Cincinnati
A stud-and-community hybrid: every player gets five private down cards, and a shared row of community cards is revealed one at a time to build the best hand.
Coming soon — not yet playable
Rules
Cincinnati gives every player five cards face down, dealt all at once like a draw hand, with no cards exposed to start.
Community row: The dealer also deals five additional cards face down in a row in the center of the table — these are the community cards shared by all players. Unlike Texas Hold'em, all five are typically dealt at once but turned face up one at a time, with a full betting round after each card is revealed (mirroring fourth street through the river structure of stud, but with genuinely shared cards).
Betting: After the initial deal (before any community cards are shown), a betting round often takes place based on players' five private cards alone. Then the community cards are revealed one at a time, each followed by a betting round, until all five are face up.
Building a hand: At showdown, each player selects the best five-card poker hand using any combination of their five private cards and the five community cards — this is the key difference from stud games, since the community cards are genuinely shared rather than dealt individually.
Showdown: Best five-card hand wins the pot. A popular variant, Cincinnati Low (or Cincinnati Hi-Lo), splits the pot between the best high hand and best low hand.
Strategy notes: Because the community row is shared, and each community card revealed can complete draws for the whole table simultaneously, hand values tend to run high, and it's common for multiple players to have very strong (even identical-rank) hands by the river.
Common house rules
One-eyed jacks wild
A common home-game twist designates the one-eyed jacks (jack of spades and jack of hearts) as wild cards for the whole table in addition to the community row.
Low card takes the low
The Hi-Lo variant of Cincinnati splits the pot between best high hand and best low hand (typically ace-to-five, no 8-or-better qualifier needed in the friendliest home versions).
Discard and redraw once
Some tables allow each player a single discard-and-redraw of one private card (paying an extra ante) after the first community card is revealed, blending in a draw element.
Related games
Based on shared category, origin, and rules that reference each other.
Chowaha
A Hold'em/Omaha hybrid popularized by the mixed-game enthusiast community: four hole cards combine with a nine-card community grid plus turn and river, using exactly two hole cards per hand.
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A Cincinnati-family community-card game where the number of wild cards changes mid-hand — the community row is dealt face down, then flipped up one at a time, with the highest (and sometimes also lowest) card each round setting the wild rank.
Learn the rules →Pyramid
An Iron Cross-family community game where four hole cards combine with six community cards arranged in triangular rows, usually played hi-lo with a declaration.
Learn the rules →Texas Hold'em
The world's most popular poker variant: two private hole cards combined with five shared community cards, playable heads-up or with a full ring of players.
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