This is because these hands are mathematically harder to make with the 2, 3, 4 and 5 cards taken out of the deck. Short Deck Holdem is basically just like Texas Holdem except the 2 through 5 cards are removed from the deck.Īlso, very importantly, in Short Deck Holdem a flush beats a full house and three of a kind beats a straight. The action is very big with extremely wealthy Chinese businessmen willing to gamble it up for enormous sums of money in this exciting new type of Holdem called 'Short Deck.'Īlright, so what the heck is Short Deck Holdem already?