Cincinnati, Ohio, and Tennessee Poker

Written by Nigel

These place names may be quite familiar to other people because of the locations associated with them.  However, to anyone familiar with poker, these names would ring a bell relating to some of the most popular community poker variations.

Cincinnati poker is perhaps one of the original community poker variants.  The idea behind Cincinnati poker is for the dealer to deal out 5 cards to each player.  He then lays down another set of cards – the community cards – face down.  Each card will be flipped over in between betting rounds.  At the end, each player must form the best five card hand from both his hand and the community cards.  The community cards may be 4 or 5 in all, depending on the arrangements.

Ohio poker is basically the same as Cincinnati.  The big difference is that at the end, when all the community cards have been revealed, the card with the lowest numerical value will be declared a wild card.  This will include all cards with the same value that each player is holding.

As for Tennessee poker, it is also basically the same as Cincinnati poker.  The difference does not lie in the cards but in how the betting goes.  In this variation of community poker, betting is fixed.  That is, for example, the first round of betting only accepts one betting unit.  It is the dealer who determines what a unit would be.  The next round of betting can then accept 2 bet units and so on.

Next time, let’s look at some other popular versions of community poker.