No limit Texas Hold’em is currently the most popular poker variant.
Some poker players like to learn other less common games for two main reasons:
- It’s easier to have an advantage over your opponents once you master those games simply because very few people play them regularly
- It makes poker more exciting; poker is great game in general, but playing Hold’em for years in a row does get boring, and some players lose interest after a while
One of the easiest ways to spice up the game is to play what’s called double board poker.
This means two sets of community cards rather than just one.
For example, standard Texas Hold’em only has five community cards, and in double board Hold’em you would use ten community cards.
There’s even a triple board version, but then it gets really complicated.
Double flop Hold’em rules
The game is identical to standard no-limit Hold’em, except there are two boards — two flops, two turn cards, and two river cards.
You can only use the five cards of each individual board to make a hand. For example, you cannot use two cards from the top board and two on the bottom one to make your hand.
If you win on both boards, then you win the pot. If you win on one board and your opponent wins on the other board, then there are two possible rules:
- Whoever has the single highest hand wins the pot
- The pot is split between the two winners
Obviously, this will be decided before the game starts.
It’s a lot easier for both the dealer and the players to simply give the pot to the highest hand, although it makes the game less interesting.
As for burn cards, there are only three. One before the two flops, and one before each pair of street cards.
You can watch two bomb pot double board poker hands here and here.
Double board Omaha poker
And to make things even more interesting (and scarily complicated for anyone who’s never played the game before), you can do the same in Omaha poker.
In this case you would be dealt four, five, or six hole cards and you would have to use two of them to make the best possible hand. On each board.
Since there are so many factors to take into account, and since it’s harder to work out or predict who is likely to win the hand — double board games are usually played just for fun.
Not only that, they are usually played with “bomb pots”.
Double board bomb pots
This refers to a hand in which the two flops (six cards) are dealt immediately after the deal, with no preflop action.
Typically, each player will put the amount of the big blind in the pot before the deal, although it could be a much higher bet. Basically a lottery.
This means all players get the chance to see the flop (or flops, in this case) and then make their decision based on what they have flopped rather than their hole cards alone.
Some bomb pots are also played like a coin toss — everyone puts a certain amount in the middle and the dealer deals flop, turn, and river all at once.
Is double board poker played in casinos?
Typically, multiple board variants are played once in a while to spice up the game.
I don’t think you’ll ever find live rooms that specifically advertise double board poker, just because not many people play it.
On the other hand, there are a few apps where you can play double board online.
