by Boris3

Created on: June 16, 2010

Horse poker is a combination of poker games. While playing horse you rotate through five different varieties of poker games. The five games included are limit Texas hold' em, Omaha Hi-Lo, seven card stud high, seven card stud hi-lo and razz. Usually each game is played for one round of blinds. If you have 9 players, you would normally have 9 hands of each game before you move onto the next.

Many people enjoy horse due to the fact that Texas hold em is the game that is almost always played, they get bored of playing only texas hold em and want some variety in their poker play. Twenty percent of horse is texas hold em but its of course split with the other four games.

If you know how to play all five games well you will often have a large advantage against your opponents. They might just be playing for fun or may only know two or three of the games well. While you may not have an edge against them on the games they know, your edge on the games that they are clueless in will often be much larger than normal.

I will explain a lesser known game involved in horse, that game is razz. In razz you are dealt three cards to start, two face-down and one face-up. Your goal in razz is to get as low a hand as possible, and aces play as the lowest card. The best hand in razz is A 2 3 4 5, as you can't use duplicates of cards to improve your hand. You have a chance to bet after receiving each card, you get dealt one card at a time after you receive your first three. All remaining cards are dealt face-up except for your 7th card, the 7th card is the last card you will receive and is dealt to you face down. You can, of course, look at your face-down cards but your opponents do not get to see these cards.

Good starting hands in razz are basically any 3 cards 8 or lower. A couple examples of a good starting hands would be 7 5 3 or 6 4 A, the best starting hand is A 2 3. I hope you have a better idea how to play horse now that you have read this. Horse is a complicated game and it can be difficult to learn all five games, but if you put the time into it, it will prove worthy of your efforts!

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