Each player is dealt two hole cards face down and the goal of the game is to make the best five card poker hand. Therefore, the lowest straight possible is A6789 (in regular Holdem it is A2345).Įverything else remains the same though. It is because with the 2 through 5 cards taken out of the deck, these hands are now mathematically harder to make.Īnother interesting quirk of Short Deck Holdem is the Ace can be played either high or low just like in regular Holdem. Namely, a flush beats a full house and three of a kind beats a straight. There are a few other very significant differences in 6+ Hold'em as well though. So instead of a regular 52 card deck, Short Deck Hold'em is played with 36 cards instead. If you have never heard of Short Deck Hold'em before (also sometimes called Six-Plus Hold'em) it is basically a variant of Texas Hold'em where the 2 through 5 cards are removed from the deck. This has been especially driven by high stakes Short Deck cash games in Asia featuring well known pros like Tom 'durrrr' Dwan bluffing extremely wealthy Chinese businessmen! In the past year or two Short Deck Hold'em Poker has really taken off in popularity.
