Poker Variants & Formats Explained

01 · Texas Hold'em

Texas Hold’em is the default game. Two hole cards, five community cards, four betting rounds. Simple rules, deep strategy. Every poker room is built around it, every training site teaches it first, and every other variant on this page assumes you have already learned it. If you are new to online poker, this is where to start.

It earns its dominance for practical reasons. The beginner pools at micro-stakes are the softest you will find in any poker variant online. Strategy resources run deep, from free YouTube breakdowns to structured coaching programmes. And because the traffic is so large, you can always find a table at your stake, any hour of the day.

Say you sit down at an NL10 table. The small blind posts 5p, the big blind posts 10p. Everyone receives two cards face down. The player to the left of the big blind acts first and can fold, call the 10p, or raise. At this stake, a typical opening raise is 25p to 30p.

Once the pre-flop betting finishes, three community cards (the flop) land face-up in the centre. Another betting round follows. Then a fourth card (the turn), another round. Then a fifth card (the river), a final round. If more than one player remains, the best five-card combination using any mix of hole cards and community cards wins the pot. Most hands at NL10 end before showdown because someone folds along the way.

Strategy at a glance

Three fundamentals separate winning players from losing ones. Position is acting later in the betting order, which gives you more information before you put money in. Hand selection is playing fewer, stronger starting hands instead of calling with anything vaguely interesting. Pot odds tell you whether a call is mathematically worth it based on what you could win versus what it costs.

The single biggest beginner mistake is playing too many hands. If you are seeing the flop more than 25% of the time in a full-ring game, you are almost certainly losing money.

02 · Pot-Limit Omaha

Pot-Limit Omaha (PLO) is the fastest-growing variant online and the most popular non-Hold’em game by a wide margin. The deal looks similar to Hold’em, but each player gets four hole cards instead of two. The catch: you must use exactly two of your four cards with three of the five community cards to make your hand.

That constraint has knock-on effects across the entire game. Equities run closer, meaning premium hands win less often than they would in Hold’em. Pots grow bigger because more players have drawing hands worth continuing with. Bankroll variance is much higher. PLO rewards reading board textures rather than memorizing pre-flop charts.

How PLO differs from Hold’em

The “exactly two cards” rule is the thing new players trip over. In Hold’em, if you hold four hearts including two in your hand, you have a flush. In PLO, if three hearts are on the board but only one of your four hole cards is a heart, you do not have a flush. You need exactly two hearts in your hand to go with three on the board.

This also means hands that feel strong in Hold’em can be surprisingly weak. A pair of aces with two random side cards looks premium, but in PLO your opponents hold four cards too. The number of possible draws against you is enormous. Pot-limit betting (you can bet up to the size of the current pot, but no more) keeps the game from becoming pure gambling, but the swings are still larger than anything in Hold’em.

Why bankroll matters more

PLO swings can run two to three times the size of Hold’em swings at the same stake. A Hold’em player comfortable with 50 buy-ins should be thinking 75 to 100 buy-ins for PLO at the equivalent level. That is not a casual number. At PLO50 (£50 max buy-in), 100 buy-ins means £5,000 set aside as a working bankroll. If that sounds like a lot, it is. PLO is not a game to take lightly with your money.

03 · Short Deck

Short Deck (sometimes called Six Plus Hold’em) is Hold’em played with a 36-card deck. The twos through fives are removed entirely. The result is a faster, more action-heavy variant where hand rankings shift: flushes beat full houses because the reduced deck makes them statistically rarer, and some operators rank trips above straights.

It is a specialist’s game. Strategy resources are limited, the player pool is small, and the action concentrates at high-stakes tables on GGNetwork. We rate it Advanced not because the rules are complicated but because the player pool you will face is shark-heavy.

What changes when you remove twelve cards

With only 36 cards in play, strong hands show up more frequently.

That sounds like good news until you realise it applies to everyone at the table. Equities between starting hands run much closer than in regular Hold’em, which means pre-flop edges shrink. A hand like A-K offsuit, for example, gains significant strength in Short Deck because there are fewer weak aces and kings that could be dealt to opponents.

Bluffing becomes less effective because opponents are more likely to hold strong hands. Value betting matters more. The hand-ranking adjustments (flushes over full houses) reflect the mathematical reality of the deck, but not every operator implements the same rankings, so check the house rules before you sit down.

Why we rate it Advanced

Low-stakes Short Deck barely runs on any platform.

The games that do exist are populated by players who specifically sought them out, which by definition skews experienced. If you sit down at a Short Deck table as your second or third variant, you will be outclassed. Our recommendation: get comfortable with regular Hold’em first, then consider Short Deck only after you understand equity calculations and board reading at an intermediate level.

04 · Seven-Card Stud

Seven-Card Stud is the game that dominated American poker before Hold’em rose in the 2000s.

There are no community cards. Each player receives seven cards over the course of the hand (three face-down, four face-up) and uses any five of them to make a hand. Memory and reading skills matter more than position, because position itself shifts every round.

Online, Stud is mostly a relic with a loyal niche.

PokerStars hosts cash games at low traffic. Mixed-game rotations include it. Most modern players will not need Stud unless they plan to play mixed games. But for older players returning to the game, or for serious mixed-game competitors, understanding it is non-negotiable.

How Stud betting works

Each player antes, then receives two cards face-down and one face-up.

The player showing the lowest card posts a forced bet called the “bring-in.” That is third street. On fourth street, each player gets another face-up card, and the player showing the strongest exposed hand acts first. This continues through fifth and sixth street (more face-up cards, more betting rounds), then the final card (seventh street, or the river) is dealt face-down.

The key difference from Hold’em: who acts first changes on every single round, based on the strength of what is showing. There is no fixed button. You might be first to act on one street and last on the next. That dynamic makes Stud feel fundamentally different and takes time to adjust to.

Why it’s still played

Three things keep Stud alive.

First, the WSOP still runs Stud events, which keeps it culturally relevant in the tournament world. Second, every serious mixed-game rotation includes Stud and Stud Hi-Lo, so competitive mixed-game players have no choice but to learn it. Third, there is a generation of players (mostly 50+) who learned poker on Stud and genuinely prefer it to Hold’em.

The game rewards patience and observation in a way that faster variants do not.

05 · Mixed Games

Mixed games are rotations of multiple variants played in sequence, usually five, eight, or ten games in a fixed order. The most common is HORSE: Hold’em, Omaha Hi-Lo, Razz, Seven-Card Stud, Stud Eight-or-Better. The eight- and ten-game rotations add Triple Draw, Badugi, and others.

Mixed games test breadth rather than depth.

Most players are strong in two or three of the rotation games and below average in the rest. The winners are the players least bad across all of them. Being elite in Hold’em does not help when the table flips to Razz and you have never studied lowball hand values.

What’s in each rotation

HORSE is five games: Hold’em, Omaha Hi-Lo (a split-pot version of PLO), Razz (seven-card lowball), Seven-Card Stud, and Stud Eight-or-Better (a split-pot Stud variant).

The 8-Game rotation adds No-Limit Hold’em, Pot-Limit Omaha, and Triple Draw 2-7 (a three-draw lowball game where you try to make the worst possible hand).

The 10-Game rotation adds Badugi and Badeucy, both of which are specialist draw games most recreational players have never encountered.

Most players find the lowball and split-pot variants the hardest to pick up. Razz, Triple Draw, and Stud Eight-or-Better operate on inverted logic compared to Hold’em and PLO. If you are serious about mixed games, these are the variants to study first because your opponents probably have not.

Why mixed games are a strategic test

The “least bad” framing is not a joke.

In a HORSE rotation, a player who is a 7/10 in all five games will consistently outperform a player who is 10/10 in Hold’em but 3/10 in Razz and Stud. Bankroll variance is actually lower in mixed games than in single-variant play, because your edge is distributed across multiple game types rather than concentrated in one.

PokerStars hosts the most active mixed-game community.

The HORSE tables attract a specific type of player: older, patient, and often genuinely knowledgeable. The games are tougher than equivalently staked Hold’em tables, but they are also more interesting if you enjoy the challenge of adapting every orbit.

06 · Multi-Table Tournaments

Multi-table tournaments are large-field events with fixed buy-ins and escalating blinds.

Players are eliminated as they bust. Survivors consolidate to fewer and fewer tables until one player has every chip in play. Prize pools are weighted toward the top finishers: first place might pay 25% of the total pot, while min-cashing at the bottom of the money returns only 1.5x the buy-in.

MTTs are where life-changing scores happen.

They are also where the variance is brutal. A competent player can run cold for six months without cashing, then book a five-figure score from a £30 buy-in in a single weekend. That level of variance is part of the format, and bankroll management matters more here than at the cash tables.

How MTTs differ from cash games

In a cash game, your chips are worth exactly what they say.

In a tournament, chip value is relative. A £1,000 chip stack early in a tournament (when stacks average 50-60 big blinds) is worth less in real-money terms than a £1,000 stack near the final table, because of how the prize pool is distributed. This concept is called the Independent Chip Model (ICM), and it changes optimal strategy at every stage.

The cash bubble is the single most distinctive MTT phase.

It is the point where one more elimination puts everyone into the money. Players tighten dramatically because busting here means walking away with nothing after hours of play. Short-stacked players become targets; big stacks exploit the situation. Understanding bubble dynamics separates recreational MTT players from profitable ones.

Bankroll for MTT play

MTT bankroll requirements are five to ten times higher than cash.

The reason is variance: even strong players experience long stretches without cashing. Running cold for six months at your regular buy-in level is not a sign you are doing anything wrong. It is statistically normal for winning tournament players.

Our editorial recommendation is 100+ buy-ins at your regular stake.

If you play £10 buy-in MTTs, that means £1,000 dedicated to tournament play. That sounds like a lot, and it is. MTTs are not a casual format if you take the results seriously. Players who cannot handle that level of bankroll commitment should consider Sit & Gos or cash games instead.

07 · Sit & Go

Sit & Gos are single-table tournaments that start as soon as the seats fill.

There is no fixed start time. Usually six or nine players, occasionally heads-up. The buy-in plus a small fee gives every player the same starting chip stack, and the last player standing takes the largest share of the prize pool.

SNGs are the cleanest entry point for tournament play.

They run 30 to 45 minutes on average, which is long enough to teach tournament dynamics and short enough to fit between dinner and bedtime. We rate them Beginner because the structure is forgiving and you see full tournament cycles repeatedly within short sessions. Where an MTT might take eight hours to teach you one bubble lesson, a SNG teaches it in forty minutes.

How SNG strategy differs from MTT

Early-stage SNG play is tight.

With small blinds relative to stacks, there is no reason to take big risks. You have plenty of time. The real strategy kicks in as blinds climb past the 10-big-blind mark, when push-fold play becomes optimal: you either shove all-in or fold. There is no calling, no fancy play.

Bubble play matters more in SNGs than in almost any other format.

In a six-player SNG that pays three spots, 50% of the field is on the bubble once you reach four players. Compare that to an MTT where only about 12% of the field is near the bubble. That concentration means every decision at four players has outsized impact on your results. Getting this phase right is the single most profitable skill a SNG player can develop.

SNGs as a learning tool

If you want to learn tournament poker without committing four to eight hours per session, low-stakes SNGs are the best classroom available.

The lessons cycle in 30 to 45 minutes: you see early play, middle stages, bubble dynamics, and heads-up all in one sitting. We recommend 6-max SNGs for new players because the decisions come faster and you spend less time waiting to act. A bankroll of 30 to 50 buy-ins is enough for casual SNG play at micro stakes.

08 · Fast-Fold

Fast-fold poker is cash poker without the wait.

The moment you fold a hand, you are moved to a new table with a new randomised set of opponents and dealt fresh cards. There is no waiting for the rest of the hand to play out, no decision about whether to leave the table. Folding immediately moves you to the next opportunity.

The format is branded differently per operator: Zoom on PokerStars, Zone on Bovada, Snap on iPoker rooms, Rush on partypoker historically. Mechanics are the same.

What changes is how many hands per hour you see: typically 250 to 400, compared to about 80 at a regular cash table.

Why tight-aggressive wins at fast-fold

At a regular cash table, you can build an image.

If you have been raising every hand for twenty minutes, opponents start playing back at you, and you can use that to trap them. At a fast-fold table, none of that exists. You will likely never see the same opponent twice in a session.

There is no read-building from prior hands. Opponents reset every hand.

The result: strict premium-hand selection wins by default.

You are playing the deck and your position, not your opponents. Bluffing pays less because there is no fold-equity carryover from previous hands, and nobody knows (or cares) whether you have been tight or loose. Our analysts recommend tightening your pre-flop ranges by about 10 to 15% compared to what you would play at a regular Hold’em table.

Volume implications

Fast-fold compresses sessions dramatically.

One hour of fast-fold is roughly equivalent to three hours of regular-table play in hand-count terms. That is great for learning (you see more situations faster) but it also means fatigue hits earlier. If you would normally play a two-hour cash session, cap your fast-fold sessions at 40 to 50 minutes. The mental demands per clock-minute are significantly higher, and playing tired costs you money.