Poker Games

See also Card Games.

There are many varieties of poker games. The essence remain almost the identical, it major distinction lies in the method cards are dealt, how the card combinations are to be formed and the showdown. At showdown the money might go to the person with strongest or weakest poker combination or is shared between them.

The most common Poker classifications are Draw Poker and Stud Poker.
In Draw poker games each person receives commonly five hidden cards. Then there is a betting interval. After this, each remaining player may discard any of his cards and get new cards.
In Stud poker games each player receives a mix of hidden and exposed cards dealt in several series of betting.
Both variants of poker can be played with 5 or 7 cards in one of two formats: high or high/low. In high poker game the best combination wins the pot, where in the high/low version the money is shared between the player with the highest hand and the player with the lowest hand.

Texas Hold'em poker is a form of Draw Poker that has become the most popular type of Poker. This game belongs to the community card game category. Each of the participating player is dealt 2 cards face down and shares five board ones with the other players. The person with the strongest 5-card combination from the seven available cards at showdown takes the pot.

Omaha is a community game that is somewhat similar to Texas hold`em game, where of the participating player gets four individual down cards and must create his best combination using exactly 2 of them, and exactly three of the five common cards. Omaha hold`em can be of two variants i.e. Omaha-Hi and Omaha Hi-lo. In Omaha-Hi, at showdown the person with best combination wins the pot. But in Omaha Hi-lo, the highest combination and lowest hand split the pot.

Lowball poker is draw poker with the worst combination winning the pot. The most popular lowball games are Badugi, Razz, A-5 Lowball, 2-7 Lowball.
Badugi is a version of four-card lowball poker, where the object of the game is to achieve the best low hand from the four cards.

Stud is another favourite form of poker which can be played in a number of variations. In here we have the Seven Card Stud, Seven Card High-Low, Caribbean Stud Poker, Mexican Stud and other.
One of the popular variations is the Seven Card Stud. Each player receives three dark cards, and four open cards. The objective of 7 card stud is to achieve the best five-card poker hand with the help of combining the five cards with the total of seven cards.
Razz is an inversion of Seven card stud. In razz the winner is the one with the lowest combination out of each player.