H.O.R.S.E.

Today's primary event is the $1500 buy-in H.O.R.S.E. Tournament.  This is a tournament the more seasoned veterans love.  They feel they have an advantage over the younger players because of their experience playing a wide range of games.  In this event, they will play eight hands of Limit Hold'em followed by eight hands of Omaha High-low, followed by eight hands of Razz, then 7 Card Stud, then Stud High-low (8 or better).

Razz is a lowball limit game dealt like 7 Card Stud (two down, four up and a final down card) and the lowest possible hand is A,2,3,4,5.

Seeing that the stud games have lost popularity to the flop games the old grinders get to flex their Stud muscles against a generation that grew up on Hold'em.  Before the Internet brought us on line poker, the home games I played were always varieties of 7 Card Stud or Draw Poker.

Speaking of Draw Poker, I find it conspicuously missing from the WSOP.  Five Card Draw Poker, the game played by Wild Bill Hickok when he was shot in Deadwood holding those famous eights and aces; the game depicted in A Big Hand for the Little Lady and widely seen in movies and television shows for generations is missing from the World Series of Poker.  The only variants of Draw are Deuce-to-Seven Lowball No Limit and Deuce-to-Seven Triple Draw.

If 126 players are willing to pony up $10,000 to play the 2-7 Championship, I am convinced that many more would support a classic game of Five Card Draw.  After all, isn't the five card poker hand of Draw the basic fundamental for all other poker games?  I think it should be included in the World Series of Poker.