Short Deck Hands
- Short Deck Starting Hands
- Short Deck Hand Crossword
- Short Deck Winning Hands
- Short Deck Poker Hands
- Short Deck Rank Of Hands
- Short Deck Hands
Watch Tom Dwan explain short-deck poker, aka 6-Plus Hold’em, the game played by some of the biggest cash game players in the world. To play short deck, we simply remove the deuces, threes, fours, and fives from the deck. We now have a 36-card deck in which sixes are lowest. Because this deck is smaller, it juices up the action and changes the odds of hitting various hands. One key difference is that a low straight in short deck is A-6-7-8-9. What’s Short-Deck Poker? Poker has a problem. Short-Deck is the answer. Also known as, Triton Hold’em, Short-Deck has its roots in Asia, where successful businessmen, and poker lovers, Paul Phua and Richard Yong, experimented by removing a few cards from the standard 52-card deck, increasing the likelihood of strong pre-flop hands.
Short Deck Starting Hands
- Equity calculator for short deck and full deck hold'em poker games with hand history storage.
- Well, first off, we will be dealt AK about 2.5% of our hands – which is quite a lot of the time, maybe once every five or six rounds at a full ring table, so it’s important enough to learn its worth in Six Plus Hold’em. If we accept that suited versions become a lot more valuable - flushes beat full houses in our new version - then it can also make sense to play AKs slower than usual.
Short deck NL hold’em - also known as 6-plus hold’em - is currently enjoying another ramp up in popularity. Three or four years ago, it appeared in the public eye for the first time when the likes of Phil Ivey and Tom Dwan were reportedly playing it in nosebleed live cash games around Asia against rich businessmen.
Many players have said it’s almost a hybrid of NL and PLO because of how close the equities tend to run together. A consequence of this is that all in clashes pre-flop are much more common. Perhaps more suitable for somebody looking for mobile no deposit free spins than a seasoned poker player.
This is all because the deuces through fives are removed from the deck, leaving only 36 cards. We might be forgiven for thinking little would change, but in fact, the hand rankings are quite different. A flush now beats a full house, and three of a kind sits in front of a straight!
Why Short Deck Is an Action Game
With the hand rankings changing around slightly, we can also see that the chances of making your draw are different too.
Obviously you still have eight outs to complete a straight draw, but instead of digging through 47 cards to hit jackpot, there are now only 31 to contend with. Now we will hit our straight more than 45% of the time.
Already we have seen that a flush is rarer than a full house, but we will still complete the draw more than 30% of the time, in comparison to 36% in normal NL hold’em.
Short Deck Hand Crossword
Another Rule Change
Savvy players of standard NL hold’em will be familiar with what is known as “the rule of two and four”. In short deck games we must switch to “the rule of three and six”.
To clarify for newer players, what we mean is on the flop we can multiply our outs by six and the result is our equity, or on the turn we multiply our outs by three to know our equity.
Don’t Be Deceived By So Many Strong Hands
With only 630 starting hands possible compared to the usual 1326, we can expect to see powerhouse starting hands much more frequently. For example, pocket aces will arrive in front of you every around once every 100 hands, instead of every 221 using a full deck. Ace-king is also seen twice as often.
The problem here is that it actually becomes quite deceiving in terms of absolute strength versus relative strength. This can be illustrated by thinking about how well we view two broadway cards in normal hold’em - it’s a fairly decent hand right? Playing short deck rules we will be dealt such a hand close to one third of the time!
An Illustrative Hand
This hand illustrates the wildly different pre flop equities we witness when playing short deck hold’em. It comes from the recent Triton Poker Series in Jeju, South Korea, during a Short Deck Ante Only tournament.
The antes are 3,000 each hand,except the button who pays 6,000.
UTG limps with pocket aces and the HJ raises it up to 25,000 with AcQd. The CO calls with Js9s and while the BTN considers his move we get to see what the equities are.
UTG - AA - 30%
HJ - AQo - 12%
CO - J9s - 32%
BTN - 22%
So J9s is actually a favourite over pocket rockets in a four-way pot. Usually, the results wouldn’t look like this. Here is what we would usually see.
UTG - AA - 55%
HJ - AQo - 5%
CO - J9s - 19%
BTN - 21%
In the end, the BTN0 folds preflop and UTG then completes his original plan by jamming all-in. This how the match ups look now.
UTG - AA - 49% - 263,000
HJ - AQo - 12% - 71,000
CO - J9s - 34% - 54,000
Why Should We Play Short Deck Rules?
For a start, action games always attract players who are prepared to gamble it up. This is not only good for your overall enjoyment, but it increases potential profit too. It’s also good to get involved with new games while everyone is still finding their feet. The best players at each stake level will not have had much time to increase their edge over everyone else. There’s also not much information out there yet, making it a much closer contest.
Stars such as Phil Ivey heartily endorse the game. He told the media:
I started playing Short Deck recently, it has quickly become one of my favorite games. I enjoy playing it. It's fun, it's something different, it's new and there's a lot of gambling involved. The equities run pretty close, so it's pretty easy to get your money in the middle and be 50/50 or somewhere near that. It suits a more gambling style of player.'
Rules of the Game
Short Deck Hold’em is simply No Limit Hold’em played with a thirty-six card deck where the twos, threes, fours, and fives have been eliminated. This effectively ends the all too often stretches of always looking at complete duds like nine-deuce off suit and the like. Jack-six off suit is the Seven-deuce off suit of Short Deck and has few exciting possibilities; however, the odds are greater that you will get dealt hands with potential. Equities run much closer in the game and an ante only structure that frequently accompanies the game provides the impetus for a ton of action.
Another very unique aspect of this game is that the aces are also considered low. In other words, A6789 is the new wheel. Be very mindful of this aspect at all times as not to misread your hand and/or potentially not fully consider a powerful holding that your opponent may have. When you are new to the game it is helpful to constantly remind yourself that aces are fives.
The use of a short-deck also changes some of the traditional hand rankings because flushes are now mathematically more difficult to make than full houses and trips are made less frequently than straights. In all variations currently played flushes beat full houses but the rules vary on whether or not trips beat straights.
In Asia and the high-roller tournaments the rules stipulate that a straight still beats three of a kind and is typically played as an ante-only structure. This version is often referred to as either Short Deck Hold’em or Triton Poker and is action packed because connecting cards are very valuable and the structure often encourages large multi-way pots.
In the ante only structure everyone antes, however the button is forced to make a double ante. The pre-flop action starts to the left of the button and that person has the option to fold, put in one more ante, or raise to any amount they wish. Each person in turn then has the option to fold, match the current bet, or raise or re-raise.
Short Deck is also sometimes played with the conventional blinds and most often in these games trips beat straights. This structure and rules is most often referred to as Six Plus Hold’em and is the version now spread by some online sites. However, recently PokerStars has introduced an online version where straights do beat trips and are marketing it as Six Plus Hold’em so don’t get confused. The first rule of poker is to know the rules!
Short Deck Winning Hands
Basic Strategy
Short Deck Poker Hands
Short Deck Hold’em utilizes a very unique structure that helps facilitate action while also allowing for a multitude of different yet successful strategies for the opening round of betting.
In the ante only structure everyone except the button antes once while the button is forced to make a double ante. The pre-flop action starts to the left of the button and that person has the option to fold, put in one more ante, or raise to any amount they wish. Each person in turn then has the option to fold, match the current bet, or raise or re-raise. The first person to limp is getting a tremendous 7 to 1 on their money while the odds and position get better for each player in succession.
With the truncated deck you are more likely to dealt be good hands; you are slightly more than twice as likely to be dealt aces or any other particular hand. Sets are flopped more often. In Hold’em your odds of flopping a set are approximately 12% whereas in Short Deck it is around 18%.
Short Deck Rank Of Hands
Flopped straights are much more common, any hand capable is typically more than three times as likely in Short Deck. For example, JT has a 1.2% probability in Hold’em but has 4.2% chance in Short Deck. In Hold’em an eight out draw has around a 31.4% probability coming in, however in Short Deck it is 45.6%.
Flushes are harder to hit because four flush cards have been removed from the deck. Flush draws now only have five outs instead of nine thus they are harder to hit and are ranked higher than full houses.
Position is much more desired in Short Deck due to the fact that equities run much closer and turns and rivers are scarier as the deuces and other blanks are taken out of the deck. In essence most flops are “wet” in that future board cards will often present possible strong holdings and if not will usually improve your opponent one way or another. In Short Deck by the river the board will either be paired or there will be at least one straight possible.
Further Learning
Short Deck Hands
Check out Upswing Poker’s Short Deck Mastery course from Kane Kalas.