How to Play Psycho Hold Em Poker

Are you looking to spice up your evening of five card draw poker? Well, then you should give Psycho Poker a try. It is a variation of five card draw poker that actually combines five card draw poker with seven card stud poker. It reduces the luck of seven card stud poker by using the draw option from five card draw poker. Meanwhile, Pyscho Poker avoids the limitations of five card draw poker by allowing a player to make their best poker hand from a total of seven cards. This combination of poker games manages to make Psycho Poker a great “change of pace” poker variation for your home poker night.

Difficulty: Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Playing cards
• Poker table
• Chairs
• Opponents
• Poker chips

1. Organize a home poker game for your friends, including the Psycho Poker variation. Psycho Poker is a game for smaller home poker nights. Due to the fact that there is a drawing round, you can only have a total of five players in a game of Psycho Poker. This makes Psycho Poker a great choice when you only have a small number of friends to play with, or you are waiting for others to arrive.

2. Deal five face down cards to each player at the table. The players at the table may look at their own cards once everyone has received five cards.

3. Conduct the first wagering round of the game. The player to the left of the dealer begins this wagering round.

4. Discard up to two cards from your hand. Each player may discard up to two cards from their hand.

5. Deal a number of face-down cards to each player that is equal to the number of cards they discarded. Once each player has received these cards, they may view their five cards that make up their hand. Direct each player to place any three cards from their hand that they wish face-up.

6. Conduct a second wagering round. The player with the best face-up hand begins the wagering for this round.

7. Deal a face up card to each player. At this point, each player will have two face-down cards and four face-up cards.

8. Conduct another wagering round with the player with the best face-up poker hand beginning the wagering.

9. Deal a face-down card to each player--that has not folded--as their seventh card in the game.

10. Conduct a final wagering round. The same player that began the last wagering round begins this one. If that player folded, the next player remaining in the game to the left of that player begins the wagering.

11. Reveal your hand. Each player reveals their poker hand and declares their hand using five of the seven cards they were dealt. The best poker hand wins the pot.

Tips & Warnings

• Psycho Poker can be a lot of fun when your friends are bored with one variation of poker. This game tends to have larger pots than some others as there are five wagering rounds in the game.
• Remember that this game can not be played with more than five players in it’s standard variation. If you wish to limit the players to discarding one card in the five card draw segment of the game you can play with six players.