• Pokerstars 6 Plus Holdem Tournaments
• Pokerstars 6 Plus Holdem Odds
• Pokerstars 6 Plus Holdem Games
• Pokerstars 6 Plus Holdem Card Game

6+ Hold'em is played six-handed and uses a Button Blind - a unique feature to PokerStars This is the same format used in the high stakes short deck games. PokerStars is the only place that uses that format online. Differences in 6+ Hold'em play. Six Plus Hold’em (Short Deck Poker) Among Latest PokerStars Offerings PokerStars appears to be bringing the popular new poker variant, Six Plus Hold’em or Short Deck Poker, to its platform soon, according to a report at PokerFuse. Discover 6+ Hold'em and start playing short deck poker games at PokerStars. Available exclusively at PokerStars 6+ Hold’em is your chance to play an action-packed variant loved by high-stakes players around the world. The Rules of 6+ Hold’em All 6+ Hold’em games use a 36-card deck (with all cards lower than a 6 removed), which is shuffled before every hand is dealt. Data diggers have found new PokerStars graphics files that are waiting for an update, indicating that the poker site's next game will be Six-Plus Hold'em.

In August and September 2018, PokerStars began to leak information about Six Plus Hold’em, one of the many new poker variants being introduced to the online poker community. The year was full of game rollouts and testing periods, but Six Plus Hold’em – also known in many circles as Short Deck Hold’em – had been a favorite of high-stakes players for some time and drew the interest of a much larger group of poker enthusiasts.

The first site to bring the game to American players via a full rollout of games was Americas Cardroom, which introduced Six Plus Hold’em to its online poker lobby on September 10.

Pokerstars 6 Plus Holdem Tournaments

While PokerStars likes to be first, the site developers ultimately decided it would be better to offer a bigger rollout, one that would land on its own in the new year. So, as of January 15, 6+ Hold’em made its debut on PokerStars for real-money and play-money, both on desktop and mobile, and in a variety of stakes for a range of players to be able to experiment with it.

Within days, 6+ Hold’em was available on the dot-net and dot-com platforms, as well as the dot-EU, dot-UK, dot-SE, dot-DK, and dot-EE.

It's time to crank up the excitement… 6+ Hold'em is NOW LIVE and ready for action. ?? Visit https://t.co/w9oJ1KVFUA for a lowdown on the rules and then go find out why this short deck game has become so popular with poker fans. pic.twitter.com/0mYqSjMH3Y

— PokerStars (@PokerStars) January 16, 2019

Not Just Another Hold’em Game

Pokerstars 6 Plus Holdem Odds

Also known in some circles as Short Deck Hold’em, 6+ Hold’em uses some of the basics of hold’em but plays with a short deck. All numbered cards lower than six are removed, making the deck consist of only 36 cards.

The game is played with a different structure than Hold’em, as there are no small and big blinds, only a blind paid on the button and an ante for all players in every hand. Action starts with the player to the left of the button. Otherwise, the betting rounds are the same, with pre-flop, flop, turn, and river rounds.

The hand rankings are also slightly different, in that a flush beats a full house. However, flushes are rarer since there are only nine cards of each suit in the 36-card deck. Aces can be high or low, though the low ace now forms a low straight of A-6-7-8-9.

Yessss! And in this version a straight beats trips ✅ https://t.co/HZdbTnEwXH

— Jennifer Shahade (@JenShahade) January 16, 2019

The new rankings, from top to bottom, are:

Royal flush

Straight flush

Four of a kind

Flush

Full house

Straight

Three of a kind

Two pair

One pair

High card

To start, the game will only be available in six-handed format. In addition, there are time penalties issued for sitting out of hands, and the cumulative penalties are in place to prohibit players from watching too long without playing a hand, as well as to keep players from searching for “soft” tables. Automatic seating is in place.

New Game, New Strategies

With fewer cards, flushes over full houses, and a different blind structure, players will need to alter their traditional Hold’em strategies in order to improve their play.

We've got not one, not two, but THREE new strategy articles to help you crush the 6+ Hold'em tables. Find them here – https://t.co/p5UNVWnGy3pic.twitter.com/eCkkjycpaP

— PokerStars School (@StarsSchool) January 19, 2019

Pre-flop gameplay needs to consider all of the above, specifically that flushes are more difficult to find and top pairs are weaker. Pocket pairs are not as valuable because straights are more common than full houses, and overpairs become easier to beat with a variety of hands.

After the flop, it is vital to become familiar with the number of outs available. There are also certain hands that may look good – one or two pairs, trips, and big kickers – but they are all easy to overplay.

More to Come

As more players become familiar with 6+ Hold’em, there will be more Twitch streams and YouTube tutorials. And while there are some strategy pieces at the PokerStars School online, more will be available in the coming weeks.

PokerStars Director of Poker Product Chris Straghalis noted, “6+ is an exciting poker variant that often produces big hands and a lot of action, so we’re excited to bring it to the tables. While the format has proven popular with high stakes players, the range of stakes available on PokerStars and similarities to hold’em mean that it should appeal to those who may want to try a new game but don’t want something too different. We’re looking forward to seeing what people think.”

Related Articles

Pokerstars 6 Plus Holdem Games

As they are wont to do, the good folks over at PokerFuse have combed the pre-downloaded graphics for an upcoming PokerStars update and have found that the next – and likely temporary – cash game on the world’s largest online poker site will be Six-Plus Hold’em. PokerFuse previously broke the news of Split Hold’em, Showtime Hold’em, and Unfold by finding table graphics before they were actually being used. The former two games were limited-time offerings while Unfold is meant to be a permanent addition to PokerStars’ lineup.

I wrote about Six-Plus Hold’em two and a half years ago when it was introduced by the iPoker Network (Ladbrokes, William Hill, Titan Poker, etc.). It took root in the poker world in the high stakes cash games in Macau about three years ago and has been hyped in the time since by people like Phil Ivey.

Six-Plus Hold’em is Hold’em But…Smaller?

To be perfectly honest, I had never heard of Six-Plus Hold’em before the iPoker Network launched its games. I thought it might have been some crazy Omaha variation where players got six hole cards instead of four. But I was wrong. Six-Plus Hold’em, also referred to as Short Deck Hold’em, is a regular hold’em game in which the twos, threes, fours, and fives are removed from the deck. As a result, all the cards have values of six or greater, which is where the name comes from.

As the deck size is smaller and the lowest cards are gone, relative hand strengths have changed. Most specifically, flushes have gotten stronger because they are harder to hit and on the opposite side of the coin, straights are weaker because they are more common.

Here is how the hand rankings breakdown in a regular game versus a Six-Plus Hold’em game:

Pokerstars 6 Plus Holdem Card Game

Regular: Royal Flush, Straight Flush, Four of a Kind, Full House, Flush, Straight, Three of a Kind, Two Pair, Pair, High Card

Six-Plus Hold’em: Royal Flush, Straight Flush, Four of a Kind, Flush, Full House, Three of a Kind, Straight, Two Pair, Pair, High Card

In Six-Plus Hold’em, a flush is stronger than a full house and a straight is weaker than a three of a kind.

The Math Checks Out

Logically, it makes sense. The new deck has 36 cards, as 16 have been removed. There are 9 cards of each suit in the deck. If someone flops four to a flush, they have 5 outs out of 31 remaining unknown cards. After the turn, they have 5 outs out of 30 remaining unknown cards. In a normal game, someone with a flush draw on the flop has 9 outs out of 47 unknown cards or 9 outs out of 46 unknowns on the river. There is a better chance in a regular hold’em game to hit a flush than it is in a Six-Plus Hold’em game.

Because an Ace can still complete the top or bottom end of a straight (the “wheel” would therefore be A-6-7-8-9), a player with a straight draw still has the same number of outs they had before, but with a smaller deck. Thus, it the odds of making a straight improve in Six-Plus Hold’em.

It is not known when Six-Plus Hold’em will be rolled out, but history has shown that it usually happens fairly soon after the graphics are pre-loaded.