How to Play Short Deck Poker

Short Deck, sometimes referred to as 6 Plus Hold'em or 6+ Poker, emerged around 2017 in Macau. Its name comes from the fact that the game is played with a reduced deck of 36 cards, where all the 2s through 5s are removed.

This makes the game faster-paced and more action-packed compared to traditional Texas Hold'em. It also reduces the number of junk hands before the flop while providing players with a wider range of playable hands.

The rules of Short Deck Poker are very similar to those of standard Texas Hold'em, but there are also some notable exceptions.

First and foremost is the reduced deck mentioned earlier. It's crucial to understand that this dramatically changes the probabilities of certain hands occurring. That's why in Short Deck Poker, a flush beats a full house, and matchups like JT versus AK are essentially a coin flip. We'll delve into these probability differences in more detail later in this guide.

Just like in Texas Hold'em, an Ace can be both a high card and a low card in Short Deck Poker. However, due to the absence of ranked 2 through 5 cards, the lowest possible straight looks a bit unusual. For Short Deck newcomers, a high straight like 9-8-7-6-A might take some getting used to!