I have one that I always liked to call when we played dealers choice at the weekly poker game back in my Navy days.
It's called
7 - 27, it's sort of a H/L variation game.
And it's EXTREMELY fun!
All face cards are worth .5 of a point, aces are 1 point only, the rest of the cards have their face value.
Everyone is dealt 2 cards face down and one card face up, each person decides whether they want to go for high (27) or low (7) and they keep this to themselves, they can change from low to high as the game progresses if they choose to do so, say they were drawing towards 7 and hit a bad card that put them way over. The exception to this is that if they skip three rounds without taking a card, they cannot switch back and start taking cards again.
You try to get as close as possible to either 7 or 27. You
can go over.
7.5 would beat 6.
27.5 would beat 26.
After the deal, there is a round of betting. 3 raises allowed per round of betting.
Then each player in turn is given the option to take another card which is dealt face up.
There are unlimited rounds until there are no more cards being taken by any player.
Then there is one final round of betting.
So basically if just one guy is going for low he can keep shoving chips in every round until the folks all going for high finally stop taking cards.
What to expect:
A bit of confusion at first since it's a new game to them. But only for about 1 hand, maybe 2 if they are dense.
We always played nickel, dime, quarter stakes. Max raise was .75
Believe it or not I have seen pots in this game get as high as $60, granted that was with a lot of crazy raising and reraising going on as the guys I played with sometimes tended to drink a little. (What? A sailor drink? You gotta be kidding me!
)
If your friends are afraid to play you because you're a poker pro, just ask them if they can count to 27. That's all the ability needed to "play" the game. Now you being a poker pro, you will find places to put you knowledge of odds to work for you. This is a really easy game for someone who can count cards at BJ I would guess.
And being able to read people is a major asset in this game!
EDIT: After reading Kuso's comment in the posts below, about remembering the rules, I will mention that if a bunch of drunk sailors can remember the rules, they must be easy.