Poker 101: Poker variants

Posted on Oct 17 in How to play (basics)by adminPrint

There are a lot of Poker variants, basically divided into three types:

• Draw poker: Games in which players are dealt a complete hand, hidden, and then improve it by replacing cards. Most common are Five-card draw and Badugi.
• Stud poker: Games in which each player receives a combination of face-up cards and face-down cards in multiple betting rounds. Most common are Seven-card stud and Five-card stud.
• Community card poker: Games in which each player’s incomplete hidden hand is combined with shared face-up cards. Most common are Texas hold ‘em (the most famous) and Omaha hold ‘em.

The most common of all them is Texas hold’em, which I’m going to explain on next post Poker 102: Basic Rules.

Low and High-Low

Moreover there are lowball poker games too, which reward poor poker hands. Some of these are A-to-5 low, A-to-6 low (also called 6-4 low), 2-to-7 low (also called 7-5 low), 2-to-6 low (also called 6-5 low). There are variations of them, for example:

• Razz: Seven-card stud + A5 Lo
• California Lowball: Draw poker + A5 Lo, with one joker.
• Kansas City Lowball: Draw poker + 2-7 Lo
• Triple Draw: Draw Poker + either A-5 or 2-7 Lo
• London Lowball: Seven-card stud + A6 Lo

It is also common playing High-Low split poker games, where the player with the best traditional poker hand (called high hand) splits the pot with the best low hand. Most common are Omaha Hi-Lo and Seven-card stud hi-lo.

Mixed poker games

The most notable mixed poker variation is H.O.R.S.E poker. It is a combination of Hold’em Texas, Omaha Hi-Lo, Razz, Stud and Stud 8-or-better. Every one half hour, the game mode is changed. H.O.S.E. and H.O.E. are also common.