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Texas Hold'em

Texas Hold'em Poker is a classic and one of the most popular variants. The game starts off with the dealer dealing two cards known as hole cards face down to each player. Then five community cards are dealt face-up to form the board. Players use the community cards to form the best hand in three stages. The goal of this game is to have the best five-card hand from the combination. Your betting options include to call, raise, check, or fold.

Omaha High

The variant is similar to Texas Hold'em with a very small twist. Unlike Texas Hold'em, the dealer deals out four hole cards instead of two. Then the rest are dealt out in three stages. In the flop stages, three community cards are dealt out face up. Then the fourth card is dealt in the turn stage and finally, the fifth card is issued in the river stage. Similar to Texas Hold'em, the goal is to make the best poker hand from all the cards dealt. However, you can only use two of your hole cards.

7-Card Stud

7-Card Stud is one of the most popular variants of stud poker. The game begins with the dealer dealing two cards face down and one card face up in the Third Street round. Gameplay begins with the player holding the lowest face-up card. This player has to make a bet within the accepted low bet limit. Once this round is complete, the dealer deals out the fourth up to sixth round of cards. The player with the highest face-up card decides the order of betting.

In the final round, the dealer will deal the seventh card face down and all players in the showdown show their poker hands starting with the highest hand. The best 5-card hand wins the game.

Five-Card Draw

Considered the simplest poker variant, five-card draw is the basis of poker. The game begins with players posting an ante, a small forced bet. Then the dealer deals out five cards to each player. In the first round, players place their bets depending on the cards they have. Players who don't fold can discard and replace their cards.

Another round of betting starts, and so on. When more than one player stays in the pot, the showdown will commence. At this point, players compare their hands and the player with the best five-card poker hand wins the game.

Razz

This seven-card stud variation has a twist in that players attempt to have the lowest five-card poker hand. Like 7-card stud, the dealer begins by dealing three cards whereby two are face down and one is face up. This round is referred to as the Third Street. Subsequent rounds will be referred to as Fourth Street up to Seventh Street. After the seventh round, players who don't fold have a total of seven cards, two being hole cards and five being door cards. Players then attempt to create the lowest five-card combination and the player with the lowest hand wins the pot.

Sit and Go

This is a tournament that starts as soon as enough players have joined. It is quite quick as each player leaves once they have run out of chips. The buy-in price is usually low and the minimum number of players the tournament needs to run is often on the small side. Other advantages are that a typical sit and go tournament does not take up too much time and gives prizes to roughly a third of participating players.

Progressive Knockout

When you opt in to a progressive knockout tournament, you have to pay the usual buy-in fee. Half of this goes towards a so-called ‘bounty’ on your head. If you beat another player, you receive half their bounty as cash, while the remaining half goes towards your own bounty. Progressive knockout tournaments are very competitive because players are focusing on eliminating one another, rather than just playing to survive rounds.

Heads-up Poker

In heads-up poker, just two players compete against each other to determine a winner. A heads-up tournament consists of multiple rounds of 1-v-1 games and has three main formats. In the single-elimination format, you are out after one less; if it is a double-elimination tournament, you leave after two losses. The round robin format has all participants play numerous matches to earn points. Only the players with enough points make it to the next round.

Freeroll Poker

You usually have to pay a small fee, the buy-in, to take part in a poker tournament. The house takes a percentage of this and the rest goes towards the prize pool. In a freeroll tournament, there is no buy-in fee, though sometimes you need to make a deposit to qualify for entry. These tournaments are often invite-only, with casinos only sending invitations to regular players.

Bounty

This is any sort of poker tournament where players earn rewards for knocking out other participants. Mystery bounty tournaments are quite popular. In these, you only find out how much a bounty is worth once you have knocked out an opponent. There are also progressive knockout tournaments that we mentioned above and standard knockout tournaments. In standard ones, the bounty is the same for all players regardless of their progress.

Freezeout

In a freezeout tournament, each player starts with the same number of chips. Once they lose all of their chips, they are out. This is different from a rebuy tournament where if you are out, you can buy additional chips and regain your place. When playing a freezeout tournament, players tend to be less risky with their gameplay, especially in the early rounds.