There are many versions of poker. Some players stick to just one version; others like to play many different variants. This page provides a classified index of poker variations whose rules are available on gambiter.com. The columns indicate the type of variant - some belong to several categories. The table includes many invented poker variants, which may be known only to a few players, and have in most cases been contributed by the people or groups who invented them: these are listed in italics.
# A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Poker variants are traditionally classified as draw games, stud games and shared card (community card) games, mainly according to the way the cards are dealt . However, there are variants that fall into more than one of these categories or none of them, and there are other useful but overlapping categories. The table on this page uses the following categories and shows which ones each variant belongs to.
The category links lead to pages dedicated to each type, each page having an index of the variants that belong to that category.
Many home poker players like to be creative and invent their own variants. Some of these new games catch on and become widely known, while most probably continue to be played only by their originators and maybe a few other groups. Since poker variants are continually being created and going in and out of fashion, it is difficult to distinguish between "traditional" poker variants and "invented" variants, some of which may eventually turn out to be as interesting as the traditional ones, if not more so. In the table, invented poker variants, many of which were contributed by their inventors, are listed in italics.
Note: games loosely based on poker in which players do not play against each other but against the house or against a machine, such as Three Card Poker, Caribbean Poker and Video Poker are not listed on this page but will be found in the Banking Games section.
No poker variant collection can be complete - new ones are being developed all the time, and many people have local house rules or may play the same variants but give them different names. Here is a selection of web sites with poker variant rules. If the poker game you are looking for is not listed on gambiter.com, you may find it in one of these other collections.
Blank Frank's Poker Variants is a well organised collection of over 1200 variants classified by type, number of cards per player, max number of players, number of betting rounds and number of wild cards.
Mike's Poker Pages contain a collection of rules for well over 100 poker variants.
Around 40 variants are described on the Home Poker Game Guide at onlinepoker.net, which also has various other poker resources.
Justin du Coeur's Querki has a Poker Variants Space with descriptions of a selection of recommended poker variants.
Archive copy of Peter Sarrett's poker variants collection, whose contents originally formed the basis of the collection here at gambiter.com.
The Mongoose Online Poker Rules site includes descriptions of several Poker Variants as well as links to online poker rooms.
David Lenton's Play Lowball Poker has rules and information for several Lowball games.