Don’t forget the online casinos offer a range of poker games

It is a fair bet that if we had asked most casino gamblers in Ireland a few years ago what they understood by the term casino games, they would probably have answered with roulette and blackjack as their first thoughts. Nowadays, with the advent of online casinos, poker would also be high up on that list. There are now a large number of online casino gamblers who would not dream of playing any other game online, and more often than not they will play the Texas Hold’em format of poker. Whilst we accept that Texas Hold’em is the poker game of choice for most tournament gamblers, there are a number of other poker formats available at our online casinos which are probably more suitable for poker beginners and should not be overlooked. At onlinecasino.ie we have detailed the rules and some strategies relating to these other poker games in our casino games pages, but let’s have a quick look at some of these alternative versions of online poker. An alternative poker format which also uses five community cards is Omaha poker, but in this case each player is dealt four cards face down instead of two, and two of these cards must be used in the final hand. Then we come to stud poker, which is often offered at the online casinos in both the seven card version and the five card format. In seven card stud poker each player is dealt two cards face down, followed by five cards face up one after each betting round. The five card version of stud poker is similar but each player has just one card face down and four cards face up, again one at a time after each betting round. Many online casinos also offer draw poker online, the version much favoured in the old westerns we used to watch as kids. Any of these alternative poker formats offer an excellent introduction to poker for beginners, and although most of them do still have multiple betting rounds which can result in big pots and high stakes, draw poker is probably the best alternative for those who wish to play poker online but have limited budgets.