TOP 10 POKER VARIATIONS TEXAS HOLD'EM Texas Hold'em is the most recognizable version of poker in 2017, helped no doubt by its use in the World Series of Poker Main Event. It's simple enough: each player gets two hole cards dealt face-down and uses those - along with five face-up 'community' cards available to everyone in the hand.
OMAHA With Omaha, you get four cards instead of the two in Texas Hold'em, but you have to use exactly two of those four along with three of the community cards. The betting rounds are the same as in Texas Hold'em, but the best starting hands in Texas Hold'em
SEVEN-CARD STUD Before the poker boom in the early 21st-century, seven-card stud was actually a more popular game than Texas Hold'Em. Each hand starts with players being dealt two cards face-down and one face-up, and betting starts with the player who has the lowest faceup card.
RAZZ Razz, like stud, sees players dealt seven cards each, with the first two and the seventh all dealt face down. However Razz is a lowball poker game, which means the lowest hand wins - you want to avoid hitting a pair, and the best possible hand is A-2-3-4-5 (a 'wheel'). The World Series of Poker holds a Razz bracelet event, and past winners include Phil Hellmuth.
FIVE-CARD DRAW Five-card draw is one of the simplest versions of poker, but tends to be played more for fun than in a competitive environment. Each player begins by being dealt five cards facedown, and have the opportunity to 'draw' cards from the deck, putting one or more of their cards at the bottom of the deck and replacing them with the same number from the top.Â
OMAHA HI-LO Also known as 'Omaha/8', this variant is similar to Omaha in the sense that each player starts with four cards and can use two of them as well as three community cards. However the pot is split between the best 'high' hand and the best 'low' hand. Players aim to get the best low hand, 8-7-6-5-4 or lower, as well as the best high hand, using any two of their four cards for each.
2-7 TRIPLE DRAW 2-7 Triple Draw, sometimes just called 'deuce-to-seven', is a lowball game where players are dealt five cards and have three opportunities to draw cards in the same manner as five-card draw. Aces are high in this variation of poker, meaning the best possible hand is 7-5-4-3-2, also known as 'Number One' as it cannot be beaten.
HORSE HORSE is a mixed-game, cycling between five different variations of poker. Often the variation will change after each orbit, and each letter of HORSE equates to a different variant. The H is Texas Hold'em, O is Omaha Hi-Lo, R is Razz, S is Seven-Card Stud, and E is Seven-Card Stud Eight or Better (also known as Stud Hi-Lo), a version of stud where players have to make high and low hands like in Omaha Hi-Lo.
IRISH POKER Irish Poker is relatively simple to play, and is starting to appear in online poker rooms. Players start a hand with four hole-cards, however after the flop is dealt they have to discard two of the four and play the remainder of the hand like a regular Texas Hold'em hand.
BADUGI Badugi is a variation of draw poker, but it differs to five-card draw in that each player is dealt only four cards, and the lowest hand wins. There are usually three betting rounds in a hand of Badugi, and players need to try to avoid having more than one card of the same suit, as well as trying to avoid hitting a pair.Â
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