A H.O.R.S.E with no name

Late last year, Shamus commented on the new addition to the World Series of Poker for 2008, an eight-game mixed event. He titled his post "A H.O.R.S.E. With No Name," which was impossible for me to improve on here, so instead of trying, I just stole it shamelessly (or maybe Shamusly).

He suggested the acronym SPLENDOR for the nameless mixed game, which is pretty good. But now that I've been playing a fair amount of HORSE, I've come to think that the name chosen really needs to reflect the order in which the games rotate. I don't really need it as a mnemonic device any more (I've done 98 single-table HORSE tournaments now, which is plenty to burn the order deep into my cranium), but for a long time I definitely used the letters in the acronym to remind myself what was coming up next. With eight games in the mix, I think that function is even more crucial.

Furthermore, because it is effectively an extension of HORSE, it seems to me most desirable, if possible, to keep that part of the acronym intact. It doesn't help new players if limit hold'em is represented by H in one mixed-game format, but L in the other.

I bring this up because PokerStars recently introduced an eight-game mixer, but has no good name for it. In the lobby, it is simply referred to as "8-Game." If you probe a bit further into the Stars web site, you find this half-hearted attempt at an acronym:

T - Limit 2-7 Triple Draw
H - Limit Hold’em
O - Limit Omaha Eight or Better (Hi/Lo)
R - Razz
S - Limit Seven Card Stud
E - Limit Stud Eight or Better (Hi/Lo)
H - No Limit Hold’em
A - Pot Limit Omaha

For reasons that are not at all clear to me, Stars has chosen to order the games differently than the WSOP did. Not that the WSOP is the definitive statement of how poker ought to be played, but I can't think of a compelling reason to deviate from it. The games have to be in some order, so why not use the WSOP's order as a template, and standardize it everywhere based on that? If Stars simply moved triple-draw from first to last, they would match the WSOP format.

Anyway, this all really makes coming up with a good acronym virtually impossible. You can tell that Stars was making some effort at it, because of choosing A for pot-limit Omaha, instead of the more obvious P, and repeating the H for no-limit hold'em, instead of the more obvious N. That suggests that they wanted the thing at least vaguely pronounceable.

Unfortunately, if you constrain yourself to an acronym that reflects the order of the games that Stars has chosen, and also add in the constraints that the HORSE parts remain unchanged, there just isn't much wiggle room. To make matters even harder, I would insist that the letters not be repeated, as Stars has done with the H. Triple-draw is going to have to be either T or D. (Well, you could stretch and argue for a W there. But then you have an acronym that starts with WHOR, and that's just going to create other problems....) No-limit hold'em is going to have to be N. Pot-limit Omaha should be P.

I give Stars points for creativity in choosing A for pot-limit Omaha, rather than repeating the O. The problem with the selection, though, is that it doesn't take advantage of identifying the unique feature of the game--its structure--nor the unique letter that would most obviously represent that structure--P.

So something has to give way. You have to sacrifice at least one of these properties: (1) Pronounceability. (2) Consistency with the well-established HORSE. (3) Non-repetition of letters. (4) Order of letters reflecting order of the games. (5) Obvious association between the letter chosen and the game it stands for.

THORSEHA compromises on points 3 (by repeating the H) and 5 (by using A for pot-limit Omaha). It arguably also compromises point 1, in that, unlike HORSE, THORSEHA isn't a real word.

Shamus's suggestion, SPLENDOR, scores superbly on points 1, 3, and 5, but misses on points 2 and 4.

The two best ones I came up with in my comments on Shamus's original post were NOT HORSE and HERO SHOT. But those violate points 3 and 4. Also, while they are readily pronounceable, they are not single words, which is at least a minor problem for all those who have to figure out how to reduce such things to paper. (NOTHORSE just looks wrong.)

So where do we make the compromises? After thinking about this for far longer than the whole matter probably deserves, I've concluded that pronounceability is the least important principle. I would order my points, from most to least important, as 2, 4, 5, 3, 1.

And so, were I in charge of things over at PokerStars (which, shockingly, I'm not), but for whatever reason the order of the games they've selected were inviolable, I would reluctantly settle on calling the thing THORSENP, pronounced (if you must) "Thorsen-P." This pretty much offers up my point 1 on the altar, but honors the other four principles well.

If I were allowed to re-order the games, then I would follow the WSOP's lead and call it HORSENAT. This is at least a little more pronounceable than THORSENP, and compromises only mildly on point 5 (with A not being an obvious representative of pot-limit Omaha), while leaving the other points their integrity.

I don't like Stars' use of THORSEHA because it compromises both points 3 and 5 without really being any better than THORSENP in pronouncability.

I despair of a really good solution, though if my clever and creative readers have better suggestions, I'd love to hear them.


The artwork above, incidentally, is "The horse with no name" by Eddie Maier. See here.