7 of the most Popular Variations of Poker and their rules

Poker, in general, has many variations and each one of the variations is fun to play. So, if you’re new to poker and has only heard of Texas Hold’em( which is the most popular variant of them all), then you’re in for a hell of a surprise.

All the Variations of poker are super fun and you’ll have a really good time playing all these games. All the seven variants that I’m mentioning here are pretty well-known and are played all over the world. This includes all the casinos that are present across the world.

Popular Variations of Poker played right now

1) Texas Hold’em Poker

Texas Hold’em poker stands first in the list and is the most popular variations of poker that exists. It is played in each and every casino that is present and is played the most among the players.

If you’re new to poker and is looking to play, then Texas Hold’em poker is the best choice to do so. The rules of Texas Hold’em is the basis for all the other variations of poker I’m mentioning below. It is also really fun to play and hands down the best variations of poker.

Related: Complete guide to rules of Texas Hold’em Poker

Rules

The rules of the game are very easy to understand and once you learn them, then you can start playing the game immediately.

1. Texas Hold’em is played between 2-9 players and each player is dealt with 2 cards facing down.
2. To deal with the cards a dealer will be present. If there is no dealer then a dealer button is placed in front of one player and the cards are dealt from him and in the clockwise direction. After each hand, the dealer button moves one step in the clockwise direction.
3. The two players left of the dealer has to pay the small and the big blind respectively. These are the minimum bets that every player must pay in order to play the hand. The small and the big blind has to be placed without even seeing their cards.
4. The person sitting to the left of Big blind starts the game and he can bet the minimum amount or fold his hand. After he has played the same is repeated for the remaining players in the clockwise direction.
5. After each one of them bets then three cards are dealt on the table facing up and is known as the flop. After seeing the flop each player can bet, check or fold.
6. Similarly, a fourth card is dealt on the table facing up after each one of the players bet and is known as the turn card. Again each player can check, bet or fold his hand.
7. After the betting is finished, a fifth card is dealt on the table facing up and is known as the River.  Again each player can check, bet or fold his hand.
8. After the betting, the winner is decided and the player that betted last has to show his card if he has the better hand than the other players, he wins everything that is present on the table.

Related: Check out the Hands ranking that will decide who is going to win. 

2) Omaha Hold’em Poker

Omaha Poker is also a very popular form of poker and is played all over the world. Omaha Poker is the second most popular variations of poker. Omaha poker is pretty much similar to Texas Hold’em Poker in many ways. It is a very action-packed game where the position of the players become important when it comes to winning a hand. The major difference between Texas Hold’em and Omaha Poker is that each player is dealt with four hole cards instead of two.

There is three variant of Omaha Poker that is played.

1. Pot-limit Omaha (meaning you can bet what is in the pot).
2. No-limit Omaha (meaning you can bet all of your chips at any time).
3. Limit Omaha (meaning there is a specific betting limit applied in each game and on each round of betting).

Among these Pot-Limit Omaha is the most popular one that is played a lot.

Related: Complete guide to rules of Omaha Hold’em Poker

Rules

As mentioned earlier, Omaha poker is similar to Texas Hold’em. In Omaha poker, a total of four rounds of betting happens and after the final round of betting the winner is decided.

1. The game is played between 2-10 players and each player is dealt with four hole cards facing down.
2. Since in Omaha Poker, the position of the players affects the game, a “dealer puck” is placed in front of one player. This puck will determine the order of play for the coming hands. After each hand, the dealer puck moves in the clockwise direction to ensure fairness to all the players involved in the game.
3. The two players sitting left of the Dealer puck has to pay the “Blinds“. There are two blinds present, i.e, Big Blind and Small Blind. The blinds in general, are the minimum cost that must be paid before the cards are dealt with. The person sitting immediate left of the Dealer Puck has to pay the Small Blind( Half of the minimum cost) and the person left of Small Blind has to pay the Big Blind( Equal to the minimum cost).
4. After the two players sitting left of the dealer places the blinds, the hole cards are now distributed to all the players playing the game. After seeing the cards, the remaining players have to pay to match the big blind. The player sitting left of Big Blind starts the game.
5. Each player can bet, raise or fold. There is a maximum of one bet followed by three additional raises in each round.
6. After the first round of betting, three cards are placed on the table facing up known as the Flop, similar to Texas Hold’em. These cards are called as the community cards.
7. The betting continues as the previous round in the clockwise direction starting from the left of Dealer Button.
8. After the second round of betting is over a fourth community card is dealt facing the table known as the Turn card. The betting continues as the previous round in the clockwise direction starting from the left of Dealer Button.
9. After the third round of betting is over a fifth community card is dealt on the table facing up, known as the River. This is carried by the fourth and the final betting round similar to the previous rounds.
10. After the final round of betting is over the remaining players will show their cards to see who won. To decide on the winner, the two of the four hole cards and three of the five community cards are used. The player with the best five cards wins.

3) 7 Card Stud

7 Card Stud is the third most popular variations of poker and is played in almost all the casinos. It is very easy to learn but to master it is another thing. You need to have a good memory in order to play well in this poker variant. 

There are no community cards dealt on the table, but instead, all the players receive 7 cards, 3 facing down and 4 facing up.  Hence if you need to play well, you need to memorize the other players face-up cards. This is the reason I mentioned you need a good memory power to play the game.

Rules

1. The game is played between 2-8 players and each player is dealt with 7 cards, 3 facing down and 4 facing up.
2. Before the cards are distributed, each player must pay an ante which is usually 1/10th of the minimum betting size.
3. After the ante is paid, each player receives 3 cards, 2 facing down and 1 facing up.
4. The player with the lowest (value) face-up card will start the game and must pay the minimum bet which is called the “Bring it in“. He can even bet double of the bring-in amount. But, the player to start cannot fold.
5. The betting continues in the clockwise direction with each player having the option to fold or pay the bring-in amount. They can also bet the double of the bring-in amount similar to the player that starts the game.
6. After everyone has played their turn, a 4th card is dealt with all the players face-up called the Fourth Street.
7. The player with the highest value hand with their face-up cards has to start the bet now. After him, the remaining players will play in the clockwise direction similar to the last round.
8. After everyone has played their turn a 5th card is dealt facing up to all the players. This card is called Fifth Street. Similarly, after each one has bet similar to the previous round a 6th card is dealt with all the players facing up known as the Sixth Street.
9. Now after everyone plays after the sixth card, the seventh street is dealt with all the remaining players face-down.
10. Anyone still in the hand after the final betting ( Betting after the seventh street is dealt) must show their hands and the person with the best five-card wins the hand and takes all the money from the table. After that, the next hand starts.

4) Chinese Poker

Chinese Poker is the fourth most popular variations of poker and is played all over the world. As the name suggests, it was originated from China and is very popular among Chinese.

The final hand won is decided by the poker hand rankings similar to Texas Hold’em Poker. This variation of poker is a bit different from the others but super fun.

Rules

1. The game is played between 2-4 players and each of the player receive 13 cards face-down. That’s right… 13 cards, not 2, not 7 but 13.
2. There are no betting rounds in this variation of poker but instead, each player must agree to a certain value (Amount) before they play the hand.
3. After the players receive their 13 cards they must arrange these cards into 3 groups of 3 different hands.
4. The first hand or group must include 3 cards and these cards must be the worst of the 13 cards. This hand is called the Front Hand or the Top Hand.
5. The second hand or group must include 5 cards and these cards must be better than the first hand but worse than the third hand. This hand is called the Middle Hand.
6. The third hand or group must also include 5 cards and these cards have to be the best hand among the other 2 groups. This hand is called the Bottom Hand.
7. After each player decides their hands they place the cards face-up on the table with the remaining players doing the same.
8. Each player scores each hand against the corresponding hand of each other player.
9. You win one point for each hand you win against other players. The player that wins the most hand wins that round. There are also bonus points for players that win all three of their hands with the other player. Winning all three hands are known as Scoop.

There is another variant of  Chinese Poker called as the Open-face Chinese Poker. This version is even more complicated than the normal version. There is a slight variation of rules for this version. The rules are mentioned below.

• Each player is dealt with 5 cards first instead of 13 and they must build the top hand (including 3 cards) with those five cards.
• After that, each player draws one card per turn from the deck and continues to build their hands to complete Middle Hand and the Bottom Hand.
• There are way more decisions and excitement since you have to draw each card one at a time.

5) Five-card Draw

Five-card draw poker is the fifth most popular variations of poker and is more popular as a home game than casinos. You’ll rarely see these games in casinos, but is popular online where you’ll find plenty of tournaments going on.

The winning hand is decided by the same rules as the Texas Hold’em. There is a dealer button and the small and the big blind left of the dealer just like Texas Hold’em Poker.

If you have learnt something today, then please share and comment. Have a nice day. :)