What is Irish poker, and can you win if you’ve never played it before? The game is a crossover variant meaning that if you’ve played Hold’em or Omaha, you can probably do well in Irish poker.
Of course, that depends on how skilled you are as a poker player and how well you understand the basics. I learned how to play the game a few years ago, and below, I share everything I’ve learned about how to win at Irish poker.
What is Irish Poker?
Irish Poker is a fun and fast-paced variation that combines elements of both Texas Hold’em and Omaha, making it a good option if you enjoy strategy with a twist. At first glance, it might look like Omaha—each player is dealt four hole cards—but there’s a unique catch: after the flop, you’re required to discard two of your cards. We’ll get into that later.
This small rule change completely shifts the way you approach the game. You start off with more possibilities, but as the hand progresses, you have to narrow your options and make smarter decisions. It’s part luck, part skill, and 100% action.
Irish Poker is usually played in a tournament setting, and it’s popular among home game players who want to shake things up a bit. It’s not as widely spread in casinos as Hold’em or PLO, but once people try it, it tends to catch on quickly thanks to its mix of unpredictability and strategy. While it’s more common in casual settings, some online poker sites have started to feature Irish Poker, giving players an easy way to explore this unique variant.
Irish Poker Rules
Irish poker is a game of two halves. More specifically, it’s a Hold’em variant that incorporates a few rules and strategy concepts from Omaha. Before I get into the nuances of how to play Irish poker and why you need to view it as a game of two parts, let’s start with the basic rules.
Irish Poker Rules Explained
The rules of Irish poker are surprisingly easy to understand if you’ve played Hold’em or Omaha.
For those new to poker, I suggest reading our guides to Texas Hold’em and Pot Limit Omaha before continuing. A grounding in these games will make it much easier to learn the rules of Irish poker and, in turn, +EV strategies.
The Irish poker rules you need to know are:
- Every player receives four hole cards from a standard 52-card deck.
- Five community cards are dealt in three stages: the flop (three cards), the turn (one card), and the river (one card).
- The action starts with the player immediately to the left of the big blind and moves clockwise around the table.
- Players must discard two cards after the flop.
- Players must match (call) or exceed (raise) the last biggest bet in order to remain active in a hand.
- A player wins the pot (money collected from all bets) by having the best five-card hand at a showdown or by making everyone else fold before the final betting round.
I won’t go into detail just yet, but I want to draw your attention to the first and fourth rules on my list. Those two Irish poker rules are why this variant is not only unique but favored by poker players who want more possible hand combinations. Why would anyone want more hand combinations? I’ll answer that question after I’ve explained how to play Irish poker with an example.
Rules: How to Play Irish Poker
How do the Irish poker rules I outlined in the previous section translate to the poker table? Well, if you’ve ever played Texas Hold’em or Omaha, the dynamics are virtually identical. On a general level, Irish poker is a community card game.
This means you need to combine your hole cards with those on the board (i.e., the community cards) to make a ranked five-card poker hand. These cards are communal, hence the name community cards.
Understanding this basic rule is important for later when I walk you through some basic Irish poker strategies. For now, just know that everyone can use the community cards to make a ranked poker hand.
Let’s put all of the rules I’ve outlined so far into an example so you can see how to play Irish poker:
The Set-Up
- Number of players: Six
- Stakes: $1/2
- Player 1 posts the Small Blind
- Player 2 posts the Big Blind
- Player 6 has the button
- The action starts with Player 3
The Action
- Player 3 folds
- Player 4 raises to $6
- Player 5 folds
- Player 6 calls
- Player 1 folds
- Player 2 folds
Flop: A♠️ 4♣️9♦️
- Player 4 checks
- Player 6 checks
*Both players must discard two cards after betting concludes
Turn: J♣️
- Player 4 bets $9
- Player 6 calls $9
River: 6♠️
- Player 4 bets $12
- Player 6 calls $12
Board: A♠️ 4♣️9♦️ J♣️ 6s♠️
Showdown
- Player 4 shows A♥️ Q♦️
- Player 6 shows K♠️ J♥️
Result – Player 4 wins with a pair of aces
The astute among you will notice that, barring the pre-flop and post-flop betting rounds, Irish poker hands play out the same way as Hold’em hands. The major difference between Irish poker and Hold’em is that you start with four hole cards instead of two.
The addition of two hole cards forces the second difference, namely that you need to discard two cards after the flop. If this rule weren’t in place, Irish poker would simply be another name for Omaha. Therefore, to ensure this variant is different from Hold’em and Omaha, you start with four cards but continue with two after the flop.
Irish Poker Hand Rankings
The hand rankings for Irish poker are identical to Hold’em and other high-hand variants. That means royal flushes trump all other hands, and the lowest-ranked hand is a high card. The table below provides a complete overview of the ranking of hands in Irish poker.
| Rank | Poker Hand | Description | Example |
| 1 | Royal Flush | A, K, Q, J, 10 of the same suit | A♠️ K♠️ Q♠️ J♠️ 10♠️ |
| 2 | Straight Flush | Five cards in sequence, all of the same suit | 9♥️ 8♥️ 7♥️ 6♥️ 5♥️ |
| 3 | Four of a Kind | Four cards of the same rank | K♣️ K♦️ K♥️ K♠️ 3♣️ |
| 4 | Full House | Three of a kind and a pair | Q♠️ Q♣️ Q♥️ 8♠️ 8♦️ |
| 5 | Flush | Five cards of the same suit (not in sequence) | 2♣️ 6♣️ 8♣️ 10♣️ K♣️ |
| 6 | Straight | Five cards in sequence, different suits | 10♦️ 9♣️ 8♠️ 7♥️ 6♣️ |
| 7 | Three-of-a-Kind | Three cards of the same rank | 7♠️ 7♦️ 7♣️ Q♦️ 2♥️ |
| 8 | Two Pair | Two different pairs | A♠️ A♦️ 9♣️ 9♠️ 5♣️ |
| 9 | One Pair | Two cards of the same rank | 4♠️ 4♣️ K♥️ 9♦️ 2♠️ |
| 10 | High Card | If no player has a pair or better, the highest-ranking card wins | A♣️ 10♠️ 8♦️ 6♥️ 4♠️ |
Irish Poker Strategy
I opened this guide with a simple question: what is Irish poker? I went on to say that it’s a mix of Hold’em and Omaha. I made that point because it creates a framework within which we can start to think about Irish poker strategy.
I could extol the virtues of position, bet sizing, and balancing your range, but these strategy topics apply to all types of poker. However, I want to keep things specific to Irish poker. So, for all your general strategy needs, I’ll direct you to the CardPlayer Strategy School. There, you’ll find in-depth poker strategy guides and videos from experts, including veteran online poker Jonathan Little.
For the purpose of learning how to play Irish poker, here are three important strategy concepts:
1. Pre-Flop Hand Selection: Think Like an Omaha Player
Start as you mean to go on. That’s a mantra you should etch into your brain when you’re playing Irish poker online or in any other setting. Another mantra you need to memorize is this: think like an Omaha player.
Conventional Omaha wisdom states that your starting hands should be connected. That means your four starting cards need to be similar in some way. For example, A-K-Q-J is a connected hand because the cards are close in value.
This means you’ve got plenty of ways to make straights. Add matching suits to the mix, and flushes get added to your range.
This doesn’t mean you can’t play hands that don’t have four closely connected cards. However, you want as many connections as possible. These connections give you more post-flop possibilities, which, as I’ll explain in the next section, is important.
- A-A-K-K
- A-A-K-K
- A-A-J-J
- K-K-Q-Q
- A-K-Q-J
- K-Q-J-10
- 8-9-10-J
- 7-8-9-10
- A-2-3-4
- 2-3-4-5
*Double-suited hands (i.e., hands that have two matching suits) are even stronger
As you can see, the best starting hands in Irish poker are all connected in some way. This is why I’ve said you need to think like an Omaha player and, more importantly, start hands as you mean to go on.
2. Post-Flop Card Removal: Don’t Reduce Your Odds of Winning
You also need to think about how the cards you’ve discarded could impact your odds of making hands on later streets.
For example, if your starting hand contained three diamonds and you discarded one of them, this removes an out. Removing an out reduces your odds of making a flush on the turn and river. Therefore, you need to think carefully about the cards you discard.
You can make your life easier by starting with connected cards. The logic here is that if you start strong, you have a better chance of being strong after the flop.
Being in a strong position post-flop might mean it’s harder to discard two cards, but that’s not a negative. You’d rather have more options than none at all. So, there are two lessons here: start with connected cards and think about how discarded cards can affect your outs on later streets.
3. Hand Reading 101: More Cards Means More Combinations
The fact you start with four cards means, at least until you get to the flop, there are more possible hand combinations in Irish poker than Hold’em. What does this mean?
Ryan Fee, a WSOP bracelet winner and all-around tournament supremo, describes hand combinations as the “secret weapon pros use to win more money.” I can’t promise you’ll win more money by understanding the nature of hand combinations, but it can certainly help you play Irish poker.
Hand combinations refer to the different possible combinations of cards that can make a starting hand from a standard deck. In Hold’em, there are 1,326 possible combinations of starting hands. In Omaha, where you start with four cards, there are 270,725 possible starting hand combinations.
This number also applies to Irish poker, which means you have significantly more options pre-flop than you do in regular Hold’em. In turn, your opponents have more options. Therefore, you need to factor this into your decisions.
Put simply, there’s a much greater chance someone has connected with the board in Irish poker than Hold’em. Therefore, you can’t assume that a single pair will win a showdown. To complicate matters, you know that opponents can discard two cards.
Logic suggests that they won’t discard their best cards. So, when you get to the turn, the likelihood is that players still in the hand will have something strong (either a made hand or a draw).
My point here is that your hand-reading skills need to be on point when you play Irish poker. Moreover, you need to have a tighter starting range and be less willing to call with weak hands or draws. The logic here is that opponents are likely to have better hands because there are more starting hand combinations.
Differences Between Irish Poker and Omaha
Irish online poker tables are something of a rarity, which is why you might want to consider Omaha instead. Both variants give you four starting cards, but the dynamics diverge once you get to the flop.
Here’s a quick overview of the differences and similarities between Irish poker and Omaha.
Similarities
- There are five community cards in both variants.
- Players can check, call, bet, raise, or fold.
- The aim is to make the best five-card hand as per standard high-card poker rankings.
- Everyone starts with four cards.
- Players win the pot by having the best hand at a showdown or by making others fold.
Differences
- Irish poker is predominantly No Limit. Omaha is predominantly Pot Limit.
- You discard two cards after the flop in Irish poker, but not in Omaha.
- You must use two of your four cards in Omaha.
- You have fewer possible hand combinations after the flop in Irish poker because you discard two cards.
How to Play Irish Poker: Key Points
That’s it. You should now be able to play Irish poker and, more importantly, know how to make smart decisions. If all else fails, just treat this variant like Hold’em because, essentially, that’s what it is.
Even though you start with four cards as you would in Omaha, the majority of the hand plays out with two hole cards. Therefore, if all you can do is think like a Hold’em player with a slightly tighter range than usual, you won’t go far wrong.
To bring everything together, here are three key points to remember:
- You start with four cards in Irish poker and discard two post-flop
- Games are usually No Limit
- Position and hand selection are crucial
Now that you know how to play Irish poker, the only thing left to do is use our recommended poker sites to hone your skills before jumping into the next available game.