HORSE Cash Game Strategy
HORSE stands for Hold ‘em, Omaha, Razz, Seven Card Stud, and Eights or Better Seven Card Hi-Lo. In a tournament, players will compete for the most chips earned during a round of each of these games. At a cash table, players will alternate games every hand. That can make building a comprehensive HORSE cash game strategy somewhat difficult. It’s difficult, but it isn’t impossible.
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HORSE Cash Game Strategy Tips
Your cash game strategy for HORSE should have many of the same fundamental tactics as any poker cash game strategy, but the easiest way to optimize your profits is obviously to be the best all-around player. That means knowing all five of the components before you sit at a HORSE game. No single playing strategy will cover both community and stud games; both high and low variations. Some supposed “experts†will tell you that being exceptional at one game and passable at others is enough, but if you can’t hold your own in all five then your opponents will quickly learn to target your weakness, making it hard for you to retain even major winnings from one round through the other four.
When you sit at a HORSE cash game for the first time, you can expect the Hold ‘em and Omaha hands to be the most aggressive. Most HORSE players come from a Hold ‘em background. While this will certainly test your own Hold ‘em skills, it also gives you an open opportunity to dominate in the other three games. These skills are slightly less valuable in tournaments where the blinds structure makes Hold ‘em and Omaha more costly, but in cash games dominating the three less common games can give you a significant edge over your Hold ‘em-oriented opponents.
When it comes to actually playing the games, a tight-aggressive strategy is the most effective in all five. When you get good cards, make them pay. Always bet and raise pre-flop in the community card games to eliminate players that are on the fence, and learn the other players’ weaknesses early so you know the optimal times to bully and bluff. Being good at all five games is the best way to protect yourself from players that would do the same to you.
5 Tips to Better Your HORSE Poker Game
We could cover something from each of the five games that make up the HORSE poker roster, but instead we’re going to offer eager players a chance to improve their overall strategy with helpful hints to get you through every single round.
Find Your Opponents’ Weaknesses
Moreso than in any other game, HORSE gives savvy players a good chance to profit off their unskilled opponents. There are many fish at the HORSE tables. Generally these players are moderately good at Hold ‘em and maybe Omaha, but are hopeless at the Studs and Razz. They’re looking for something new, and think they can grind out some easy money by dominating the community card rounds. Identifying their off games early can create an easy route toward small and even middling pots.
Hide Your Own Weaknesses
Other smart HORSE players have already clued in to our first tip. They’re watching their opponents closely to determine when and how they can steal their chips. Betting consistently is a good way to fake confidence, but betting too consistently can give away your hands. If you’re ahead and you’ve established yourself as a steady player, then now and then it can’t hurt to push with a moderate hand.
Master the Semi-Bluff
Our last two HORSE tips are the perfect lead-in to this one. Once you know which games each of your fellow players dread and have set a serious tone for your own playing style, you can start using that information to your advantage. When you sense a weak player is trying to limp into a better hand, go ahead and bully them. If you’ve been playing your cards right, then they’ll recognize the threat and fold.
Get Good at the Bad Games
With free versions of virtually ever poker variation available at almost all the major poker rooms, there’s no reason why you can’t spare a little time to get good at all five games in HORSE. Being a seasoned Seven Card Stud player can really pay off as these two rounds are often a weakness to strong Hold ‘em-based players. In a tournament, you will be pleasantly surprised by how many pots you can sweep just by dominating the Seven Card rounds.
Tight Is Always Right
With some special tournament exceptions, a tight-aggressive strategy is ideal in virtually all HORSE games. It saves you from diminishing your bankroll in less important rounds and gives you the appearance of being a serious player (while avoiding a calling station designation). Because the game is constantly changing, often your opponents’ playing strategies are too; trying to bully your way through all five rounds is a good way to get yourself trapped by players that have been waiting to make their big bets.
HORSE Poker Starting Hand Selection
As you may already have guessed, starting hand selection in HORSE poker games are dependent on what game variant you are playing. While at the intermediate levels of your HORSE play you can make deviations based on the strengths/weaknesses of other players around you, when you are a beginning HORSE player you want to be relatively careful in the way you enter hands. With that in mind, here are basic starting hand selection strategies for the different HORSE poker variants.
Limit Hold ‘Em: When playing limit hold ‘em in a HORSE context, it is important that you play tight-aggressive in the cash games. Pick your spots and extract maximum coinage from the spots that you pick. In early position, you can play pairs of 9-9 or higher and then any two high cards of jack or higher. As you progressively get to later positions, you can downgrade the high card ranks by one for middle and late position and the pairs by two. Additionally, from late position and with a lot of limpers, feel free to play suited and connected cards.
Limit Omaha: You should always look for cards that work well together like two suited connecting cards or 4 high cards (jack or above). As a player of Omaha in the HORSE poker context, you should only enter the pot with four solid cards in early position and middle position, but you can knock that down to two cards in late position with a large pot being built up. Remember to limit the amount of hands you play in Omaha, due to the fact that after a flop many people will have draws.
Razz: Razz is a tougher nut to crack than hold ‘em or Omaha, but for the most part you should approach Razz in HORSE poker as you would in a Razz cash game. Do not play any hand unless all three cards in that hand are eight or lower and make sure that you raise as much as possible if two of the cards happen to be part of the nut low for that particular game.
Seven-Card Stud: In seven-card stud HORSE poker, you want to play all trips, high pairs, straight flush draws and high straight and flush draws.
Seven-Card Stud Hi/Lo: Hi/Lo is basically a combination of the two previous variants and in HORSE poker it is usually the game that people have the most difficulty with. When you play Stud/8 poker (short-form for the full name of the variant) in HORSE, you want to enter the pot with hands that have a good chance to win either the high or the low. This makes cards like lower straight draws goldmines in this game. However, don’t feel hesitant about going after either just the high or just the low, especially if there are a lot of people in the hand.
HORSE Cash Game Considerations
Learning how to play a HORSE poker cash game is quite a bit harder than learning how to play the cash game form of any other poker variant. There are a number of things that you need to keep in mind if you want to be successful as a HORSE cash game player and indeed some of those things are discussed below.
Changes in forced bets: This is one of the biggest things that you need to constantly be aware of when it comes to HORSE poker. The ‘HO’ part of the HORSE poker rotation requires the use of big blinds and small blinds and of course the ‘RSE’ part of the rotation requires the use of antes and a forced bring-in bet after the cards have already been dealt. In other words, you need to constantly be aware of when the changes in poker variants are going to take place and what those changes mean for you specifically in terms of forced bets.
Changes in position: Just as there are changes in forced bets in HORSE, there are also changes in position. In the ‘HO’ part of the HORSE poker rotation, position is a gigantic deal. This is because there is a button that rotates around the table like clockwork and therefore you know when and where you are going to be in terms of position at all times. However, with the ‘RSE’ part of the rotation, position is not fixed. It can change from game to game and even within the same game on different betting rounds it can be different. Therefore, while position is still important, it plays a diminished role. Understanding the differences between poker variants in terms of position and being aware of where you are at all times is part of being a good HORSE poker player.
Changes in tells: Physical tells from the players might be different in different parts of the HORSE poker rotation if for no other reason than because of their different proficiencies with different games. While it is advisable that you are at least at an intermediate level in all five poker variants, there are going to be people that do not follow that rule. Therefore, a person might be very polished in two or three variants and completely out to lunch on the others. Noticing this, extrapolating it to make judgments on their physical tells and then using those judgments to your advantage is another part of being an excellent HORSE poker cash game player.
What Makes HORSE Poker Unique
HORSE poker is a form of poker that has recently become very popular in the world and while there are many people that already know what it is, at the same time there are many people that don’t know what it is either. Fortunately, explaining what HORSE poker is at the same time happens to be discussing the points that make HORSE poker unique and therefore we can kill two birds with one stone by examining this poker variant more closely.
HORSE is actually not its own poker variant, but rather is an amalgamation of five other poker variants to form a rather unique way of playing poker. HORSE is an acronym that stands for Hold ‘em, Omaha hi/lo, Razz, Seven-card stud and Seven-card stud hi/lo.
Previous series of articles have already discussed the unique points of the first four poker variants in that five-variant combination, so a lot of the articles from here on in will be focused more on Seven-Card stud hi/lo while at the same time speaking in general terms about the other four variants.
HORSE poker players, because of this dynamic of five different types of poker being played, have to become proficient as all-round poker players. If they are not able to do this, then their HORSE playing days are going to be numbered. A lot of people have the mistaken notion that since you are playing five different types of poker that your weaknesses are covered up.
In fact, the opposite is true; if you are weak in one form of poker and you happen to be playing at a HORSE poker tournament, you are going to find out very quickly that your weaknesses are magnified because of the structure of most HORSE tournaments. It is less pronounced in cash games since you can just take the loss of blinds and fold your way to the next poker variant, but your weaknesses are still going to be exposed.
This, in actuality, is perhaps the single most important point about what makes HORSE poker unique. This melding of five different poker variants, played in quick succession after each other, requires a degree of poker strategy, poker knowledge and in general statistical knowledge that is unprecedented anywhere else within the poker world. The ability of HORSE poker players is so unique in fact that it once prompted the great Doyle Brunson to once jokingly comment that HORSE should replace no limit Hold ‘Em as being the main event at the World Series of Poker.
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Featured Topics
- What Makes HORSE Poker Unique
- HORSE Cash Game Strategy
- HORSE Cash Game Considerations
- How to Play Texas Hold ‘em
- Mistakes While Playing HORSE Poker