are still hidden.
• Big hands are common with eight wild cards. Don't bet a lot on one pair.

Variants

All optional – agree beforehand.

• Pay or fold: whoever flips a 3 must match the pot or fold, as in Baseball.
• Buy the walk: the extra card for a 4 must be paid for (e.g. the maximum bet); otherwise no card.
• Card to beat: before the first flip the dealer turns up a card (from the deck or a second deck); the first player must beat it before the first betting round.
• Back betting: when a player flips all their cards without beating the table, there is a betting round anyway, begun by the best hand showing.
• Plain No Peek: play without wild cards and extra cards.