Short Deck Poker — 6+ Hold'em

• Deck: 36 cards, 6 through A in each suit — no 2s, 3s, 4s or 5s.
• Cards: 2 hole cards each and 5 community cards (flop, turn, river), exactly as in Texas Hold'em.
• Best hand: the best five cards from seven, in any combination.
• Forced bets: in the ante format everyone antes and the button posts a double ante; some tables use normal blinds instead. Betting rounds are the same as Hold'em.
• Low straight: A-6-7-8-9 (the ace plays as a 5).
• Rankings: flush above full house almost everywhere; trips above a straight in most, not all, rulesets.

New to the standard rankings? Start with our poker hand rankings and how to play poker guides first.

Short Deck was born in Hong Kong private clubs a few years back, and quickly became the favorite of elite players like Tom Dwan and Phil Ivey. The reason: fewer cards = more confrontations. Straights and flushes hit more often, pockets make more sets, and no one folds preflop too tightly.

The result: a dynamic, fast, very "postflop-oriented" game. If you're burnt out on regular Hold'em, Short Deck will feel like a fresh spark.

1. Royal Flush — A-K-Q-J-T same suit
2. Straight Flush — 5 in a row, same suit
3. Four of a Kind
4. Flush — 5 same suit (beats Full House!)
5. Full House
6. Straight — including A-6-7-8-9 (A plays as 5)
7. Three of a Kind — (beats a Straight!)
8. Two Pair / Pair / High Card

The reversed hand rankings are not a house rule — they follow directly from the 36-card deck. Each suit holds only 9 cards instead of 13, so there are 4 × C(9,5) = 504 possible flushes. Full houses, by contrast, are barely affected, because every rank still has exactly four cards: 9 × C(4,3) × 8 × C(4,2) = 1,728 combinations. A flush is therefore roughly 3.4 times rarer than a full house, and the ranking order reflects that.

Straights move the other way. With only nine ranks in play (6 through A, with the ace also playing low), there are far fewer gaps to fill, so a straight becomes easier to make than three of a kind. That is why many Short Deck games rank trips above a straight. Rulesets are genuinely not universal: flush over full house is close to standard, but the trips-over-straight rule is not, and some rooms keep the traditional order for straights. Nothing here should be assumed for your table — read the specific game rules in the lobby before your first hand.

Removing 16 cards shrinks the denominator, so every draw becomes stronger. After the flop you have seen five cards, leaving 31 unseen instead of 47. The practical figures:

• Open-ended straight draw (8 outs): about 45.6% from flop to river, versus 31.5% in a full deck.
• Flush draw (only 5 outs, because each suit holds just 9 cards): about 30.1% from flop to river, versus 35.0% in a full deck — flush draws are genuinely weaker here, which is exactly why a made flush is worth more.
• Gutshot (4 outs): about 24.5% from flop to river, versus 16.5% in a full deck.
• One card to come with 8 outs: about 25.8% on the turn, so semi-bluff raises carry far more equity than in Hold'em.

This is the single biggest adjustment for a Hold'em player: draws you would routinely fold to a big bet in a 52-card game are frequently correct calls — and often correct raises — in Short Deck.

• Closer equity: even a "bad" hand like 76s against AK is around 40%. There are very few 80/20 situations, which raises variance and reduces the value of waiting for premiums.
• Stronger draws: an open-ended straight draw is roughly 45.6% to complete by the river. Folding it to a single flop bet is usually a mistake.
• Pocket pairs gain, big cards lose: a pocket pair flops a set about 17% of the time in a 36-card deck, well above the 11.8% of full-deck Hold'em, while AK faces more opponents who connect with the board.
• Suited hands need care: flushes are the second-strongest realistic holding, but with only nine cards per suit you make them less often — do not chase a low flush draw as if it were a Hold'em nut draw.
• More postflop confrontations: pure river bluffs work less often because opponents arrive with more draws and more made hands. Bet for value, semi-bluff with equity.
• Ante Button structure: when everyone antes and only the button pays double, there is a smaller dead pot to steal preflop, so postflop skill matters more than blind stealing.

At ClubGG Israel there are active Short Deck tables at many buy-in levels — from Micro to High Stakes. Community in Hebrew and English, dedicated tournaments, and the best place to get into this format.

Want to start? Join the club.