Short Deck Hold‘emfree poker

Short Deck Hold’em is a variation of Texas Hold’em that has been around for several years.

Its origins can be traced back to a VIP room in a Macau casino, where wealthy businessmen sought a faster-paced poker with higher chances of winning, better hands, and greater profitability.

To achieve this, they removed 16 weak cards from the standard Texas Hold’em deck and introduced a rule requiring every player to ante up.

Short-Deck Hold’em Hand Ranking
Royal Flush
Straight Flush
Four of a Kind
Flush
Full House
Straight
Three of a Kind
Two Pair
One Pair
High Card

8 Key Differences

• In Short Deck Hold’em, the standard 52-card deck is reduced by removing the 2s, 3s, 4s, and 5s, leaving only 36 cards in play.
• A flush beats a full house. With the removal of the 2s, 3s, 4s, and 5s, each suit only has 9 cards left, making it harder to hit a flush compared to traditional Texas Hold’em, where each suit has 13 cards.
• There are no traditional small blind and big blind.

Instead, every short deck player must post an ante, which makes the pot odds pre-flop better than in any other poker.

The player on the button is required to post a double ante, effectively acting like “big blind”. The player to the left of the button is considered “Under The Gun” (UTG).

• The lowest card of a straight is A-6-7-8-9, not 6-7-8-9-T. The same applies to a straight flush.
• Straights are easier to make due to the reduced deck size in Short Deck.

As a result, some variations exist where three of a kind beats a straight. However, the most common format still follows the traditional Hold’em where a straight beats three of a kind.

• In Short Deck Hold’em, *starting hands seem stronger pre-flop due to the reduced number of weak cards in the deck, leading to more premium hands. This increases the chances for the weaker side to win，so remember to folding less
• Blockers have more value in Short Deck. The reason for this is because there are fewer cards — 36 to be exact.
• Pre-flop equities run much closer, as each player’s hand is generally stronger on average. As a result, players tend to bet more pre-flop compared to Hold’em, leading to more action before the community cards are dealt.

*Pre-flop Starting Hands in Short Deck Hold’em Are Stronger Than in Traditional Hold’em

Starting Hand	Short Deck Probability	Traditional Hold’em Probability
pocket aces	0.95%	0.45%
pocket pair	8.6%	5.9%
2 suited cards	22.9%	23.5%
ace & king	2.5%	1.2%
jack & ten suited	0.63%	0.30%
2 tens or up	30.2%	14.3%

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