The world’s leading online poker room PokerStars has launched a 6+ Hold’em (Short Deck) version of its immensely popular lottery-style Spin & Go game across its dot-com player pool.

1. 6 Holdem Pokerstars Play
2. 6 Holdem Pokerstars Card Game
3. 6 Plus Hold'em Pokerstars
4. 6 Holdem Pokerstars Rules

Launched on July 25, 6+ Hold’em Spin & Go’s are available in five different buy-ins: $1, $3, $15, $30, and $100. The $100 buy-in comes with a potential first-place prize of $1 million.

Short-deck poker (also known as six-plus hold'em) is a new variation of traditional Texas hold'em that mostly follows the same rules albeit with a significant difference. Short-deck poker uses a. Rules of 6+ Hold’em. In PokerStars’ version of Six Plus Hold’em, instead of the traditional “small blind” and “big blind”, the game uses a “button blind” structure meaning every player on the table pays an ante.

Like the regular Spins, 6+ Hold’em Spin & Gos are three-handed, fast-structured, winner-take-all format where the prize pool is determined randomly at the start of the game. The randomized payout ranges from 2x to 12,000 times the buy-in.

The blind structure, however, is different. It follows the “Button Blind” structure where every player pays an ante and the button pays an additional live ante. The same blind structure is also followed at cash games and tournaments.

• Largest player base in the world.
• Home of Spin & Go, Power Up and lots of other unique game variants including 6+ Hold’em.
• Biggest weekly tournament schedule around.

6+ Hold’em Spins are raked at the same rate as charged in the regular Spins. $1 and $3 buy-ins have 8% rake, $15 and $30 buy-ins are being raked 6% and the highest stake $100 buy-ins have a 5% rake.

6+ Hold’em Spins follows the new payout structure. Recently, PokerStars made big changes to the payouts of all Spin & Go games in a bid to lower the variance. The operator removed 4x and 6x multipliers and replaced them with 3x and 5x frequencies. It also drastically reduced the probability of hitting 2x multipliers. No changes were made to other multipliers.

6 Holdem Pokerstars Play

Currently, the game is available in most PokerStars jurisdictions where 6+ Hold’em is offered barring Italy and Sweden. The game was first trialed in Denmark before releasing it worldwide. It is available on .COM, .EU, .NET (play-money) clients, as well as in countries like Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, Romania, Russia, and the UK.

The first details of 6+ Hold’em Spin & Go were revealed by our premium news and data analytics platform for poker industry insiders, Poker Industry PRO.

Previously, PRO speculated that the room could soon be launching a lottery-style Sit & Go version of Short Deck. Two weeks after the prediction, 6+ Hold’em Spins are finally launched.

PokerStars becomes the first and only operator to spread the action-filled pack game of Short Deck in three-handed hyper-turbo randomized-prize pool format.

Short Deck has been around the poker community for several years. However, the game gained widespread popularity over the past year after it made its first televised appearance during the 2018 Triton Super High Roller Series in Montenegro.

The game is played similarly to Texas Hold’em, except the lower-ranked cards—deuces through fives—are removed, leaving a deck of 36 cards. Due to fewer cards, hand rankings are slightly different. Equities run very close to each other, meaning there is a lot more luck involved; hands like JT and AK are of equal value pre-flop.

The game has proved popular both live and online, with short deck events now a staple of most of the high stakes live tournament series.

In January, PokerStars launched its own version Short Deck called 6+ Hold’em in cash game format. Soon, the room spread the format in tournaments in both MTTs and Sit & Gos and it was even part of SCOOP and the ongoing MicroMillions series.

6+ Hold’em Spins become the fourth lottery sit and go format for the operator following the regular version, Max, and Omaha versions.

It was a poorly-kept secret for months, but on Tuesday PokerStars finally launched “6+,” a game also known in poker circles (and on the PokerStars blog) as 6+Hold’em. 6+ Hold’em follows several novelty cash games from 2018, though PokerStars has not said if it will temporary like its predecessors.

6 Holdem Pokerstars Card Game

6+ Hold’em gets its name from the factor that makes it unique: all cards lower than Six have been removed from the deck. The games at PokerStars are six-handed (coincidentally) and everyone posts an ante. Additionally, rather than there being a big blind and small blind, the button posts a single blind. 6+ Hold’em is a game certainly built for action.

“6+ is an exciting poker variant that often produces big hands and a lot of action, so we’re excited to bring it to the tables”, said Chris Straghalis, Director of Poker Product at PokerStars, in a press release issued Tuesday. “While the format has proven popular with high stakes players, the range of stakes available on PokerStars and similarities to hold’em mean that it should appeal to those who may want to try a new game but don’t want something too different. We’re looking forward to seeing what people think.”

Fewer Cards Means New Hand Strengths

6 Plus Hold'em Pokerstars

And Straghalis is correct – it’s not too different than regular Hold’em, aside from the lack of sixteen cards. It still plays the same. Because of the elimination of low cards, though, hand strengths have changed. Now the rankings of hands looks like this:

6 Holdem Pokerstars Rules

Royal Flush
Straight Flush
Four of a Kind
Flush
Full House
Three of a Kind
Straight
Two Pair
Pair
High Card

As you can see, a Flush is now stronger than a Full House and a Straight (Aces still play high or low) is weaker than a Three of a Kind. Flushes are now stronger because there are fewer cards of each suit, therefore making a Flush more difficult to hit. On the flip side, with Twos through Fives gone, the range of cards is more compact, this making Straights easier to make.

6+ Hold’em, while new to PokerStars, is not a new game to the poker world. It has been popular for several years in the high stakes cash games of Macau (those players love their action) and was talked up by Phil Ivey. About three years ago, the iPoker Network introduced 6+ Hold’em on its skins.

The idea behind 6+ Hold’em for the poker room is obviously to generate big pots through furious action. Strong hands are easier to make, causing players to stay in hands longer, and everyone has to post an ante, giving them incentive to at least see a flop. It is also a novelty game that is easy for novice players to understand, since it plays exactly like regular Texas Hold’em, except for some shuffling of hand rankings. While strategy definitely needs to change, an inexperienced player can still follow what is going on quite easily. I would not be surprised if 6+ ends up being a permanent fixture at PokerStars.