Community card poker variants IV
East village and London Bridge are very popular variation of community card poker games that have found favor among all kinds of players, playing for high or low risk, fun and/or thrill.
A modified version of Omaha high/low split, the game of East village gives the players an initial hand of seven hole cards. Subsequently two of these cards are rejected by the players following by a donation of one card from each player to a common pool of face down cards which is shuffled by the dealer. Then the dealer makes the total number of donation card to seven by adding cards from the stub followed by more shuffling. Of these seven cards, two remain face down and unused while the other five are turned into community cards and get divided into 3 flop cards and one each into turn and river cards. The system of betting in a game of East village community card poker is the same as Omaha high/low split played with a qualification of having an 8 or better value card in one’s hand. To win, a player combines both his private hole cards and any three of the five community cards to form the highest value of 5-card hand. In case seven players are not playing the East village community card poker game, extra cards need to be taken from the stub to maintain the set level of seven community cards, though only five are actively used in the game and two always remain unused.
In the London Bridge variation, wildcards are formed from the 2 cards, the 3 cards and the ace cards. Playing this game gives each participant four initial cards, one of which has to be discarded once the flop card is revealed. A London Bridge game follows the betting strategy used in a Texas Hold ‘em game and is won by him who has the best 5-card hand made from a combination of his own three cards and five community cards.
