Fun and unique poker games you've never heard of before
In this article, you can read about lesser-known poker games. Many people don’t even know that there are poker games beyond Texas Hold’em, but they are wrong. When it comes to alternative poker versions, players have many interesting options to choose from. The following unique poker games are the various versions of the basic card game.
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We distinguish three major types of poker: Hold’em, Draw, and Stud. Hold’em types include Texas poker, which we divide into No Limit, Fix Limit, and Pot Limit variants. The 7 Card Stud, 7 Card Stud Hi/Lo, Razz, Six Card Stud, and Five Card Stud belong to the Stud category. The Draw games offer Five Card Draw, Badugi, 2 to 7 Single Draw, and 2 to 7 Triple Draw. We will see some of these lesser-known unique poker games!
Draw Poker and Lowball Poker!
Lowball is Draw poker, where the lowest hand wins. Its rules are easy to learn and offer as much fun as any Hold’em game. Contrary to games like Studs and Hold’ems, where the highest value wins, in 2 to 7 Single Draw, a Lowball version, also called Kansas City Lowball, the best low hand wins the pot here. The pairs, trips, straights, and flushes have high values, just like Aces, so the strongest hand is the following five-card combination: 7,5,4,3,2. Then comes the 7,6,4,3,2 and 8,6,4,3,2.
After the players are dealt five cards, they can exchange cards once. They can discard or keep all five cards. The point is to have the lowest combination! The 2 to 7 Triple Draw poker is almost identical to the Single Draw. The difference is that, during the game, the players may discard and draw new cards three times. After each exchange round, there is a new bidding round.
Badugi Draw Poker
Badugi Draw is a unique poker game that is also a fun version. The first thing to know about Badugi poker is that they play it with four card hands.
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Since it’s a Lowball poker game, the lowest hand wins the pot, not the highest. The main difference between the previous Draw games and Badugi is that the Ace is the lowest, while the King is the highest value card. Another crucial difference you should keep in mind is that all four cards must be of different suits and no pairs. The best hand contains an Ace of Hearts, a Two of Clubs, a Three of Diamonds, and a Four of Spades.
There are four types of hands in Badugi poker. The best variation is four different cards from each suit. The second best is having at least three cards from different suits with a fourth card that either pairs or are suited with one of the others.
The third type is to have two cards of different suits, while the rest is either suited or pairs with at least one of the cards. Then there is the worst hand, which consists of four cards from the same suit. Of course, there are stronger and weaker hands. For example, between a hand of 7,6,5,4 and 7,5,4,3, the latter is the winner.
Studs are Unique Poker Games!
Razz, Seven Card Stud Low, is a Stud game in which, the players have to aim for low hands, just like previously mentioned games. The players are dealt seven cards during a round, and the best five cards count.
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Neither the suits nor the straights matter in Razz, but the trips and pairs do. The players can use Aces as the lowest value cards, so the best possible hand combination in Razz is 5,4,3,2, A. The second best is 6,4,3,2, A, followed by 6,5,4,3,2, etc.
The Six Card Stud game is almost the same as Seven Card Stud. The only difference is that the players get to choose from six cards instead of seven. Because of that, the big pots and hands are less frequent than in the seven cards version.
Five Card Stud works the same way. The players play with a total of five cards; they receive one card face up and one face down first. It’s the earliest form of Stud games, as it originates from the Civil War, but it became a lesser-known poker game since then. Another fun fact is that Five Card Stud poker appears in the movie The Cincinnati Kid.
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Crazy Pineapple is a Hold’em type of game with a twist. The difference is that instead of getting two cards, the dealer hands out three in the first round. Then comes a betting round, after which each player has to discard one card so the regular two remains.
However, this is not the only way to play Crazy Pineapple. If the players choose the Hi/Lo version, the highest and lowest hands can both win the pot. Click on the link for a little help, and learn the best poker practice methods!
Mixed Poker Games
Mixed Hold’em is the same, except for consisting of an alternation between Fixed Limit and No Limit rounds. The most well-known mixed unique poker game is the HORSE. The name is an acronym containing the initials of the games it is mixed of, so Hold’em, Omaha, Razz, Stud, and Eight, a.k.a. 7 Card Stud Hi/Lo.
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8 Game Mix is the expansion of HORSE. They added 2 to 7 Triple Draw, Hold’em No Limit, and Omaha Pot Limit games. So a total of eight types are played, which change in a specific order each round. Find out more about these at online gambling sites in Australia.
Chinese is a Unique Poker Game!
It is also known as 13-card poker, which is a less-known game to the general public, but several professional poker players, such as Phil Hellmuth and Phil Ivy, love it. In addition, four players earned WSOP bracelets in Chinese poker in the 1990s. A minimum of two and a maximum of four players can play, and each of them gets thirteen cards. They must form three hands of them: two five-card and a three-card hand.
The hands are the same as in Texas Hold’em. The order of the hands is regulated. From left to right, the first three cards make up the lowest hand, while the five cards in the middle are worth more, and the last hand has the highest value. Since the first set of hands consists of only three cards, the straights, and suits don’t matter, so the highest value is a 3 of a kind, while the best hand of the five last cards is the Royal flush.
The goal for each hand is to be worth more than the same hands of the other players. At this point, we meet the unique scoring system, which is an interesting feature of Chinese poker. Players do not place bets but use units or points to win money. The value of the points depends entirely on the players. Check out Everygame Poker and its unique poker games!
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