Short Deck Straight
Short Deck Hold’em, also known as Six Plus Hold’em, is similar to traditional Texas Hold’em. Players are dealt two hole cards and the hand proceeds with four betting rounds and five community cards (a three-card flop, turn and river) just like Hold’em. Mark a new line 30mm away from the first one and clamp or screw the straight edge to the line. Hold the saw against it and check the blade is in on the desired finished line. Set the circular saws depth to the thickness of the deck boards, and slowly run it along the deck removing all the ends in a nice straight, equal line. Make sure to view my other videos.Heres a time lapse video with some instructions on how to make your own deck. You may need to pause the video when the inst. Dec 07, 2018 Straights are mathematically more common than three-of-a-kind in short deck poker, so three-of-a-kind beats a straight in certain versions. Drawing to a straight is much less appealing with this rule in place, as you are drawing dead if your opponent has a set or trips.
- Royal Flush
- Short Deck Poker Math 102: Pocket Pairs As Straight Blockers ...
- Short Deck Straight Fit
- Straight Flush
Royal Flush
Short Deck Hold’em, also known as Six Plus Hold’em, is similar to traditional Texas Hold’em. Players are dealt two hole cards and the hand proceeds with four betting rounds and five community cards (a three-card flop, turn and river) just like Hold’em. The main difference, as the name implies, is that Six Plus Hold’em is played with only the cards that are six or higher in value.
All of the 2s, 3s, 4s, and 5s, are removed from the deck (hence the nickname six plus or Short Deck), so instead of playing poker with a 52-card deck, it is played with a 36-card deck. With the deuces through fives removed, the sixes are the lowest cards in the deck.
Despite its similarities to Texas Hold’em, there are some significant differences in the hand rankings, strategy and rules of the game.
Short Deck Hand Rankings
Perhaps the biggest difference between Six Plus Hold’em and Texas Hold’em (besides the number of cards in the deck) is the hand rankings. Because the total number of cards in the deck is reduced, the mathematical odds of being able to make certain poker hands changes. It is this change in odds that dictates the change in hand rankings.
While there can be some variance in hand ranking depending on where the game is spread, for the most part, there are two important hand ranking to note:
Three-of-a-kind Beats a Straight
One might think that removing the deuces through fives would make it harder to make Straights, but the card removal means that all of the cards left in the deck are closer in rank than in a 52-card deck, meaning Straights are actually easier to make.
Also, just like in traditional Hold’em, the ace can be used as high or low when making straights. In the case of Six Plus Hold’em, the ace still acts as the highest card and can makes the highest straight AKQJ10, but it also can be used in place of the five making the smallest straight A6789.
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A Flush Beats a Full House
Card removal makes it harder to hit a flush than in traditional Hold’em, as there are four less cards of each suit. As a result, flushes are moved up in the hand ranking above full houses.
You can see all of the hand rankings for Six Plus Hold’em side by side with those of regular Hold’em in the table below (ranked from the highest hand to the lowest).
| Six Plus Hold’em (36-Card Deck) | Texas Hold’em (52-Card Deck) |
|---|---|
| Royal Flush | Royal Flush |
| Straight Flush | Straight Flush |
| Four-of-a-Kind | Four-of-a-Kind |
| Flush | Full House |
| Full House | Flush |
| Three-of-a-Kind | Straight |
| Straight | Three-of-a-Kind |
| Two Pair | Two Pair |
| One Pair | One Pair |
| High Card | High Card |
Where to Play Six Plus Hold’em
With the recent boom in popularity of Six Plus Hold’em, there are now several places to play the game online.
iPoker Network
One of the more popular places that players gather to play Six Plus Hold’em is at Red Kings which is on the iPoker network and offers a large international player pool that provides the liquidity needed to ensure that more games go off at the times you want and at the stakes you want to play.
Americas Cardroom
Short Deck Poker Math 102: Pocket Pairs As Straight Blockers ...
Short Deck was recently added to the offshore US facing poker room, Americas Cardroom on the Winning Poker Network (WPN). Another room on the network that offers Six Plus Hold’em is Black Chip Poker.
Soon be Available on PokerStars
Last month, pokerfuse discovered that PokerStars may be planning on adding Six Plus Hold’em to his game offering. When that happens, the game is likely to be added to its dot-com player pool first (although PokerStars is known to test games out in segregated European markets such as Italy).
Adding a new game to all of the regulated markets that PokerStars operates in will likely require additional testing and cutting through plenty of red tape to get approval from gaming regulators in those markets.
Latest News on Short Deck Poker:
GGPoker to Award $7 Million in Promotions This January
Once again, GGPoker raises the amount it will award in monthly promotions.
GGPoker Giving Away $5 Million Via Promotions This October
This is the biggest promotional giveaway that GGPoker has run to date.
Fresh Off the Record-Shattering WSOP 2020, GGPoker Announces $6.5 Million GTD Good Game Series of Poker
The GGSOP “recreates the full WSOP experience” for low-stakes players with 54 low buy-in events starting Saturday.
GGPoker’s First Week of the WSOP Bracelet Series Generates $21 Million in Prize Money, Nine Bracelets Awarded
The first-ever Short Deck online bracelet event takes place today.
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After meeting its newly increased guarantee for the first time last week, GGPoker bumped up the guaranteed prize pool for GGMasters by another $100,000 to $500,000.
GGPoker FAQ
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Read more on Short Deck Poker »Table Of Contents
In this series we are offering various strategy advice for short deck hold'em, also sometimes called six plus hold'em (or 6+ hold'em), including sharing tips from some of the pros who have found the game a fun and challenging poker variant to play.
Before we delve any further into strategy, with this article we're going to highlight some of the more interesting and notable odds and probabilities in short deck hold'em. In particular, we'll point out how those odds and probabilities differ from what you encounter in regular, full deck hold'em, which in turn creates some important differences when it comes to strategy.
Short Deck Hold'em (Six Plus Hold'em): Rules and Hand Rankings
As discussed last week, short deck hold'em tosses out all of the fives, fours, threes, and twos, creating a 36-card deck with which to play. The game is played just like regular hold'em, with players being dealt two hole cards and making hands with the five community cards dealt as a flop, turn, and river. Also, as in regular hold'em the ace can be high or low, meaning in short deck A-6-7-8-9 makes a straight.
The big change from regular hold'em comes from the hand rankings being altered. In short deck, flushes rank above full houses, and depending on the game it is sometimes the case that three of a kind beats straights.
| Regular hold'em | Short deck (straights beat trips) | Short deck (trips beat straights) |
|---|---|---|
| Royal Flush | Royal Flush | Royal Flush |
| Straight Flush | Straight Flush | Straight Flush |
| Four of a Kind | Four of a Kind | Four of a Kind |
| Full House | Flush | Flush |
| Flush | Full House | Full House |
| Straight | Straight | Three of a Kind |
| Three of a Kind | Three of a Kind | Straight |
| Two Pair | Two Pair | Two Pair |
| One Pair | One Pair | One Pair |
| High Card | High Card | High Card |
The reason for these changes has to do with the fact that in short deck the probabilities of making certain hands are different. In short deck, it is actually easier to make a full house than a flush, which is why flushes rank higher than full houses. (The opposite is true in regular hold'em.) It is also easier to make a straight than to make trips in short deck, which is why some rank three of a kind higher than a straight.
While some short deck games use small and big blinds just like in regular hold'em (with or without antes), others have introduced another twist by removing the blinds and having all players ante, with the button putting in a double-ante and play beginning before the flop with the player left of the button having an option to call, fold, or raise.
Short Deck Hold'em (Six Plus Hold'em): Preflop Probabilities
If you're a regular hold'em player, you're probably well acquainted with probabilities related to starting hands, and therefore know the chances of getting dealt pocket aces (1 in 221), a pocket pair (1 in 17), or two cards of the same suit (1 in 4.25). But what happens to those preflop probabilities after the fives through deuces are removed from the deck?
As you might imagine, reducing the deck from 52 cards down to 36 cards also reduces the number of different starting hand combinations there are.
Whereas in regular hold'em there are 1,326 distinct starting hands, in short deck hold'em there are only 630 distinct starting hands — less than half (about 47.5 percent). That's counting suits as distinct, which isn't generally done when valuing starting hand strength.
If we don't consider suits as distinct, in regular hold'em there are just 169 combinations of starting hands (13 pocket pairs, 78 non-paired suited hands, and 78 non-paired unsuited hands). Meanwhile when not considering suits as distinct, in short deck hold'em there are just 81 combinations of hands (9 pocket pairs, 36 non-paired suited hands, and 36 non-paired unsuited hands) — again, less than half as many in short deck versus regular hold'em (about 47.9 percent).
Fewer starting hand combos obviously affects the frequency with which you are dealt specific hands. For example, when it comes to being dealt pocket aces, that happens about twice as often in short deck hold'em — once every 105 hands (just under one percent of the time).
Pocket pairs come around more frequently in short deck, too — once every 11.66 hands (about 8.6 percent of the time). That's almost 1.5-times as often as in regular hold'em.
Meanwhile in short deck you're dealt suited hands at just about the same frequency as in regular hold'em — once every 4.375 hands (or about 22.8 percent of the time).
Here is all of that in table form, with a couple more comparisons of probabilities added to the list:
| Regular hold'em | Short deck (Six Plus) hold'em | |
|---|---|---|
| Number of cards used | 52 | 36 |
| Distinct starting hands | 1,326 | 630 |
| Distinct non-equivalent starting hands | 169 | 81 |
| Probability of being dealt pocket aces | 0.45% (1 in 221) | 0.95% (1 in 105) |
| Probability of being dealt any pocket pair | 5.9% (1 in 17) | 8.6% (1 in 11.66) |
| Probability of being dealt any suited hand | 23.5% (1 in 4.25) | 22.9% (1 in 4.4) |
| Probability of being dealt connectors | 15.7% (1 in 6.4) | 22.9% (1 in 4.4) |
| Probability of being dealt ace-king | 1.2% (1 in 83) | 2.5% (1 in 39) |
| Probability of being dealt two Broadway cards | 14.3% (1 in 7) | 30.2% (1 in 3.3) |
It’s obvious players have to adjust their thinking when it comes to starting hands and their value in short deck hold’em. Hand values go up in short deck, so what might seem like a decent starting hand in regular hold’em is going to be average or worse in short deck.
Another preflop issue to keep in mind — with fewer starting hands overall, that means the gap in equities between starting hands is narrower as well. For example, in a preflop all-in situation, is about a 78 percent favorite to beat in regular hold'em, but in short deck hold'em the aces are only about 63-67 percent to win depending on the rules being used. Search online for 'short deck hold'em calculator' or 'six plus hold'em calculator' if you're curious to test out some hand comparisons using some recently-built equity calculators.
We’ll talk more about preflop strategy in the next installment.
Short Deck Hold'em (Six Plus Hold'em): Postflop Odds
Postflop is where short deck hold'em introduces some surprises to new players, since the odds and probabilities can be quite different from regular hold'em.
Of course, if you just take a moment to think about it, it's obvious that when drawing to a certain number of outs, the chance of hitting your needed card changes when there are fewer cards left in the deck.
Let's say you hold and the flop comes to give you an open-ended straight draw. You have eight outs (the kings and the eights) to fill your straight, but instead of there being 47 unseen cards (as in regular hold'em), there are only 31 unseen cards in short deck. Whereas in regular hold'em you'd have an 8 in 47 chance of filling your straight on the turn (about 17 percent), in short deck hold'em your odds of turning the straight are 8 in 31 (nearly 26 percent).
Short Deck Straight Fit
I have seen discussions of short deck hold'em outs recommending players replace the 'Rule of 2 and 4' from regular hold'em with a new 'Rule of 3 and 6' for short deck. In regular hold'em, if you flop an open-ended straight draw with eight outs, you can roughly estimate your chance of filling the straight by multiplying those eight outs by two for the turn (~16 percent) and by four for the turn and river (~32 percent).
In short deck you can do something similar, multiplying your eight outs by three for the turn (~24 percent, which is close to the actual 25.8 percent) and by six for the turn and river (~48 percent, which is also close to the actual 45.6 percent).
Here's a table showing how your odds of hitting a certain number of outs change from regular hold'em to short deck:
| Regular Hold’em Outs | Turn | Turn+River | Short Deck Hold’em Outs | Turn | Turn+River |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2.1% | 4.3% | 1 | 3.2% | 6.5% |
| 2 | 4.3% | 8.4% | 2 | 6.5% | 12.7% |
| 3 | 6.4% | 12.5% | 3 | 9.7% | 18.7% |
| 4 | 8.5% | 16.5% | 4 | 12.9% | 24.5% |
| 5 | 10.6% | 20.4% | 5 | 16.1% | 30.1% |
| 6 | 12.8% | 24.1% | 6 | 19.4% | 35.5% |
| 7 | 14.9% | 27.8% | 7 | 22.6% | 40.6% |
| 8 | 17.0% | 31.5% | 8 | 25.8% | 45.6% |
| 9 | 19.1% | 35.0% | 9 | 29.0% | 50.3% |
| 12 | 25.5% | 38.4% | 12 | 38.7% | 63.2% |
| 15 | 31.9% | 54.1% | 15 | 48.4% | 74.2% |
By the way, don’t forget when you are drawing to a flush that there are fewer outs available to you in short deck than in regular hold'em. If you flop a flush draw in regular hold’em you have nine outs, but in short deck you only have five.
Short Deck Poker Strategy
As already noted, hand values tend to be higher in short deck hold’em, which means one-pair hands aren’t going to be as strong postflop in short deck as they are in regular hold’em. And thanks to the increased chance of players filling draws, those one-pair hands and other modest “made hands” are going to be more vulnerable, too.
Speaking of pairs, it's important to remember that pocket pairs in short deck should be valued drastically differently. Aces and kings are obviously strong hands in regular hold'em, and that stays true in short deck, except the difference between the two is even more pronounced.
Things change quickly after that as pairs below kings are unexciting holdings in short deck. The reason for this will be familiar to any pot-limit Omaha player of decent experience level: similar to PLO, the only easily dominated hands in short deck are pocket pairs.
Where traditional 'dominated' spots in hold'em — like ace-queen against queens — are much closer in equity in short deck, holding a pair versus a higher pair is still a pretty rough spot. And medium pairs are actually a slight dog against overcards, in contrast to regular hold'em. Pairing hole cards happens much more often in short deck, and it's far easier for connecting cards to make straights.
Because equities run much closer in short deck, it's important to maximize opportunities for high-equity spots like holding bigger pairs while minimizing the times you're on the wrong side of that.
Straight Flush
A few other items related to postflop probabilities in short deck:
- with suited cards you flop flush draws less often in short deck, and complete flushes less often as well
- with connectors and one-gappers you flop straight draws more often in short deck, and complete them more often, too
- with a pocket pair, you flop a set more often in short deck (about 17 percent of the time vs. 12 percent in regular hold’em
We'll be exploring postflop strategy in more detail going forward in the series as well. Blockers, bluffing opportunities and more will be examined in the coming weeks.
Meanwhile, take a look at the video below and listen to Tom Dwan, Patrik Antonius, Daniel Cates, Kane Kalas, Jason Koon, Phil Ivey, Wai Kin Yong, and Gabe Patgorski offer some general advice about how to approach short deck hold’em strategy.
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