Short deck poker — sold in most lobbies as 6+ Hold’em — is No-Limit Hold’em played with a 36-card deck, because every deuce, three, four and five has been pulled out. Two rules change as a direct result: a flush beats a full house, and the small blind/big blind pair is replaced by a compulsory ante from everyone plus a single blind posted by the button. Everything else — hole cards, four streets, no-limit betting — you already know.
The variant did not come out of a Las Vegas cardroom. It grew out of high-stakes cash games in Macau in the late 2000s and spread through Asian casino floors long before Western TV noticed it, which is why Asian players tend to hit it earlier in their poker lives than American or European ones do.
Pull out 16 cards and the maths bends
A 36-card deck sounds like a small edit. It isn’t. With 34 unseen cards instead of 50 after you look at your hand, every draw you know from Hold’em gets fatter:
- Pocket pair flopping a set: roughly 17%, up from about 12%.
- Open-ended straight draw, flop to river: roughly 46%, up from about 32%.
- Being dealt pocket aces: about 0.95% a hand — more than twice as often as the 0.45% you get with 52 cards.
Flushes move the other way. Nine cards per suit instead of thirteen makes them scarce enough that the ranking chart was rewritten to put them above full houses. The lowest straight also shifts: with no five in the deck, the wheel becomes A-6-7-8-9, the ace sliding down to fill the gap.
The practical consequence is that top pair top kicker — the hand that wins you money for years in Hold’em — is close to worthless here. Two pair arrives constantly. Straights arrive constantly. If you sit down and keep three-betting for value with A-K, you will pay for the lesson.
The button blind is doing more work than you think
Most short deck games use a button blind structure: every player at the table posts an ante, and the player on the button posts the only blind. Natural8’s short deck tables run this way, as do GGPoker’s.
Because everyone has money in before cards are dealt, the pot is meaningfully large relative to the blind on every single hand. Preflop pots get contested harder, all-ins happen earlier, and the button — already the best seat in poker — gets an extra incentive to open wide because they are buying a pot that seven or eight antes have already built. Tight, wait-for-a-hand poker bleeds antes faster than it wins pots.
Check the ranking chart before your first hand
Here is the trap that catches good Hold’em players. Flush-over-full-house is near-universal, but trips versus straight is not settled. Some rooms and some live games rank three of a kind above a straight, on the logic that straights are now the easier hand to make. Others keep the Hold’em order and leave the straight on top. Both rulesets are in active use.
So read the table’s info or rules tab in the client before you play a hand, and in a live room ask the dealer. This is not a detail you want to discover on the river of a big pot. If you are learning the game from strategy content, check which ruleset the author assumed too — the correct play with a set on a straight-y board is genuinely different between the two.
Where the games actually are
Online, short deck is concentrated in exactly the rooms Asian players already use. GGPoker and Natural8 both run it as a permanent cash game format — GGPoker’s own introduction to short deck is a reasonable starting point — and WPT Global and CoinPoker have carried it too. Traffic peaks in APAC evening hours rather than European ones, which is unusual and genuinely useful: the games are best when you are actually awake for them. If you want a sense of how these formats sit alongside the rest of a room’s offering, our breakdown of Rush & Cash on GGPoker covers the other format Asian grinders live in.
Live, the game’s home tour is Triton. Its 2018 series ran the first televised short deck events — Phil Ivey took the HK$250,000 short deck ante-only tournament for US$617,396 — and short deck has stayed on the schedule since, alongside Hold’em, at stops across Asia and Europe. Our Triton Poker Series guide has the format breakdown. Cash games run in Macau and Manila, though the meaningful action tends to sit at stakes most recreational players will never sit in.
If the blocker is getting money onto a site rather than the rules, message @PAGDaddyBot — it will tell you which payment routes are live for your country right now. Our GGPoker deposit walkthrough for Asia covers the manual version.
The swings are the actual barrier
Nobody warns new short deck players about variance properly. Equities run much closer together preflop — hands that would be 80/20 in Hold’em are often 60/40 here — so being right about the strength of your hand converts into money far more slowly. Add the forced ante on every hand and short deck produces bigger downswings, in hands and in buy-ins, than the same stake of No-Limit Hold’em. Plan a deeper bankroll than your Hold’em one, not the same size.
Frequently asked questions
Does a flush really beat a full house in short deck poker?
Yes. With only nine cards per suit in a 36-card deck, flushes are harder to make than full houses, so the ranking was inverted to match the real probabilities. This applies in effectively every short deck game you will find.
What is the lowest straight in 6+ Hold’em?
A-6-7-8-9. The five has been removed from the deck, so the ace plays low in its place to form the smallest straight.
Why is there only one blind in short deck?
Most short deck games use a button blind: every player antes and only the button posts a blind. It puts more dead money in every pot than a small/big blind structure does, which is what makes the game aggressive.
Does three of a kind beat a straight in short deck?
It depends on the ruleset. Some rooms and live games rank trips above straights because straights are easier to make with 36 cards; others keep the standard Hold’em order. Always check the table rules before you play.
Can I play short deck poker online from Asia?
Yes. GGPoker and Natural8 both offer 6+ Hold’em cash games, and WPT Global and CoinPoker have run it as well. Traffic is strongest during APAC evening hours.
Is short deck poker easier than Texas Hold’em?
It is easier to make a big hand and harder to know whether your big hand is good. Fewer players study it seriously, so the fields can be softer, but the closer preflop equities mean your edge shows up more slowly.
Can I use my Texas Hold’em starting hand ranges?
No. Suited connectors and small pairs gain value, offsuit broadway hands lose it, and A-K is nothing like the premium it is in Hold’em. Ranges need to be wider and far more connected.