If we have 5 communal cards and 2 hole cards, and its our turn to deal, Can we just select all the 5 communal cards for hand? or do we need to keep our 2 hole cards and only choose 3 communal cards out of 5 communal cards to make a hand?
1 Answer
Well, it's actually pretty easy. In Texas Hold'em you can combine them anyway you want. So the answer is yes, you can choose all the 5 community cards to form your hand1.
In fact, in Texas Hold'em, the total number of ways you can combine the cards is:
(7!) / ((5!) x (7 - 5)!) = (6 x 7) / 2! = (6 x 7) / 2 = 42 / 2 = 21.
where n! = n factorial = 1 x 2 x 3 ... x n
When it comes to Omaha (the only other poker variation that has community cards), things are a little more complicated, since you have additional restrictions (2 cards from your hand, 3 from the community cards, NO EXCEPTIONS). I'm not going to present the calculation in the case of Omaha here (it's a bit longer), but if you're curious the result is 60.
1 = you probably lost the hand at that point, I suggest bluffing :D
answered Nov 4, 2012 at 10:01
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there are actually a lot of poker variations besides TH and Omaha that uses community cards, although maybe those are the only two which are in widespread use in casinos...– user1934Commented Mar 13, 2017 at 3:34
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@Michael Except for texas-holdem, omaha, omaha-hi-lo and recently 5-card-omaha, I've never heard of any other such variations. And I bet 99.9% of players are in the same situation. Commented Mar 13, 2017 at 8:45