Short Deck Poker (6+ Hold'em): Rules, Rankings & Computed Odds

Short deck exploded out of Asian high-stakes cash games into the Triton Super High Roller Series, and it is the rare variant where the rankings themselves change. Most articles just assert the new order; we verified every change by enumerating the deck. All numbers below are computed — exact enumeration for the rankings, two million simulated runouts per matchup for the equities.

The rules in 60 seconds

• • 36-card deck — remove every 2, 3, 4 and 5. Lowest card is a 6; ranks run 6-7-8-9-T-J-Q-K-A.
• • Same hand structure as hold'em — 2 hole cards, 5 community cards, four betting rounds, best 5-card hand at showdown. If you know hold'em you already know how a hand plays out (new to that? Start with Poker 101).
• • Ante structure — most games have every player post an ante, and only the button posts an extra button blind. Preflop action starts left of the button. Some rooms deal it with regular blinds instead; check before you sit.
• • Ace plays high and low — T-J-Q-K-A is the top straight, and A-6-7-8-9 is the new "wheel" (nine-high straight), exactly as the ace plays low against the 2 in full-deck hold'em.
• • Two ranking changes — flush beats full house everywhere; and under the standard modern (Triton) rules a straight still beats three of a kind, though some house rules flip that too. Both changes trace to the math below.

Short-deck hand rankings (with the exact counts)

Poker rankings follow rarity. Here is every 5-card hand category with the exact number of ways to make it — all 376,992 five-card combinations from a 36-card deck, against all 2,598,960 from a full deck. Read the flush and full house rows:

With only 9 cards per suit, there are just C(9,5) − 6 = 120 non-straight flushes per suit — 480 flushes total against 1,728 full houses. Flushes are ~3.6x rarer, so they rank higher. In a full deck the numbers reverse (5,108 flushes vs 3,744 full houses), which is why regular hold'em ranks the full house on top. Same logic, different deck. For the standard 52-card order, see the hand rankings chart or test any two hands in Which Hand Wins (both use full-deck rules).

The trips-vs-straight debate, settled with a count

You may see older short-deck games rank three of a kind above a straight. The argument: in a 7-card game, straights become extremely common. Our enumeration of all 8,347,680 seven-card short-deck combinations confirms it — here is how often each category is your best hand by the river:

A straight is your best 7-card hand 14.0% of the time in short deck — three times its full-deck rate and nearly twice as common as trips (7.3%). That is why some rule sets promote trips. The dominant modern rules (Triton, most online rooms) keep the classic straight-over-trips order anyway, because the 5-card combinatorics above still make straights rarer (6,120 vs 16,128). Practical takeaway either way: straights are everywhere in this game, so a bare set is far less safe than your hold'em instincts suggest.

Equity differences: everything runs closer

Removing 16 low cards means more live cards, more connected boards, and much closer all-in equities. These are exact, not simulated: every possible board is dealt for every suit-distinct version of each matchup, with the site's evaluator adapted to 36 cards and short-deck rankings applied. Ties are split, so each row sums to 100%.

Three headlines. First, the classic flip inverts: AK suited is a 53.7% favorite over QQ (it wins only 46.1% with a full deck). Second, suited connectors gain the most— JTs jumps from 21.2% to 36.8% against aces. Third, even AA vs KK tightens from 81.9% to 74.6%. Preflop "dominance" is worth much less; multi-street playability is worth much more. For full-deck equities you can test any matchup in the odds calculator — note it uses the standard 52-card deck, not short-deck rules.

Drawing odds: use the rule of 3 and 6

Fewer unseen cards make every out more valuable. These are exact (combinatorial) numbers:

In full-deck hold'em you estimate equity with the rule of 2 and 4 — outs × 2% per card, × 4% for two cards. In short deck each out is worth ~3.2% per card (1 of the 31 cards unseen on the flop, instead of 1 of 47), so multiply outs by 3 for one card and 6 for two. An open-ender is nearly a coin flip to get there by the river. The glaring exception is the flush draw: holding two suited cards with two more on board leaves only fiveflush outs, so it completes less often than in regular hold'em — even though the flush you make now beats a full house.

Strategy adjustments for hold'em players

• ✓ Upgrade suited connectors and broadways, downgrade mid pairs. JTs at 36.8% vs AA is the poster child — connected high cards make straights in a game where straights are the most common big hand. Mid pairs lose their flip equity against AK-type hands.
• ✓ Set-mine more, stack off with sets less. You flop a set 17.1% of the time (vs 11.8%), but straights land 14% of rivers, so a naked set on a connected board is a bluff-catcher far more often than in hold'em.
• ✓ Respect the flush like the near-nuts. Only 480 five-card flushes exist; a flush loses only to quads and straight flushes. Conversely, chasing one is slower — 5 outs, 30.1% by the river.
• ✓ Play bigger pots in position, smaller preflop. With equities this close, raw preflop edges shrink and playability dominates — the same logic behind position in hold'em, amplified.
• ✓ Budget for bigger swings. Closer equities mean more all-ins get called and more coolers run both ways. If your hold'em bankroll plan is tight, size it with the variance calculator in mind — short deck runs hotter and colder than the 100bb/100 cash-game baseline.

Where these numbers come from

• • Hand counts: exact enumeration of every 5-card (376,992) and 7-card (8,347,680) combination from a 36-card deck, and of every 5-card (2,598,960) and 7-card (133,784,560) combination from a 52-card deck, using this site's hand evaluator adapted to 9 ranks with the ace playing low in A-6-7-8-9. No sampling — these are complete counts.
• • Equities: exact, not simulated. For each matchup we enumerate every suit-distinct pairing of the two hand classes (suit-isomorphism reduction, weighted by class size) and every board from the remaining deck — C(32,5) = 201,376 boards per short-deck pairing, C(48,5) = 1,712,304 per full-deck pairing. Ties are split evenly, so both columns sum to 100%.
• • Draw odds: closed-form combinatorics (e.g. set on flop = 1 − C(32,3)/C(34,3) = 17.1%).
• • Ranking rules used: flush > full house, straight > trips (Triton order). Under trips->straight house rules the equity numbers shift slightly.

Common questions