Understanding HORSE Poker Rules

There are many reasons as to why this might be so, but in the opinion of most poker experts it is because the average poker player is becoming more sophisticated. Poker used to be won by the people that knew the right starting hands, but now being a winning poker player requires a lot more than that and that is precisely why games like horse that are far more sophisticated are getting to be more popular.

If you want to become a horse poker player, the first thing you need to do is understand the poker rules. The game of poker is what is known as a forced rotation game. This means that rather than the dealer deciding which game you are going to play and rather than you playing the same game for each hand that you are at a particular table, the game is rotated between hands at set intervals that everyone knows about before the game starts. No matter what else happens in hands and in between hands, the rotation from one game to the other will take place at the exact same time intervals. This is what is meant by the term forced rotation.

There are five poker variants that are played through in horse poker and they are hold em, omaha/8, razz, seven card stud and seven card stud/8. The acronym horse poker comes from taking the first letter in each name and the second letter in seven card stud/8 and it is perhaps the most prestigious tournament in the world, even more so than the main event at the world series of poker. As previously mentioned, horse poker rules dictate a forced rotation. In cash games, this usually happens every 1-3 rotations around the table and in tournaments it usually happens every level. In other words, every time the blinds go up, a rotation occurs from one poker variant to the next. In tournaments, the final table is usually one of no limit texas hold em as opposed to the limit variant that was played throughout the rest of the tournament.

Now that you know the basic horse poker rules, one thing should be absolutely obvious to you. In order to be a good poker player, you are going to need to be a good player in five different poker variants. You might be able to get away with one weakness if you accumulate chips through the other rounds and then fold your way through the weak game whenever it comes up, but if you have two or more weaknesses out of the five games (and in some cases even if you have just the one weakness), you will get eaten alive by the other players. Horse poker is not a game for the faint-hearted and that is why the wsop bracelet for horse is sought after by the best players in the world.