Poker with Two Hands
Introduction
In the poker variants on this page each player divides his or her cards into two hands. Familiarity with the general rules of poker is assumed.
Other games that require players to partition their cards into two or more poker hands include:
- Pai Gow Poker, in which players play against a banker rather than against each other, making it unsuitable as a poker variant;
- Chinese poker, a game for four players, all against all, with fixed payouts rather than poker-style betting.
Henway
This is a split pot game for not more than 5 players, who place an ante and are then dealt ten cards each.
All players split their cards into two five-card hands and arrange the cards of each hand in whatever order they desire.
All players turn the first cards of both their hands face up and there is a betting round. This is repeated for the second, third and fourth cards. After the fourth betting round the final cards are turned face up and the owners of the highest and lowest hand split the pot.
Ten-card Regrets
This is another split pot game for not more than 5 players, each of whom will build two 5-card hands: a low hand on the left and a high hand on the right.
After the players have placed their ante, two cards are dealt to each, and they decide whether to place these cards in their left hand, their right hand or one to each. When all are ready, all turn their cards face up and there is a round of betting.
Two more cards are dealt to each player, assigned to the left or right hand and turned face up, and there is a second round of betting.
This process is repeated until everyone has two five-card hands. Cards once assigned to left or right can never be moved, and neither hand can have more than five cards.
The pot is split between the lowest of the left hands and the highest of the right hands. Note that a left hand cannot win high and a right hand cannot win low.
Variation: Seven-card Regrets. Players are dealt one card at a time and decide whether to keep and reveal it or to discard it. Seven cards each are dealt in total, of which two must be discarded. The highest five-card hand wins the pot. This can be played by up to 7 players.
Cowpie Poker
The deal and betting are as in Seven-Card Stud: ante; deal each player two cards down and one up to each player; bet; deal a fourth card to each player face up; bet; deal a fifth card face up; bet; deal a sixth card face up; bet; deal a seventh card face down; bet.
Now the players split their cards into a 5-card hand and a 2-card hand, keeping face up cards face up and face sown cards face down. The 5-card hand must be better than the 2-card hand and each hand must contain at least one face down card. There is one more betting round, after which there is a showdown in which the pot is split between the best 5-card hand and the best 2-card hand.