rules
Short deck changes the order itself.
Take every two, three, four and five out of the deck and you are left with 36 cards, nine ranks from six to ace. The game on top of them is Texas Hold'em: two private cards, five community cards, four betting rounds. What is not the same is which hand wins. A flush beats a full house here, and in most games three of a kind beats a straight.
That is not a house rule or a novelty. Remove sixteen cards and the odds move, and the ranking follows the odds the way it always has.
the short deck ranking
| Hand | Example | 36 cards | 52 cards |
|---|---|---|---|
| Straight flush Five in a row, one suit. | 0.13% | 0.03% | |
| Four of a kind All four of one rank. | 0.53% | 0.17% | |
| Flush Five of one suit. Moved up. | 2.10% | 3.03% | |
| Full house Three plus a pair. Moved down. | 7.58% | 2.60% | |
| Three of a kind Three of one rank. Moved up. | 7.64% | 4.83% | |
| Straight Five in a row. Moved down. | 13.65% | 4.62% | |
| Two pair Two pairs. | 37.82% | 23.5% | |
| One pair Two of the same rank. | 27.75% | 43.8% | |
| High card Nothing. Highest card plays. | 2.79% | 17.4% |
The two columns are how often seven cards, your two plus the five on the table, make that hand as your best. They come from counting every combination rather than sampling: all 8,347,680 of them for the 36 card deck, all 133,784,560 for the 52 card deck, each counted under the ranking its own game uses.
why the order moves
Sixteen cards leave, and two hands trade places.
Poker hands are ranked by how hard they are to make, so when the deck changes the ranking has to change with it. Each suit now holds nine cards instead of thirteen, which makes five of one suit much harder to collect. Meanwhile the nine remaining ranks sit in one unbroken run from six to ace, so five in a row is much easier than it was. Flushes go up in value, straights go down.
The numbers are not close. Out of every 8,347,680 seven card combinations from the 36 card deck, 175,560 make a flush and 633,024 make a full house. A full house is roughly four times as common, so it can no longer sit above the flush. The same holds if you check it on five cards, which is where the normal ranking comes from: 480 of the 376,992 five card hands are a flush, against 1,728 that are a full house.
Three of a kind against a straight is the second swap, and it is a seven card story rather than a five card one. Over seven cards, 13.65 percent make a straight and 7.64 percent make three of a kind, so the set is the rarer hand and moves above it. Because the argument rests on a different basis than the flush change, it is also the swap rooms disagree about. Almost every short deck game puts the flush above the full house. Not all of them lift three of a kind above the straight, so read the ranking posted at your table.
One thing that does not change is the method. The standard ranking of poker hands is the order for the 52 card game, and it does not apply at a short deck table: a full house beats a flush there and loses to one here. Everything either side of the swapped pairs is the same, and so is the way ties are broken, card by card down to the kicker.
six straights, and where the ace goes
With nine ranks there are six straights. The ace does the same double duty it does in the full deck: it is the highest card, and it also fills in underneath the lowest one. In a 52 card game that makes the wheel . Here the bottom straight is , and the top one is still .
That single change is worth more than it looks. Connected cards are worth playing far more often, because there are fewer gaps to fill and fewer ranks to miss, while suited cards are worth less than the habit from the 52 card Hold'em game suggests.
| After the flop | 36 cards | 52 cards |
|---|---|---|
| A pocket pair flops a set or better | 17.1% | 11.8% |
| An open ended straight draw gets there by the river | 45.6% | 31.5% |
| A gutshot gets there by the river | 24.5% | 16.5% |
| A flush draw gets there by the river | 30.1% | 35.0% |
A flush draw is the row that surprises people. It has nine outs in a full deck and only five here, because your suit has nine cards in it rather than thirteen. It also has a smaller stack of unknown cards to hide in, 31 instead of 47, which is why the two effects do not cancel out and the draw ends up weaker anyway. Both columns assume you see the turn and the river without paying again. The way to price the call once you have the percentage is unchanged, and it is on the pot odds table on the cheat sheet.
antes instead of blinds
Most short deck games are dealt with an ante from every player and one extra ante from the button, rather than a small and a big blind. That extra ante is the amount the others have to match to continue, and it puts the button last to act before the flop as well as after it. Some games run with ordinary blinds, so check which structure is in play before your first hand.
Everything else is the game you already know. The betting actions, the table stakes principle and the showdown are the ones described in the general rules of poker, and the variant that changes the most from Hold'em is not this one but Omaha, where you must use exactly two of your own cards.
next
A ranking you have to think about is a ranking you do not know yet.
The table deals the 52 card game rather than short deck, so use it for the parts that carry over: reading a board, position, and what a bet is asking you to pay. Forty hands in the browser, no account, no download, and a hand history you keep at the end.
short deck questions
What is short deck poker?
Texas Hold'em played with a 36 card deck. Every two, three, four and five is taken out, which leaves nine ranks from six up to ace in four suits. You still get two private cards, there are still five community cards and four betting rounds. It is also called six plus Hold'em.
Does a flush beat a full house in short deck?
Yes. That is the headline change. With only nine cards in each suit, five of a suit is much harder to reach than three of a kind plus a pair, so the flush moves above the full house. Counted over all 8,347,680 seven card combinations from the 36 card deck, a flush comes up 2.10 percent of the time and a full house 7.58 percent.
Does three of a kind beat a straight in short deck?
In most short deck games, yes. Nine ranks packed together make straights common: 13.65 percent of seven card combinations make one, against 7.64 percent for three of a kind. Not every room applies this second swap, while almost all of them apply the flush change, so read the ranking posted at the table before you sit down.
What is the lowest straight in short deck?
Ace six seven eight nine. The ace still plays as the highest card everywhere else, and it also fills in below the six, exactly as it does below the two in a normal deck. That leaves six possible straights in total, from ace to nine up to ten to ace.
How are the blinds set in short deck?
Most games use antes rather than blinds: everyone puts in an ante and the button puts in one extra, which acts as the bet the others must at least match. That makes the button last to act before the flop as well as after it. Some games use ordinary small and big blinds instead, so check the structure of the game you are joining.
Do the normal poker hand rankings apply to short deck?
Not completely, and that is the trap. The order for straight flushes, quads, two pair, one pair and high card is unchanged, but the flush and the full house swap places, and in most games three of a kind moves above the straight. Any chart you have memorised for the 52 card game is wrong in the middle.
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