Guide to a New Variation of Texas Hold'em

Texas Holdem is a poker game that has single handedly been responsible for increasing the popularity of poker in the past few years. The reason is the World Series of Poker and other similar events with television coverage. The media coverage of The World Series of Poker and other events have been great, but at the same time might have overexposed the game. My friends and I when we get together to play poker on our poker nights are always looking for a new way to play the game as the standard has gotten a little stale. Would you like a different version though of it?

The version we play is very similar, but have a minor twist. The game will still end up with having two hole cards for every player and five shared or "community cards". The order of the deal and betting is slightly different though with the version that we play. To start the game we deal one face up card to the community area. There is no betting at this point. Then each player receives their first hole card. After the first hole card is deal to each player there is a round of betting.

After that round of betting, two more community cards are dealt, and there is a round of betting at that point. The next card that is dealt is each player's final hole card, followed by a round of betting. At this point there are three community cards on the table and each player has their hole cards. The fourth or "turn" card (as in Texas Holdem) is dealt then to the community area with betting, followed by the fifth and final community card knowns as the "river" card just like Texas Holdem with a final round of betting, and the determination of the winning hand.

There are the same number of rounds of betting as in Texas Holdem, but the difference is the information each player has at the timing of the betting rounds. We have found that this version of the game tends to keep more people in the game longer than the traditional version of Texas Holdem. Hopefully you will find this version of Texas Holdem as something you will add to your rotation of games at your next poker night with your friends. At least give it a shot and see what you think of it as a game to add a spice to the standard Texas Holdem version.