HORSE

The lastest craze now is for people to play HORSE games. A lot of the major sites have now started opening tables in ring games and tournaments devoted to HORSE. I've now started giving them a try myself.

So, "what is HORSE?", I hear you say! It's multiple poker games played one after the other. HORSE is an acronym for the different forms of poker played:

H - Holdem (Limit)
O - Omaha
R - Razz
S - Stud
E - Stud Eight

So for example, you may play Limit Holdem for 10 hands, then move to Omaha hi/lo, then Razz, Stud, Stud hi/lo, then back to Holdem.

I would say that Omaha hi/lo and Holdem are my two strongest games out of the variations in HORSE. I can play Stud, but I'm quite weak at it. I hadn't played Razz before, but I'm slowly getting the hang of it.

So now I've started playing it, and I love it. I played in my first tournament yesterday which was a qualifier to the WCOOP (World Cup of Online Poker) HORSE main event next month. 152 players entered, top 15 qualified. I finished in 41st place, but it was evident that a lot of the play was soft. I spoke to people afterwards and we agreed that with a bit more luck, and maybe brushing up on our weaker games, we could qualify.

I've just finished my 2nd tournament. That was a single table SNG at Full Tilt. Someone had recommended I played there, so I gave it a try. And what a recommendation it was...I won! Admittedly I got lucky at one stage. I was almost out with about 6 or 7 players left. In the Stud section, I held 2J2J on 4th street, and my opponent had xxQQ. From the betting I was sure they had 3 queens. Normally I probably would have folded, but I was so short stacked that I decided to gamble to the end in case either my read was wrong and I held the best hand, or that I may improve to a full house on a later street. I caught a Jack on 7th street to give me the full house and boost my stack (and yes, they did have the 3rd queen).

The good thing about these HORSE games is that most players don't have a clue about most of the variations. Some may be good at Holdem, but haven't got a clue how to play Razz. Some may know Omaha, but not Stud. If you can learn basic strategy for each of the disciplines, there's some easy money to be made from these games (before everyone else learns them).