Developed by the creators of World Series of Poker: Full House Pro, Prominence Poker delivers an underground poker experience where your rep is all you’ve got and one hand can make all the difference. Build the rep, prestige, and bankroll needed to be, and beat, the best of the best. FreelyWheely is a place where you can freecycle your unwanted belongings, for free, to someone who can make use of them. Greek hold 'em follows the same rules as Omaha, except that each player is only dealt two cards, same as in Texas hold 'em. In Greek hold 'em each player must use both hole cards along with 3 of the total available community cards to make the strongest five card hand, unlike Texas hold 'em where each player may play the best five card poker hand from any combination of the seven cards. Crosshand Poker is a cross between scrabble and poker. 108 (two decks including jokers) traditional playing-card symbol tiles being played on a scrabble-esque grid board inclusive of double and triple scores. Players draw and update 5 tiles in their rack and play poker 'hands' of tiles branching from the center of the board.

Community card poker refers to any game of poker that uses community cards (also called 'shared cards' or 'window cards'), which are cards dealt face up in the center of the table and shared by all players. In these games, each player is dealt privately an incomplete hand ('hole cards'), which are then combined with the community cards to make a complete hand. The set of community cards is called the 'board', and may be dealt in a simple line or arranged in a special pattern. Rules of each game determine how they may be combined with each player's private hand. The most popular community card game today is Texas hold 'em, originating sometime in the 1920s.

In home games, it is typical to use antes, while casinos typically use only blinds for these games. No limit and fixed limit games are most common, while spread limit and pot limit games are less common. The betting format and stakes can vary by region as well as time of year and volume (casinos often change games on weekends to accommodate increased customer demand). Later betting rounds often have a higher limit than earlier betting rounds. Each betting round begins with the player to the dealer's left (when blinds are used, the first round begins with the player after the big blind), so community card games are generally positional games.

Most community card games do not play well with lowball hand values, though some do play very well at high-low split, especially with ace-to-five low values, making it possible to win both halves of a pot. When played high-low split, there is generally a minimum qualifying hand for low (often 8-high) and no declaration is needed.

Community cards[edit]

Often, several community cards are dealt to the table, shared by all players, and subject to variant-specific rules about how many, and which of the cards may be used in each player's hand. Such a set of community cards is often called a 'board' or 'window' (though this latter term is inconsistent with its use in other card games). The board is usually dealt in a simple line, but some games may have elaborate layouts of community cards with special rules about what combinations can be used. For example, Texas hold 'em ends with each player holding two cards in his individual hand, and a board of five community cards in a simple line shared by everyone; each player then plays the best five-card hand in any combination. In Omaha hold 'em, game rules restrict players to using exactly three (no more and no fewer) of the five community cards, combined with exactly two of the four cards dealt to each player, to make a hand. In Tic-tac-toe, the board is a 3x3 array of nine cards, and players must use exactly three cards from a row, column, or diagonal of the board.

Texas hold 'em[edit]

This is the most popular community card game today. Each player is dealt two private 'hole' cards, after which there is a betting round. Then three community cards are dealt face up (in no particular order or pattern) to form the 'flop', followed by a second betting round. A fourth community card (the 'turn') is followed by a third betting round. And finally the fifth community card (the 'river') is followed by the final betting round. At showdown, each player plays the best five-card hand he can make using any five cards among the two in his hand and the five on the board. This is the key difference from Omaha hold 'em; the player may use both, one, or none of his hole cards in the final hand (though a hand that plays the board is guaranteed to be able to 'chop' the pot at best, since every other player still in the hand at showdown has access to those same five cards). Note that in current practice, before each community card round (the flop, the turn, and the river) first a card is 'burned' and placed in a discard pile. This was implemented to prevent card-cheaters from 'marking' cards and knowing what the card on the top of the dealer's deck was.

Double-board hold 'em[edit]

For double-board hold 'em, two separate five-card boards are dealt, and the high hand using each board takes half of the pot. For example, after the first betting round, three community cards are dealt to each of two separate boards; after the second round, another community card is dealt to each board; and before the final round, a fifth community card is dealt to each board (so there will be in total ten community cards, comprising two separate five-card hold 'em boards). It is possible for one player to have the best hand on both boards and thus 'scoop' the entire pot.

This variant of Texas hold 'em is sometimes called 'double-flop hold 'em', which is a bit of a misnomer, since there are not just two flops, but also two turns and two rivers.

Greek hold 'em[edit]

Greek hold 'em follows the same rules as Omaha, except that each player is only dealt two cards, same as in Texas hold 'em. In Greek hold 'em each player must use both hole cards along with 3 of the total available community cards to make the strongest five card hand, unlike Texas hold 'em where each player may play the best five card poker hand from any combination of the seven cards available to them.^[1][2][3]

Irish Poker[edit]

In Irish poker, each player is dealt four cards before the flop. After the betting round on the flop is completed each player must discard two cards. From this point the game is played exactly like Texas hold 'em with betting after the turn and river. At showdown, each player uses their remaining two cards along with the board to construct a hand.^[4]

No river hold 'em[edit]

Players are dealt three hole cards instead of two with three betting rounds: pre-flop, flop and turn. Players can use any number of hole cards to make the final hand.^[5]

Royal hold 'em[edit]

Royal hold 'em is a variation which is played using a stripped deck. In royal hold'em, the deuces through nines are stripped from the deck, thereby only leaving the tens through aces.^[6][7]

Royal hold 'em can only be played with a maximum of six players because there are only 20 cards in the deck. With 5 community cards, 3 burn cards, and 2 pocket cards per player, a six-player table will use all 20 cards in the deck.^[8] The strategy for royal hold 'em varies from other forms of poker, since the odds of certain hands are greatly increased.

Six-plus hold 'em[edit]

Six-plus hold 'em, also known as short-deck hold 'em, is a variation in which the cards valued 2 through 5 are removed from the deck.

Omaha hold 'em[edit]

Another hold 'em variant is Omaha hold 'em. Each player is dealt four cards to his private hand instead of two. The betting rounds and layout of community cards is identical to Texas hold 'em. At showdown, each player's hand is the best five-card hand he can make from exactly three of the five cards on the board, plus exactly two of his own cards.

The high-low split version of Omaha is called many different names, such as 'Omaha Eight or better', 'Omaha HiLo' or 'Omaha8'. Each player, using the above rules, makes a separate five-card high hand and five-card low hand, and the pot is split between the high and low (which may be the same player). To qualify for low, a player must be able to play an 8-7-6-5-4 or lower. A few casinos play with a 9-low qualifier instead, but this is rare. In high-low split games, aces count as both high and low.

The low hand is unavailable if the board cards do not include cards of at least three different ranks of 8 or lower (with aces counting as low). Paired cards lower than eight don't qualify.

When high hands only are used, the game is generally called 'Omaha high' to avoid ambiguity.

Omaha can be played fixed limit, pot limit (where it is often called 'PLO') or no limit. It is sometimes played where each player gets five cards instead of four. The same rules apply for showdown: each player must use two of his cards with three of the community cards.

Courchevel[edit]

A variant of Omaha hold 'em (5-Card Omaha) very popular in Europe, where instead of betting on the initial four cards and then flopping three community cards for the second round, the first community card is dealt before the first betting round, so that each player has five private cards and a single community card on his first round of betting. Then two more community cards are dealt to complete the Flop, and then play proceeds exactly as in Omaha.

Pineapple variations[edit]

Pineapple hold 'em exists halfway between Texas hold 'em and Omaha hold 'em and has been very popular in Australia and South America, specifically in Medellin, Colombia, where it was first introduced in a private poker room since 2010. Players are initially dealt three cards. Each player then discards one of the three cards (Pre-flop, Post-flop or at Showdown), and the game proceeds exactly as in Texas hold 'em.^[9] In some regional variations, five cards are dealt, and one is discarded after flop, turn, and river, otherwise proceeding as usual Texas hold 'em.

Pineapple[edit]

Players discard their third (unwanted or unneeded) card pre-flop, before the first betting round.

Crazy Pineapple[edit]

Players discard their third (unwanted or unneeded) card after the flop, before the fourth community card is dealt.

Tahoe (Lazy Pineapple)[edit]

Players discard after the final betting round or at showdown so they may not use all three of them to make a hand. Each player may use none, one, or two cards from his hand (never three cards) combined with those on the board, to make his final five-card hand, just like in Texas hold 'em.

In the variant known as 'Super hold 'em', players can keep all 3 private cards throughout the play and may use all three cards to determine high hand.

Manila[edit]

Manila is played with a Stripped deck in which all cards below the rank of 7 are removed (leaving 32 cards). Each player is dealt two private cards, and a single community card is dealt face up, followed by the first betting round. Then a second community card is followed by a second betting round, a third community card and a third betting round, a fourth community card and a fourth betting round, and finally a fifth community card and fifth betting round. On showdown, unlike Texas hold 'em (and more like Omaha), each player makes the best hand possible from both of their own hole cards with exactly three of the five community cards.

Because of the stripped deck, a flush beats a full house. Also, an ace may not be played low for a straight (that is, the hand A-7-8-9-10 is not a straight in Manila). Manila and its variants are rarely played high-low split (in fact, very few stripped deck games are ever played low).

Common variations involve dealing three cards to each player, one of which can either be discarded at some point (like Pineapple, above), or else held to the end, but maintaining the requirement that players play exactly two of their own cards with exactly three of the board. The three-card variant is sometimes played with 6s being restored to the deck, making it 36 cards.

Pinatubo[edit]

Because Manila has five betting rounds, it does not play well at no limit or pot limit. This can be easily modified by eliminating the betting round between the second and third community cards. So, each player is dealt two private cards and a single community card is dealt to the board, followed by the first betting round. Then two community cards are dealt, followed by a second betting round. Then a fourth community card and third betting round, a fifth and final community card and fourth betting round, followed by a showdown as above.

The three-card variant can be played this way as well (as with Manila, the players must use exactly two of their three-hole cards with three of the board cards to make a hand).

See also[edit]

References[edit]

1. ^Dario De Toffoli (23 January 2013). Superpoker. Sperling & kupfer. pp. 11–. ISBN978-88-7339-769-4.
2. ^Turner, Robert (4 November 2014). 'Casino Games: Robert Turner credited with inventing Omaha Hi/Lo poker'. Gaming Today. Retrieved 28 August 2017.
3. ^Doyle Brunson's Super System. Cardoza Publishing. ISBN978-1-58042-475-2.
4. ^'Irish Poker Rules & Game Play'. Pokerlistings. Retrieved April 6, 2017.
5. ^'Archived copy'. Archived from the original on 2013-02-10. Retrieved 2009-09-14.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
6. ^'NLOP Royal Hold'em'. Archived from the original on 2009-09-26. Retrieved 2018-08-12.
7. ^'NLOP.com Launches No River Hold'em and Royal Hold'em Poker Games'. Marketwire. 2008-12-16. Retrieved 2018-05-31.
8. ^'Poker pour Mobile – Les meilleures applis poker mobile'. Pokerlistings (in French). Retrieved 2018-05-31.
9. ^Pineapple hold 'emArchived 2012-07-29 at the Wayback MachineMind Sports Olympiad webpage on Pineapple Hold'em, retrieved 13 July 2012

The card game of poker has many variations, most of which were created in the United States in the mid-1900s. The standard order of play applies to most of these games, but to fully specify a poker game requires details about which hand values are used, the number of betting rounds, and exactly what cards are dealt and what other actions are taken between rounds.

Popular poker variants[edit]

The three most popular poker variants are spread in casinos and poker rooms worldwide and can be divided into the following groups:

• Draw poker: Games in which players are dealt a complete hand, hidden, and then improve it by replacing cards. The most common of these is five-card draw.
• Stud poker: Games in which each player receives a combination of face-up cards and face-down cards in multiple betting rounds. The most common of these are five-card stud and seven-card stud. These two variants are further played in other different formats.
• Community card poker: Games in which each player's incomplete hidden hand is combined with shared face-up cards. The most common of these are Texas hold 'em and Omaha hold 'em.

Here are more common rule variations:

1. Lowball: The lowest hand wins the pot. There are different rules about whether or not aces count as low, and the effects of straights and flushes. The most common variants are Razz and 2-7 Triple Draw
2. High-low split: the highest and lowest hands split the pot. Generally there is a qualifier for the low hand. For example, the low hand must have 5 cards with ranks of 8 or less. In most high-low games the usual rank of poker hands is observed, so that an unsuited broken straight (7-5-4-3-2) wins low (see Morehead, Official Rules of Card Games). In a variant, based on Lowball, where only the low hand wins, a straight or a flush does not matter for a low hand. So the best low hand is 5-4-3-2-A, suited or not.
3. Players can pass cards to each other. An example of this would be Anaconda.
4. Kill game: When a fixed limit game is played and a player wins two pots in a row, the stakes are doubled. In some split-pot games, a player winning both halves of the pot may also cause a kill. In some variants of Lowball, a player may choose to kill by placing a double bet after seeing his first two cards.
5. Wild cards are added. This can range from simply making deuces wild to the 7-card stud variant named baseball.
6. A twist round in which players can buy another card from the deck. If a player does not like the purchased card, the player can purchase another one by adding money to the pot. This is sometimes called a 'tittle.'
7. A stripped deck may be used. Poker was first played with only 20 cards. In the spirit of poker history, players will sometimes only play with a stripped deck. A popular poker game in Spain is played with cards 8-A. It is played similar to hold'em, except that one card is dealt at a time and a player must use both hole cards.
8. Roll your own is played in stud games, and allows the player to determine which of his or her cards are turned up and visible to the other players. In a game like Seven-card Stud, the 'roll' action only applies to the first 3 cards, all of which are dealt face down. Each player then determines which card to expose. Play then continues as with regular Seven-card Stud. But a game like Mexican stud applies the roll option throughout the game. Two cards are dealt face down, and the players roll one card up. The game continues just as in Five-card Stud, except the cards are dealt face down, and each player then decides which of the two down cards is exposed.^[1]

Mixed poker games[edit]

Poker can be played in a mixed game format, for example one half-hour of Texas hold 'em followed by one half-hour of Seven-card stud. There are many types of mixed poker games. The most notable mixed poker variation is H.O.R.S.E. poker. H.O.R.S.E. is a mix of Texas hold 'em, Omaha high-low, Razz, Seven-card stud and Seven-card stud Eight-or-better. Each game will usually be played for a fixed number of hands or time and then the players will move on to the next game.

Other mixed games include:

• H.O.S.E. – same as H.O.R.S.E., except without Razz.
• H.O.E. – same as H.O.R.S.E, except no Razz or Seven-card stud.
• H.O. – Texas hold 'em and Omaha high-low
• O.E. – Omaha high-low and Seven-card Stud Eight or better.
• H.A. – Pot limit Texas hold 'em and pot limit Omaha.
• Omaha High-low Mixed – Fixed limit Omaha and pot limit Omaha high-low
• Holdem Mixed – Fixed limit and no limit Texas hold 'em.
• Eight Game Mix – Fixed limit 2-7 Triple Draw, fixed limit Texas hold 'em, fixed limit Omaha Hi-Low Eight or better, Razz, fixed limit Seven-card stud, fixed limit Seven-card stud Hi-Low eight or better, no limit Texas hold 'em and pot limit Omaha.
• Ten Game Mix (introduced at 2011 World Series of Poker) – No limit Hold'em, fixed limit Seven-card Razz, fixed limit Hold'em, fixed limit Badugi, fixed limit Seven-card Stud, no limit 2-7 Single Draw, fixed limit Omaha Hi-Low eight or better, pot limit Omaha, fixed limit 2-7 Triple Draw and fixed limit Seven-card stud Hi-Low eight or better (played with 6 players on a table).

Specific poker variant games[edit]

Some poker games don't fit neatly into the above categories, and some have features of more than one of these categories. These variants are most often played in home games, usually as part of a dealer's choice format.

High Chicago or Low Chicago[edit]

Either of these two versions can be played in any stud high game. In High Chicago, or sometimes simply called Chicago, the player with the highest spade face down (referred to as in the hole) receives half the pot. In Low Chicago, the player with the lowest spade in the hole receives half of the pot, with the A♠ being the lowest. If the player with the highest hand also has the highest/lowest spade in the hole, then that player receives the entire pot - having won both sides of the bet.

Follow the Queen[edit]

This 7-card stud game uses a wild-card designated as whichever card is immediately dealt (exposed, or face-up) after any queen previously dealt (exposed). In the event that the final card dealt (exposed) is itself a queen, then all queens are wild. If no queens are dealt (exposed), then there are no wilds for that hand. Betting is the same as in normal 7-card stud games. Follow the Queen is a typical game variant in Dealer's Choice poker games.^[2][3]

Countdown[edit]

In this 5-card game, the dealer gives each player 5 cards face down. After the first round of betting, each player may choose to replace zero to three cards. A second round of betting follows and then players may opt to replace zero to two cards. Upon completing another round of betting, each player may replace one card of the cards in their hand. After a final round of betting, any remaining players show their hands, and the highest 5 card hand wins. The cost of cards doubles each round. For example, if the dealer says each replacement card costs $10 in the first round, then each card costs $20 in the second round, and $40 in the final round. When players purchase cards to replace ones in their hand, they put the cost of the cards in the pot.^[4]

Cross Hand Poker Tools

This game will only work with 4 players (or fewer) otherwise you will run out of cards.

Billabong and Shanghai[edit]

Just as Oxford stud is a mixed stud/community card version of Texas hold 'em, Billabong is a mixed version of Manila. Each player is dealt two down-cards and one up-card. Low up-card starts the betting with a Bring-in if you are playing with one, otherwise high card starts the betting. Next, two community cards are dealt, followed by a second betting round, beginning with the player with the best exposed partial poker hand (counting the community cards, as in Oxford stud). Then a third community card is dealt, followed by a third betting round. Finally a fourth community card is dealt, followed by a fourth betting round and showdown. Each player plays the best five-card hand he can make from the three in his hand plus the four on the board in any combination.

Shanghai is the same game with an extra hole card, but no more than two hole cards play. That is, the game begins with each player being dealt three down-cards and one up-card; each player must discard one of his hole cards at some point during the game as determined ahead of time. The most common variation is to discard immediately as in Pineapple; the second most common is to discard just before showdown as in Tahoe.

Guts[edit]

Cross Hand Poker Card Game

Guts is a family of games that are cousins of poker rather than poker variants. They usually involve hands of 3 or fewer cards, ranked similarly to hands in poker, and multiple successive rounds of betting each of which consist of the decision to be 'in' or 'out', and each with its own showdown. The losers of rounds of guts generally match or double the pot, which grows rapidly.

Five-O poker[edit]

Five-O Poker is a heads-up poker variant in which both players must play five hands of five cards simultaneously. Four of the five cards in each hand are face-up. Once all five hands are down, there is a single round of betting. The winner is determined by matching each hand to the corresponding hand of the opponent. The player with the stronger poker hand in three (or more) out of the five columns, wins, unless a player folds on a bet that was made. If a player beats their opponent with all five hands, this is called a “Five-O” win.

Chinese poker[edit]

Chinese poker is a 2-4 player poker game with thirteen cards. The idea is to make three poker hands with increasing rank : two with five cards and one with three cards. If one of the hands does not adhere to increasing rank (i.e. is mis-set), the hand is declared dead and results in some sort of penalty.

Kuhn poker[edit]

Cross Hand Poker Game

Kuhn poker, using a three card deck, is more of game theory problem than an actual game people play, but it can be played by two players.^[5]

See also[edit]

Cross Hand Poker Games

References[edit]

1. ^Pagat.com: Roll Your Own
2. ^Pokernews.com: Fun Home Poker Game Rules - Follow the Queen
3. ^Pokerrules.net: How to Play Follow the Queen
4. ^Pokerrules.net: How to Play Countdown Poker
5. ^'A Parameterized Family of Equilibrium Profiles for Three-Player Kuhn Poker'(PDF).