Caliente Poker - or Galiente as we know it!

Growing up, there has been one game that has stood out above all the rest as our family favourite.  Galiente.  It is a card game with a poker twist, and we have played it for 3 generations now.  Mum grew up playing it, and her father made these awesome boards for her and her sister's families.  When dad and mum divorced, the game didn't die - my stepmother crafted up a paper board version and we kept playing it with both sides of the family.  We can't wait to teach the girls this family game which always means lots of laughs and fun around the table together.  

As we wrapped up a laugh filled game with mum, Murray and my uncle John (up from Masterton, what a treat) last night, I mentioned to mum that I have never found anyone else who knows how to play this game or has even heard of it.  We decided to do a spot of research, after all - the entire world's knowledge is now accessible  thanks to google.  So Google we did, and found....zilch.

Apparently this game does not exist according to the powers of the internet.  And then I asked mum why the board had the word "Caliente" painted in tidy letters on it.  "Oh, thats how dad wrote G" she replied.  Hmmmm...I googled "Caliente" this time,  instead of Galiente.  

Again, not much.  Although there is a card game called Canista Caliente, it was clearly not the same game with a totally different game play.  I then googled images, trying to find a similar board to ours.  I finally came across this one tiny reference in Australia - a board that someone is trying to sell, although they had no idea how to play the game at all.   It was clearly the same game as we know though, with the same board layout as we use.  But where is this game from?  Uncle John and mum remembered the name of the 1940s games book that Gum Gum (my grandmother) owned, but even the version of that book we found online doesn't mention this game at all.  It mustn't have made it to later editions!  

the board i found online

So I am now determined to put this game on the internet for safekeeping and to hand down the rules and fun to my own children.  This game is a family tradition, and it seems, a bit of a family secret too! 

Here are the basic rules of play:

Part A:

1. Deal out a pack of cards between all playing, discarding 4 cards as you deal. 
2. Everyone gets 100 coins/buttons at the start of the night to 'gamble' with and puts one of each of these into each compartment on the board at the start of each round of play. 
3. Each player now looks at their cards and plays a round of poker based on what is in their hand.  Players bet, with the money going into the poker section on the board.   If they win the poker hand, they get the money and also the right to begin the next part of the game.

Part B:

1. The object of this part of the game is to get rid of all the cards in your hand.  The winner of the poker hand begins by playing a card of their choice.
2. Once a card is played, the person who holds the next card in the sequence plays it, and so on.  Ace is low, King is high. 
3. There are "STOP" cards in the game that halt the sequence because you discarded four cards when dealing.  So you may have tabled a 5 and 6 of hearts, then someone else tabled a 7.....but nobody has the 8.  That means the person who held the last played card (the 7 in that example) gets to play another card - but now has to change coloured suit from red to black.
4. "STOP" cards can also be created when a run of cards is tabled that begins at a number above the one you hold (ie if the 5 hearts was played already, your 4 hearts is now a stop card).  
5. Kings also are STOP cards naturally being the highest.  Accordingly, Aces can be hard to get rid of as nobody will play one before this lowest card!  
6. If you play your hand right, and keep an eye on the tabled cards, you can play a whole run of STOP cards without anyone getting much of a turn.  
7. There are money cards through this part of the game, where you can collect money from the board.  Money cards are: 10,J,Q and K hearts, Q&K combined of hearts, and the almost impossible to collect "7,8,9" run of any suit.  That one normally isn't collected very often, meaning that each round more money is added to it as you pop a coin in each compartment again....it can be quite a jackpot to collect it!  
8. Obviously, if you have a money card, you want to try and table it quickly or you might not get your money before somebody gets rid of all their cards.
9. Once somebody gets all their cards out, they are the winner.  Everybody else counts how many cards they have left in their hand and puts that amount of coins into the kitty on the board, which the winner collects.

We like to keep playing until somebody has no money/buttons left at all to play with, and then work out who has the most money - they win the night!  If there is uncollected money on the board still (again, that 7,8,9 run can be HUGE) we often play a "show and tell" poker hand for each compartment left, with the winner adding that money to their pool.

...And that my friends is the game of Caliente.  Or as we have been calling it, Galiente!

***********************STOP PRESS***********************

I interupt this blog to inform you that I have FOUND IT!!!! By pure chance, I have stumbled across this web page with basically the SAME GAME (although their rules have a few slight differences)...it was hiding under the crafty alias of "Royal Rummy".    Ah. I can rest in peace now knowing this is a real game.  Although apparently it is known by a zillion different names!!!