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Black Mariah Poker Rules

This game is virtually the same as the 7 Card Stud variant, Follow the Queen with a noticeable difference. Throughout the game, all queens are wild which means these cards can be played as any card. Another specific feature of this game is that when a queen is dealt face up, either on the board or in a players hand, the next card dealt up becomes a wild card along with all other cards of the same value (wild in everyone's hand). If a subsequent queen is dealt up, the value of the next up card dealt, replaces the previous wild as a new wild card. If a queen is the last card dealt up, only queens are wild in the game.

The game will only be complete when a single player has the best hand and is dealt the highest spade card face-down. Should one player have the best hand and another have the highest spade, players would re-ante and a new hand would be dealt, starting with the next immediate player left of the dealer.

To summarize, the main differences to 7 Card Stud are:

1) A player can pay an agreed sum for a Queen when it is his/her time to bet.

2) All cards dealt after a Queen face up are wild.

3) If last card up is a Queen, no other card is wild in the game, except all Queens.

If the Queen of Spades is dealt face up - the hand ends and all players re-ante and a new hand is dealt and all monies are left in the pot for the next hand. There is a variation to the game where players do play that the pot is distributed back to players and the hand begins again. Obviously, leaving the pot where it is provides a better game with more incentive to players to get involved in the hand.

This game is popular for the reason that the wild cards make it pretty wild. Due to the wild cards, you tend to hit very big hands in more frequency to that of a standard game of Holdem or 7 Card Stud. You should also note that hands are devalued playing this variation as people are hitting bigger hands more of the time.

You should take care with flushes and straights, as these are easily beaten.

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