If there is one thing that characterizes the world of poker, it is its extraordinary variety and richness. Far from being practiced in a single modality, different poker variants can be found all over the world, which only enrich this card game.
Texas Hold’em is undoubtedly the best-known poker variant. As we will analyze below, since its appearance back in the early twentieth century, its fame did not stop growing like foam, dethroning the then most important and popular variant: Five Card Draw, which we will also talk about.
Read on to find out how many poker variants exist and which are the most practiced in the world. You will be surprised!
Texas Hold’em
We begin, of course, with the most popular poker variant in the world: Texas Hold’em.
Its name already gives us some clues about its origin. It was certainly in Texas and, specifically, in Robstown, a small town in the south of the Texan state where, apparently, the game that was destined to become the modality par excellence of poker was born.
We would have to go back to the beginning of the last century. At that time, the most popular variant was Five Card Draw, with simple rules and guaranteed fun. This variant, based on discarding, was losing ground to the unstoppable Texas Hold’em which, as you may already know, is practiced as follows:
All the players at the table receive two hidden cards from which they have to get the best hand in combination with the five common cards, which are dealt in successive phases or streets in the center of the green table: preflop, flop, turn and river.
After a first round of betting, known as preflop and corresponding to the hole cards, the flop is revealed, that is, three of the five community cards. After another round of betting, the turn, the fourth card, is revealed. Again, the players place their bets.
Finally, the river, the fifth card, is revealed and, with it, the last round of betting takes place before the showdown or moment of the game in which the players who have reached the end reveal their hidden cards. The winner is the player who has managed to bind the highest hand, formed by his own two and the five common cards.
Omaha
The next most popular in the ranking of poker variants would be the one known as Omaha. Derived from Texas Hold’em, this variant is considered to be one of the most exciting of all.
Unlike the Texas Hold’em variant, in Omaha poker, players receive four-hole cards. The community cards are again five, but they are dealt face up on the table.
Players must hit the best combination using three of the five community cards and two of their own. Thus, the purpose of Omaha poker is to create the best five-card combination.
As in Texas Hold’em, betting takes place in different rounds known by the same name as in the most popular poker variant.
Seven Card Stud Poker
Along with Texas Hold’em and Omaha, Seven Card Stud Poker is another of the most common poker variants, although it is also one of the most complex to master.
As its name indicates, each player receives seven cards during the course of the hand, of which only five will be taken into account to determine the winner. As this is a stud variant – known as bare poker – each player receives a certain number of cards face up and a certain number of cards face down.
In the first round, each player receives two cards: one face up and one face down. From this initial moment, the betting rounds follow one after the other. The player ends up with 4 cards face up and 3 face down.
The play of each participant is based on the strongest possible combination of 5 cards out of the 7 cards available to them, regardless of the cards that are covered or uncovered.
5 Card Stud Poker
We continue with the stud mode to discover another of the most popular poker variants: Poker 5 Card Stud.
Again, players are dealt a combination of hole cards and hole cards in successive rounds of betting. Specifically, four of the five cards are visible to the other opponents while only one remains hidden from the player.
In case of reaching the final round, after successive betting rounds, the hand of the player with the highest hand will win.
5 Card Draw Poker
We leave the stud modality to approach what was the most popular variant of poker until the arrival of Texas Hold’em: Five Card Draw.
This is one of the oldest variants of poker and also one of the most practiced by card enthusiasts. This variant, as easy to learn as it is fun, consists in the fact that each player receives 5 cards covered, that is to say, only he/she can know them.
This variant has something exceptional that distinguishes it from the rest: the concept of discarding. Each player can discard the card or cards he considers unnecessary and receive others from the deck.
In Five Card Draw, as we have explained, each player receives five covered cards. The first betting round takes place and, after that, the discard takes place. Then a new round of betting begins. If 2 or more players reach the end of the hand, the showdown takes place to decide who is the winner.
H.O.R.S.E. or Horse Poker
Horse poker is one of the most popular variants, not only of poker, but also of the combined games.
The term H.O.R.S.E. is an acronym, formed by the initial letters of five poker variants: Hold’em, Omaha, Razz, Stud and Eight-or-better. Its practice consists of rotating each of the games that compose it.
Generally, it starts with Hold’em Limit, continues with Omaha Hi/Lo, Razz (Seven Card Stud Low), Seven Card Stud and, finally, Seven Card Stud Hi/Lo. All these games are played in fixed limit mode, that is, limit betting structures.
This type of poker, as you can imagine, requires knowledge and skills in each and every one of the variants. It is an excellent option if you want to measure your skill with the cards.
As a peculiarity in the case of the Razz Poker variant, also known as Seven Card Stud Low, the objective is to get the lowest hand. The flush and the straight are excluded in this variant which considers the Ace as the lowest card in the deck.