ill guess... jack and a 4 :P

or maybe... you have queen jack....

No...

I was hoping the turn or river would be a jack. That would give me a tremendous chance of winning.

But with the turn being queen that hope is gone. Now, I don't want the river to be jack, because that practically guarantees that I didn't win.

Hmm... a queen-8 hand then?

Bravo!

... or is this all an elaborate bluff...?

Another Queen flip would give you a fair chance.
I think your chances of losing were about zero anyway. Many people will not pair up and someone undoubtedly will have a high card in-hand, less than a Queen.

We'll see in a few hours. Muhahaha.

Oh, absolutely. My chances are not bad, which is why I used the word "hope" rather than chance in my puzzle question.

Now I have nothing really to hope for in the river. Other than a queen (2/46 chance) nothing will improve my hand. (I'd tie with whoever has the 4th queen, unless it was not dealt). An 8 will not improve my chances, because it would mean someone with a J in hand would have a straight.

Even a crap hand would be better than this. At least I'd have something to hope for (hope that I don't lose). But now... nothing to look forward to.

Look forward to the second round.

Oh, why not.

To make it more interesting how about allowing folding in the next round (you fold by informing the dealer, not in thread. Otherwise everyone will be waiting to see who else folded)? At least there will be some strategy element.

Y'mean that by folding you would get rid of the "loser buys a game" risk? That would need some betting system as well, because otherwise all the bad hand players would fold after the river with no losses.

But if anyone would figure out how could we wager our rep points, I'd be in. :D

Ah yes, but how bad is bad enough to fold? Remebering that all the others are folding too...

e.g. you get a pair of kings and no ace in the flop/turn/river. Would you fold. On one hand all the others who got bad hands will fold, so yours might turn out the worst. On the other, it could be the winner...

(which is why I said you fold by informing the dealer. So you do NOT know in the above case how many others have folded)

I have no chance to win (barring a miracle with all 4 of a certain card out of play and a perfect river) and stand a likely chance of losing unless I pair up.

Nah. I highly doubt that a mere pair would be the winner.

Yep, but even in the normal poker, folding (except not being the BB/SB and folding immediately) cost you something. And here? I don't say that it is a bad idea, but you'd have to make a counterloss, smaller than an actual loss but still something you'd lose by folding.

I see what you mean. Using my way if you have a bad hand you just fold and don't lose anything. The loser would like be someone with a mediocre but above average hand while everyone who folded would walk away in one piece.

An obvious answer would be to use some virtual chips, play n number of rounds using standard rules, and the loser/winners are determined by the number of chips after all rounds are over.

That's a good idea, but it would be a bit long, at least a month I think (since each game would take 3-4 days and there should be at least 5 games) and all the participants would have to be online at least each 24 hours. Which can sometimes be complicated.