The flourishing poker variant Six Plus Hold'em, or also commonly referred to as Short Deck can now be found at Natural8! Short Deck is a stripped-deck version of Texas Hold'em. In playing the game, all the deuces through fives are removed, leaving a deck of just 36 cards instead of the normal 52. Because of this, there are a few major differences between Texas Hold'em and Short Deck when it comes to hand rankings. In Short Deck, a flush defeats a full house.
This poker variant is popular among high-stakes gamblers in Hong Kong, Macau and Manila. Natural8's ambassadors Michael Soyza and Danny Tang both ran deep in Short Deck events featured in the Triton Super High Roller series this year.
To celebrate the inaugural Short Deck, Natural8 is hosting Short Deck Tournaments featuring a ¥300,000 guaranteed prize pool. These tournaments will only run exclusively on the launch week, November 4 to November 10. Short Deck tournaments come with a variety of buy-ins and includes a freeroll each day with ticket prizes to other Short Deck tournaments.
Short Deck Tournament Schedule
Tournament
|
Day(s)
|
Time (UTC+8)
|
Buy-in
|
Guarantee
|
Short Deck Freeroll [5-Max]
|
11/4 - 11/10
|
17:00
|
-
|
¥5,000
|
¥25 Short Deck [5-Max]
|
11/4 - 11/10
|
18:00
|
¥25
|
¥5,000
|
¥100 Short Deck [5-Max]
|
11/4 - 11/10
|
19:30
|
¥100
|
¥10,000
|
¥250 Short Deck [5-Max]
|
11/4 - 11/10
|
21:00
|
¥250
|
¥15,000
|
¥50 Short Deck Turbo [5-Max]
|
11/4 - 11/10
|
22:30
|
¥50
|
¥8,000
|
There will also be ¥1,000,000 Short Deck Giveaway for the entire month of November! Simply play as many hands as you can at your stakes in Short Deck before all of the prizes are taken! Prizes for each ante are given to the limited players who hit hand milestones earlier.
Experience Short Deck and enjoy the edgy Button Ante, 5-max, and CNY format all at Natural8. If you're new to the game, there's even a quick How-to Guide for Beginners.
Natural8's Rush & Cash $500,000 promotion continues in November, with the same $100K Weekly Leaderboard and $20K Weekly Missions, you won't need to find another game. No opt-in required, just play and win your lion's share.
Starting November, Natural8 will make another substantial adjustment by limiting players to only four open tables per cash game. Cash games includes:
- VIP Games
- No-Limit Hold'em
- Pot-Limit Omaha
- All-in or Fold
- Rush and Cash
- Short Deck
No table limit will be applied to tournaments, meaning players will still be able to play an unlimited number MTTs. The table limit will remain the same on the mobile app, which is capped to a total of four tables, including tournaments.
The main goal is to speed up the games by making the gameplay less robotic to optimize the ecology. Players who often multi-table might take a longer time to act on other tables when faced with a difficult decision in one particular table.
According to the statistics gathered, four table seems to be optimal as it also mirrors the 4 tables available on mobile. Ultimately, this will make for a better experience for recreational players and sometimes even for professional players. The faster the action is, the more fun the games tend to be.