The Manila Hold'em

Poker is a card game which is undoubtedly played around the world. The poker players of each continent, Asia, Europe, North America, and Australia, have their own popular poker variants. And in Australia, one of the most popular community card poker variant is known as the Manila Hold'em. Manila is not the capital city of Australia and this is why the Manila Hold'em is sometimes called the "Seven-Up" by some poker players. But how is the Manila Hold'em different from other community card poker games?

First of all, the deck of cards used is stripped. That is, the usual deck of 52 cards is decreased to 32 cards only. All the cards that are ranked 7 and below are taken out of the deck. Thus, the name "Seven-Up" is used.

Then, like in Texas Hold'em, each poker player is dealt with two personal cards. But the first betting round is not yet carried out. The dealer will first reveal the first community card. Only when the first community card is revealed will the first betting round begins.

After the first betting round, the dealer places the second community card and this is followed by a second betting round. Then, the third community card is revealed and this is immediately followed by a third betting round. And then, the fourth community card is placed by the dealer, followed by the fourth betting round. And lastly, the fifth community card is revealed and the last betting round is carried out. The Manila Hold'em has a total of five betting rounds.

After the fifth betting round, and there are two or more poker players remaining in the hand, then there is a showdown. In the showdown, the poker player must utilize both of his personal cards and three community cards to form a five-card hand. In this aspect, the Manila Hold'em is similar to the Omaha Hold'em, in which there is a required number of personal cards to be used at showdown.

The stripped deck of cards also changed the ranking of hands in Manila Hold'em. Since the probability of forming flushes is lesser than the probability of forming full houses, the flush (cards of the same suit) is ranked higher than the full house (made of three cards of the same rank and two other cards of similar rank).

And still because of the stripped deck, the Ace can no longer play the double role of high and low. That is, one cannot form a straight using the A-7-8-9-10. The Ace is always played high. Thus, the Manila Hold'em, similar to other poker variants that use stripped decks, cannot be played using any high-low split rules.

In one variant of Manila Hold'em, each poker player initially receives three community cards. Then, at some point in the game, one of these community cards is discarded. Sometimes, all three cards are held until showdown, but the rule of using only two personal cards is upheld.