Wild Cards and Stripped Decks

The legend of poker – Doyle “Texas Dolly” Brunson – once famously christened the game of Texas Hold’em – The Cadillac of Poker. When the game first burst onto the gambling scene, Brunson and his Texas Road Gambling friends were in awe of the ability to put it all on the line. It transformed Hold’em from a snail, into a relative jet-fuelled cheetah. It was excitement personified.

So how do you beat that? How do you create a game that delivers more excitement than the Cadillac of Poker? Well that is exactly what has happened throughout the pubs, clubs and Betfair Poker Tournaments of the world. Dealers Choice is not a Cadillac, it is a Ferrari; it leaves the pink in a trail of red dust.

One of the great innovative properties of a Dealers Choice game is the ability to introduce Wild Cards and a Stripped Deck into the equation. Let’s find out what they both are.

Wild Cards

Wild Cards are particular cards that the Dealer chooses to be used as any card in the deck. A good example would be to call a game of Pot Limit-Omaha with deuces wild. This means if you are dealt a deuce it can be any card in the deck. The inclusion of this rule makes it easier for players to create a stronger range of hands, which in turn creates more high-quality second-best hands and conversely more action.

Stripped Deck

A stripped deck is a 52-card deck with certain cards removed at the start of the game. It is generally the lower end of the deck that is removed to leave a higher range of top ranking hands available. So a deck may have twos, threes, fours, fives and sixes to leave the game to be played with a 32-card deck.