Online Poker » Dealers Choice Games » King Tut's Revenge

One popular way of playing poker at home involves playing dealer's choice games. These are poker variants that add interesting new rules, hand rankings and betting structures to existing types of poker games. They can be combinations of draw poker with elements of Texas Hold'em type play or anything in between. An often-used element of these dealer's choice games are wild cards. King Tut's Revenge is one such game that uses a wild card with an interesting twist.

Straight King Tut

King Tut's Revenge is a simple variant of the poker game known as King Tut. In King Tut, each player is dealt four hole cards. Six cards are laid out in a pyramid shape on the table - three cards at the bottom, two in the middle and one on top. The single card at the top of the pyramid as well as the other three cards of that rank are wild. For example, if the top pyramid card is a 4, then all 4s become wild for that hand. The levels are each revealed with a round of betting in between. You have to make your hand using two of your hole cards and one from each level of the pyramid, meaning one of the bottom three, the middle two and the single wild card at the top.

King Tut's Revenge

The variation known as King Tut's Revenge presents the possibility of ruining your hand through the use of wild cards. Just like in straight King Tut, you are dealt four hole cards and the community cards are laid out in the same pyramid shape. The only difference is that a single card is placed face down under the pyramid. This card is known as the King Tut Card. It is supposed to represent the vengeful pharaoh buried underneath the pyramid. The cards are flipped the same way as in King Tut with the top of the pyramid being designated as the wild card.

After the top card is flipped to reveal the wild cards, the King Tut Card is flipped. If the King Tut Card has a higher rank than the top pyramid card, then the King Tut Card and the rest of the cards of that same rank are now the wilds. This means that a hand like a flush with spades can become a useless hand like four spades and diamond if your hand involves a wild card. However, if the King Tut Card is of a lower rank than the card at the top of the pyramid, the wild card does not change.

Other Variations of King Tut

There is another variation on the game called King Tut's Tomb. This is played the same way as King Tut's Revenge except the King Tut Card is used to designate the wild and the card at the top of the pyramid is just another card you can to use to make your hand.