Our home game has enjoyed from several poker variants, including Onion. Since publishing that write-up, we’ve incorporated another variant that I want to describe here: “Funyun”.
Funyun works exactly like Onion, has the same timing and “peeling” mechanic, but with more cards. This increases the action considerably, but also means that players are even more likely to have peeled cards that they wish they still had, which is the essential fun in Onion, hence “Funyon”. In practice, our group tends to even prefer Funyun to Onion.
Each player in Funyun is dealt six cards. After the flop’s betting round, each player discards two cards instead of Onion’s one. Two more cards are discarded after the turn’s betting round. Each player is left with exactly two cards, just as in Onion (and Texas Hold ‘Em). Like Onion, Funyun is typically played pot-limit. So, in summary:
- Each player is dealt six cards face down.
- There is a round of betting.
- Three community cards are placed face-up for all players to see (“the flop”).
- There is a round of betting.
- Each player discards two cards face down, leaving them with four cards in their hand.
- One more community card is placed face-up for all players to see (“the turn”).
- There is a round of betting.
- Each player discards two cards face down, leaving them with two cards in their hand.
- One final community card is placed face-up for all players to see (“the river”), making five community cards in total.
- There is a final round of betting.
- Each player remaining shows their cards and resolves their best five card poker hand using their remaining two hole cards and the five community cards, and the best hand wins.
We haven’t played Funyun with any of the “crazy” Onion variants, although there’s no reason why it couldn’t be done.