Criss Cross

Rules: Deal four cards down to each player, and five cards face-down in a cross on the table. Bet. Reveal one of the cards on the table; bet. Do four more rounds of revealing a card (usually finishing with the card in the center) and betting. In the showdown, make your best hand from your down cards and either the horizontal or vertical axis of the cross.

Analysis: Conceptually, this is in the same family as Texas Holdem or Omaha; Criss-Cross and its many variants are characterized by having to choose a particular subset of the common cards on the table.

Criss-Cross itself is most like Omaha, and falls to slightly smaller hands since you have fewer cards to choose from.

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Crossroads: Criss-Cross, but the rank of the center card is wild.

Earth Day: Deal 4 down; everyone keep 2, discard 2. From the discards, deal 9 in a 3x3 grid. Flip the center card, bet. Flip around the perimeter 4, bet, 2, bet, 2, bet. Score your two cards and any row, column or diagonal.

Variations: high-low probably works well, but we haven't tried it yet.

Elevator: Deal four cards to each player, and seven in an H formation in the middle of the table. Do seven rounds of the Dealer revealing one card, and then bet. The Dealer should establish the order of reveal before game start; this can vary, but it is recommended to reveal one full side, then the other, then the middle card. The middle card is the "Elevator", and can be used in combination with any of the pairs surrounding it -- that is, it can move up and down the H. You make your hand from your four cards, and any three-card "floor" on the table.

Monolith: Deal four down to each player, and a 2 x 3 matrix of cards on the table. Reveal from the matrix one at a time. You may use any row (short or long) in combination with your down cards.