If you were to take a trip to the Far East and head to the largest gambling centre in the world, Macau, and head onto the Texas Hold’em tables, then you would find that many players in that part 
of the world play a different version of the game to what we are used to back here in the UK.
Well now, you won’t have to make that long-distance trip to play this new variation of the game as from the 22nd February, Bet365 Poker, as well as other casinos part of the iPoker network, will be releasing the eagerly anticipated Six Plus Hold’em to UK audiences and beyond.
Last time there was a big release for a new version of poker, it was Twister Poker that hit casinos and that has proven to be a massive success with players the length and breadth of the country. Will the new Six Plus Hold’em prove to be equally as popular?
Let’s find out a little more about this new version of the game.
What is Six Plus Hold’em?
The first thing to note is that Six Plus Hold’em’s game mechanics are exactly the same as a traditional game of Texas Hold’em. A game starts with the two blind bets being made, then each player receives their two hole cards.
There then follows a round of betting, followed by the flop. Then another round of betting follows and then the fourth community card, the turn is shown. The penultimate round of betting follows this card followed by the fifth and final community card, the river. A final round of betting follows and if two or more players remain in the hand beyond this point, the winner is decided at the showdown when players reveal their hands.
So, there’s no difference in how a hand of Six Plus Hold’em progresses compared to Texas Hold’em, so what is the key difference?
That difference is that in Six Plus Hold’em, there are only 36 cards in the pack as the cards ranked from 2 through to 5 of each suit are removed from the pack. The omission of these 16 lower value cards means that players are making hands using 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, J, Q, K and A of each suit.
What effect does removing the lower value cards from the pack have?
There are several things that happen when you remove the 16 lowest value cards from the pack and play Six Plus Hold’em as opposed to the traditional version of the game.
The first thing that you will need to know is that removing these cards alters the hand rankings when it comes to the game. When you take these cards out of the pack, it is now easier to get a Full House than it is a Flush (A flush can now only be made from nine cards, not 13) and in addition, it is easier to hit a straight run of cards than it is to land a Three of a Kind hand.
As such, the hand rankings in a game of Six Plus Hold’em are:
- Royal Flush
- Straight Flush
- Four of a Kind
- Flush
- Full House
- Three of a Kind
- Straight
- Two Pair
- Pair
- High Card
Of course this means that unlike the typical Texas Hold’em, a Flush beat’s a full house and a Three of a Kind beats a straight.
In addition to this, there is one other key difference that removing the four low value cards of each suit from the pack has and that is in the relative strength of hands in play at the table.
By having fewer lower value cards available, the chances of hitting a pair or better hand in Six Plus Hold’em is higher. For example, in traditional poker your chances of having pocket aces as your starting hand is around one in 220, however in Six Plus Hold’em, it is around 1 in 105.
In addition to you having better hands more often, this also applies to your opponents, so you will need to be aware that the lower ranking hands may not be as strong as they are in the traditional version of the game. Your betting strategy will need to reflect this.
Are there any other special rules I need to know about in Six Plus Hold’em?
The only other key rule you need to know about Six Plus Hold’em concerns the value of the Ace and how it is used in straights.
In the typical version of Texas Hold’em, you can use an Ace at the end of a 10, J, Q, K straight to complete, or you can use it as a low card alongside the 2, 3, 4 and 5 to complete.
In Six Plus Hold’em the same rules applies, only in addition to the high value option, you can also use the Ace to complete a straight from 6 onwards, so Ace, 6, 7, 8, 9 would be a low value straight.
Will my Texas Hold’em strategies work with Six Plus Hold’em?
In short, there are enough similarities between the game to state that your Texas Hold’em strategies should still be useful in the Six Plus Hold’em version of the game, however you are going to have to slightly tweak them when it comes to playing the mid to lower value hands.
The reason for this is that more players will hold better value hands more often and in the traditional version of the game, where a relatively high pair may be enough to win a hand, this is not always likely to be the case in Six Plus Hold’em where a player is likely to have a stronger hand more often.
As such, it makes sense to adjust your strategy to make stronger bets only when you hold relatively high ranking hands and to avoid speculating and wagering too much when you only have a relatively low ranking hand.
When can I play Six Plus Hold’em?
You can play Six Plus Hold’em at selected casinos part of the iPoker network from the 22nd February 2016, with other casinos electing to let the new version of the game go live on the 29th February.
