Jason Koon Sees Bright Future For High-Stakes Short Deck Hold’Em

One of the most exciting new formats in poker is the short-deck variety which is also sometimes called six-plus poker.

The game’s popularity took off a few years ago after it débuted in Asian high-stakes cash games. Short-deck hold’em is a lot like the traditional full-deck game but is played with 36 cards instead of a full 52-card deck.

All of the deuces through to the fives of every suit are taken out of the deck.

Because of the change in the number of cards, hand rankings are slightly changed. Flushes beat full houses and an ace can be used as either as the highest card or a five so that a player can complete a 9-high straight. The game created a buzz around the world when the Triton Super High Roller Series made short-deck hold’em a part of its format in 2018.

Gaining Momentum

The largest short-deck tournament featured 103 participants who all bought in for $1 million HKD which is around $128,000. This created a $12.6 million prize pool and it was Jason Koon who took the biggest chunk of it when he went won the event and took home over $3.6 million. The West Virgina poker pro knows a thing or two about poker as he has accumulated over $22 million in career prize money so far.

Koon recently played in the 2018 Poker Masters $10,500 short deck event and he ended up finishing in eighth place. Although he did not go on to win the event, Koon has been very impressed with this new format and would like to play more.

Koon Talks About The Game

Koon explained how short-deck hold’em was created in Asia and that the game came into existence because it can take so long to get a good hand in full-deck hold’em. He said that you always have a good hand in the short-deck version. He also described how players have an excellent chance of hitting the board and far better odds of hitting the river.

In a statement, Koon said

There is still a lot of room for skill, even if there is sometimes a lot of preflop flipping, you are playing multi-way pots and if you can read hands well and stay out of trouble you are going to make a lot more money than somebody who is going to overplay top pair or other hands that are good in full deck but are less strong in short deck.