Pandante (2nd Edition)

As the review title implies, Pandánte has Texas Hold'em as it's influence and core game mechanic. Anyone who has played Texas Hold'em will be able to pick up this game quickly, but you have to recognize that it both is an isn't the game you know and remember. But, that's a good thing! Primarily, my biggest aggravation with traditional poker is that most of your time is spent folding your hand over and over...and over.....and over until you get a hand that's worth betting on. It means a lot of your time is just sitting idle and absorbing what you can of how other people are playing for future reference. Not far behind that is the aggravation of player elimination (if you're just playing for funsies). You run out of chips - or perhaps money, and you're out of the game. Pandánte solves for both these things brilliantly while also adding a modern gaming flare to poker that will attract players who don't really like or know poker that well. Essentially, Pandánte cuts to the chase and stays there. Every hand with rare exception is a hand you will stay in most, if not all of the gambit. You'll be betting each round on the hand you claim to have (or claim you will have), thus showing your cards a bit (pardon the pun) up front. You can take more risks because there will be a chance during the Splash (aka the Flop) and the Paws (aka the River) to draw a card and discard a card, potentially improving your hand. After the Tail (aka the Turn), you'll have a chance to execute 0-2 powers that can also significantly shake up the game state from peeking at another player's card to adding an additional card to the community cards so there are 6 rather than 5, to forcing players to raise their bets or get out. You may have started with a nothing hand, but finished with a strong one and that's always fun. And, if no one calls you on your claimed hand, you just get away with it - and get a bonus if you bluffed and won. For serious poker players, you may scoff at all the shenanigans this game throws in, BUT, all these things actually raise the skill ceiling a bit. There's more information to digest, more twists and turns, more bluffing and detecting tells. If I "snack" (that option to draw a card and discard a card after the Splash or Paws), you might quickly detect that I was b.s.'ing earlier when I said I had a Full House....or.....did I just draw into the card I needed to make my claim true? Do you call me at the end on being a liar or do you let me take the pot unchallenged? Oh, and that's the thing.....you call me a liar and end up being wrong, you have a substantial penalty to pay while on the other hand, if you're correct, I pay a much smaller penalty. In summary - this game encourages you to bluff your socks off. When I first told my wife about this game, she was skeptical. She likes Texas Hold'em just fine and felt like this game was bologna. I got her to try a game, just her and I, and we had so much fun and laughs that she was sold on it. It's not that we won't ever play Texas Hold'em again....it's just that this is a nice twist on the game that will definitely make it to the table often. BTW - this product is the standard. There is a deluxe version with nice clay poker chips and some other improved components. With the standard, you get little plastic chips. I was ok with that because I've got Roxley Iron Clays and those poker chips are super premium. If you don't have poker chips, you might want to get some - even some cheaper ones. The plastic chips are only if you really aren't going to play the game much and you're ok with a much lesser quality chip.

It's a really fun spin off of Texas Hold'em. My favorite part is the different casino cards that makes each game a litle different. I suck at it though, but that's just because I really don't do well bluffing.

This is the game I wish Texas Hold'em was. Way more fun, way more encouraging of bluffing almost to the point of absurdity. Great time :)

It was fun but a lot of instructions. I think it may be better played sober.