How to Play No Holds Barred Poker

The popularity of both poker and wrestling seems to have increased at the same time. Therefore, it should be no surprise that there is a game that combines poker with the theme of wrestling: No Holds Barred Poker. There are eight wild cards in the game, reducing the amount of strategy and also increasing the amount of high hands in the game. No Holds Barred Poker is a good game to player either very early or late in an evening of home poker.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Playing cards
• Poker chips

1. Invite a group of friends to your house to get together for a night of home poker variations. You can involve as many as 11 players in a game of No Holds Barred Poker, but because of the large number of wild cards, it works best with smaller groups of five to seven players.

2. Deal four cards face down to each player after everyone at the table has anted. Next deal the community cards. These are dealt into the center of the table face down. They are dealt with one row of three cards, one row of two cards (with no center card), and a second row of three cards. These community cards form a square ring, contributing to the wrestling theme of No Holds Barred Poker.

3. Allow each player to look at the four cards in his personal hand. Tell everyone they will be allowed to combine these four cards with any three touching community cards to form his best five card hand. Also let every player know that the four corner community cards will be considered wild if used in his hand, but cards that match the corner cards are not wild.

4. Conduct the first wagering round. The player sitting to the left of the dealer begins this wagering round.

5. Flip over the first row of community cards, and conduct a second wagering round. The player sitting two seats to the left of the dealer starts this wagering round.

6. Flip over the second row of community cards, remember this row is made up of just two cards. Once again a wagering round is conducted, this time started by the player three seats to the left of the dealer.

7. Flip the bottom row of community cards over, allowing players to see all the community cards in the game. Conduct a final round of wagering, with the player four seats to the left of the dealer starting the betting.

8. Reveal the cards, declare the hands and determine the winner. Each player that has not folded now reveals her cards and announces which of the three community cards she will use to form her hand. The player with the best poker hand wins the entire pot.

Tips & Warnings

• Because all players must use three community cards from the table, they will only be able to use two cards from their own hands.
• Any player using two corner cards in his hand will have two wild cards out of his five-card hand.
• If a player declares a hand using three community cards that are not touching each other, a penalty is imposed. The typical penalty is that the player must fold immediately and pay a financial penalty into that hand’s pot. The usual financial penalty is one of the highest value chips in the game.