Guide to the main poker variants

Guide to the main poker variants

Poker nowadays is one of the most played card games in the world, if not the most popular among the thousands of card games out there. For people that are trying to join this wagon however, it’s not very easy to choose a Poker variant, as there are so many types of Poker out there that it makes it very hard to choose which one is the perfect Poker variant for you.

Look no further, because in this simple guide you will learn all you need to know about the main poker variants and we’ll show you which poker games actually use them. At the end if you wish to put this new knowledge to the test, we recommend you to check Easypppoker, where you’ll find the best places to play poker online.

The three main poker variants

Most (if not all) types of poker can be identified as a modified version of one of these 3 variants:

  • Draw poker.
  • Stud poker.
  • Community card poker.

No matter which country you’re reading this guide, you can easily identify which variant each type of poker fits in comparing it to these three. Every poker game has each set of rules, but they will always be a interpretation of one of the three variants but with a few twists and new rules.

Draw poker

The most common variant and perhaps easiest to learn how to play, this variant is slowly declining it’s popularity thanks to the rise of more demanded types of poker that do not fit in this category. Draw poker main rule, as the name implies, is to draw a certain amount of cards and try to form your poker hard. Usually you’ll also be able to discard and replace cards to improve your hand.

The most popular example of a poker game that is considered a draw poker variant is Five-card Draw (or Cantrell Draw). In Five-card Draw, each player gets 5 cards and in a “Draw” phase they can discard any of the cards to get replacements (ending the “Draw” turn always with 5 cards). At the end of that draw, the “Showdown” happens, where the remaining players compare their hands.

Stud poker

Our second main variant, there are two significant differences between Stud poker and Draw poker: Usually you won’t draw all cards at once, instead a certain amount of cards are drawn, mixed with face-up and face-down cards. No cards can be discarded, while you’re getting new cards, new betting rounds begins. Because of the face-up cards being visible for every player on the table, this offers a new layer of strategy, as you’re betting having a slight idea of what the opponent’s hands might contain.

A popular stud poker game is Five-card Stud. In this version you get 2 cards at the beginning, this first one is face-down and the second is face-up. After the betting phase ends, a new card is drawn face-up and so on, until each player has 5 cards: 2 face-down (the first and fifth card) and 3 face-up.

Community card poker

For last but not least, the third and final variant is community card poker. It’s very easy to compare community card with stud, which the main difference being the face-up cards are put on the table and shared by every player. Each player will have a incomplete set amout of cards in hand and they will try to match poker hands.

The most popular type of poker based on comunity card poker and perhaps the currently most popular in the world is Texas hold ‘em. In this version, each player is dealt 2 cards and a betting phase begins. After that, “the Flop” is shown (the first 3 cards on the table) and a new betting phase starts. This repeats two more times with “the Turn” (fourth card) and “the River” (fifth card).