Short Deck Hold’em, also called Six Plus Hold’em, is played like Texas Hold’em but with a 36-card deck: all the 2s, 3s, 4s and 5s are removed. Each player still gets two hole cards and makes the best five-card hand with the board.
How the hand rankings change
With fewer cards, some hands become rarer, so the rankings change. In the most common rule set:
- Royal flush
- Straight flush
- Four of a kind
- Flush — now beats a full house, because flushes are harder to make with only nine cards per suit
- Full house
- Three of a kind — in many games now beats a straight
- Straight
- Two pair
- One pair
- High card
House rules vary, especially on trips vs straights, so check before you play. Compare with standard hand rankings.
The ace plays low as well
The ace can count as low in a straight: A-6-7-8-9 is the lowest straight.
Betting and antes
Short Deck is usually played with antes from every player and a button blind, rather than the normal small and big blinds. Pots start bigger, which encourages action.
How strategy changes
- Hands run much closer. AK vs a pair, and many draws, are near coin flips.
- Straight draws get stronger. An open-ended draw still has 8 outs, but in a much smaller deck, so it hits more often than in Hold’em.
- Flush draws get weaker. With only nine cards per suit, a flush draw has just 5 outs instead of 9.
- Set-mining is stronger, and hands like AK lose value relative to Hold’em.
Track Short Deck sessions separately in the free poker tracker; the variance is much higher than normal Hold’em.