whats your favourite poker variation

I must admit im partial to a bit of chinese poker. im a regular texas hold em player, as well as dabbling in five card stud. bit for fun nothing beats omaha hi-lo.

Quote: Croupier

I must admit im partial to a bit of chinese poker. im a regular texas hold em player, as well as dabbling in five card stud. bit for fun nothing beats omaha hi-lo.

I can see why the casinos might like texas hold-em, look at how many players can be seated at a table! And now the TV poker really has focused the tournaments on texas hold-em. But we have found at our local "friendly" private poker games that hold-em gets the thumbs down as too boring. Seven or 6 card stud [with variations] rules there!

One of these days I'm going to have to ask the Wizard or some Poker Potentate if he agrees that hi-lo 7 card stud with a "declare" is the most difficult poker game ever invented! In hi-lo the wisdom amongst better players is that splitting the pot so monumentally reduces the reward that you fold without a smoking starting hand for high, and work otherwise only very good potential low hands that could also develop into high hands. The problem, though, is in a "declare" game there is also a jockeying for position as to who will *stay* in the hand, as it certainly is frequent that the showdown will be reduced to 3 players... one of those players may only need to guess that the other two are going to both declare high so he just goes low! [or vice versa] So there is a great tension between staying in to possibly weasel into half the pot, or otherwise getting out early because, without a declare, it is often the best move [in our games the ante is often modest].

My two cents. Don't see declare games in a Casino, do you? I believe it is always "cards speak". Love poker.

Hi-low “declare” seven-card stud is one of my favorites. As you said, predicting how many people will go each way is part of the fun. I don’t know if this is a common rule, but in Orange County we played that can call “both ways,” but if you do, you have to win both to collect, otherwise you win neither.

Another favorite of mine is guts.

Quote: Wizard

... call “both ways,” but if you do, you have to win both to collect, otherwise you win neither.

Another favorite of mine is guts.

Oh yes! must be universal!

I always enjoy playing Chicago for just a friendly game of cards.

Omaha Variants that involved more than 4 cards.

I enjoy Omaha Hi-Lo, but I think 7 Stud Hi-Lo is even more fun. Figuring out the low is so much fun with all those exposed cards.