Types of Poker: Every Poker Variant Explained (2026)

What types of poker are there

All poker games have the same core: players get cards, bet in rounds, and the best hand (or the last player who didn’t fold) wins the pot. What changes from game to game is how cards are dealt, how many you get, whether you can exchange them and whether the highest or the lowest hand wins.

Another split is by which hand wins. In high games the classic ranking applies (royal flush on top — see poker hand rankings). In lowball games (2-7, Razz, Badugi) the lowest hand wins. In hi-lo games (Omaha Hi-Lo, Stud Hi-Lo) the pot is split between the best high and the best qualifying low hand.

Texas Hold’em — the most popular type of poker

Each player gets two hole cards, then five community cards come out in three stages: the flop (3), the turn (1) and the river (1). There are four betting rounds: preflop, flop, turn and river. You make the best five-card hand from any combination of your two cards and the five on the board — both, one or even none of yours.

No-Limit Hold’em is the default game of online poker, of most tournaments and of almost every club app. It’s simple to learn — two cards, one board — but deep enough to study for years. Full rules: Texas Hold’em, and the general poker rules.

Omaha: PLO, PLO5 and PLO6

Omaha uses the same flop–turn–river structure as Hold’em, but you get four hole cards and must use exactly two of them and exactly three from the board. More cards mean many more combinations, so hands run much stronger: straights, flushes and full houses are routine. Omaha is almost always played Pot-Limit — hence PLO, Pot-Limit Omaha.

PLO5 and PLO6 are especially popular in club apps because they create big multiway pots. There’s also Omaha Hi-Lo (Omaha eight or better), where the pot is split with the best low hand of five different cards eight or lower. Details: Omaha rules and our PLO5 and PLO6 guide.

Short Deck (6+ Hold’em)

Short Deck is Hold’em with a 36-card deck: all twos, threes, fours and fives are removed. With fewer low cards, hands connect more often and preflop equities run closer. Because flushes become harder to make than full houses, a flush beats a full house. Many rule sets also rank three of a kind above a straight, but this depends on the room or app.

Short Deck is often played with an ante instead of blinds (or a button blind). Full rules and strategy: Short Deck poker.

Draw poker: five-card draw, 2-7 Triple Draw, Badugi

In draw games there is no board: each player gets a full private hand and can discard and replace cards one or more times. Betting rounds come before and after each draw.

Five-card draw — “classic poker”

The game most people picture from films and home games. Everyone gets five cards, there is a betting round, then one draw where you can swap some cards (house rules usually allow up to three, or four with an ace), a second betting round and a showdown. The best high hand wins. Step-by-step rules and strategy: classic five-card draw poker.

2-7 Triple Draw

A lowball game: the lowest hand wins. You get five cards and have three draws with four betting rounds. In 2-7 (deuce-to-seven) aces are high, and straights and flushes count against you, so the best possible hand is 7-5-4-3-2 not all of one suit. Usually played Fixed-Limit.

Badugi

A four-card lowball draw game with three draws. A badugi is four cards of four different suits and four different ranks; any badugi beats any three-card hand. Aces are low, so the best hand is A-2-3-4 of four suits.

Stud poker: Seven-card Stud and Razz

Stud games have no shared board and no draws. Each player receives their own cards, some face down and some face up, with a betting round after each new card. Before the internet, Seven-card Stud was the main game in American card rooms.

1. 1
   Everyone posts an ante. Each player gets two cards face down and one face up (third street).
2. 2
   The lowest (in Razz — highest) upcard must make a small forced bet, the bring-in; then betting goes clockwise.
3. 3
   Fourth, fifth and sixth street: one card face up each, with a betting round after each. From fourth street the best visible hand acts first.
4. 4
   Seventh street (the river): the last card face down, the final betting round, then showdown — the best five of your seven cards.

There is also Stud Hi-Lo (Stud eight or better) with the pot split between the best high and the best low hand. Stud games are almost always Fixed-Limit and are now found mainly in mixed games.

Mixed games: HORSE and 8-game

Mixed games rotate several variants at the same table, usually changing after a set number of hands or an orbit. They test all-round skill: you can’t win by knowing just one game.

The exact list of games in an 8-game or dealer’s-choice rotation varies from room to room. In club apps mixed games are rare; you’ll find them mostly in big online rooms and live series.

Open Face Chinese (OFC)

Open Face Chinese has no classic betting rounds. Each player builds three rows from 13 cards: 3 cards on top, 5 in the middle, 5 on the bottom. The bottom row must be the strongest, the top the weakest — otherwise you foul. Rows are compared with each opponent and points are paid per unit, plus royalties for strong rows.

The most popular version today is Pineapple OFC: you get five cards first, then three at a time, setting two and discarding one. Queens or better on top (without fouling) usually send you to Fantasyland, where you see all your cards at once. OFC is a staple of PPPoker and several other club apps. Rules and scoring: Open Face Chinese poker.

Casino poker: Russian poker, Caribbean Stud, Texas Hold’em Bonus

These are table games against the house. You don’t compete with the other players — you only need to beat the dealer’s hand, and payouts follow a fixed paytable. There’s no bluffing, and the casino has a built-in edge, so over the long run you can’t beat it the way you can beat weaker players in real poker.

Betting structures: No-Limit, Pot-Limit, Fixed-Limit

The variant tells you how cards are dealt; the betting structure tells you how much you may bet. The same game plays very differently under different limits.

In Pot-Limit the maximum raise equals the pot after your call: if the pot is 10 and an opponent bets 10, you can call 10 (pot becomes 30) and raise 30 more — a total of 40. Most apps have a “Pot” button that calculates this for you. Raise caps in Fixed-Limit vary by house rules; heads-up they are often lifted.

Formats: cash, tournaments, Sit & Go and fast poker

On top of the variant and the limit comes the format — how long you play and what you play for.

Many club tables add special hands too. A bomb pot skips preflop — everyone antes and the hand starts on the flop (bomb pot rules). Double board deals two boards and splits the pot between them (double-board Omaha). Run it twice deals the remaining board twice after an all-in to reduce variance.

Which type of poker should you start with

• No-Limit Texas Hold’em — the most players, the most learning material, available everywhere. Start here: how to learn poker.
• Pot-Limit Omaha — the natural second game, the main alternative in club apps.
• Five-card draw — great for a home game with real cards: easy to explain in a minute.
• Short Deck and OFC — fun, popular in some clubs, but learn them after Hold’em.
• Stud, Razz, Triple Draw — for players who want mixed games; rarely available in apps.

Types of poker in club apps

Club apps focus on the games their players want most. The exact list depends on the app version and on what tables the club opens, but in general:

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