Online Poker » Dealers Choice Games » Wild Hex

Wild Hex is a community card game in the same vein as Omaha or Texas Hold'em. However, Wild Hex, as the name implies, features wild cards as well. Additionally, Wild Hex involves some interesting rules that new players should keep in mind when playing. The process of forming your hand in Wild Hex is also somewhat different than what you may be accustomed to in a traditional community card game. After learning some basic rules and strategy, you should have no problems playing Wild Hex competitively.

Wild Hex Rules

To begin a game of Wild Hex, each player is dealt four hole cards. Later, these hole cards can be used in combination with community cards to form a winning poker hand. Next, the dealer places six community cards on the table in the shape of a hexagon. For the purposes of learning the game, we can label these community cards as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 going clockwise around the table. After the dealer places these community cards on the table, he places a seventh card in the middle of the hexagon. This card will later be flipped over to determine which card will be wild.

The players look at their hole cards, and the first round of betting then ensues. Next, the dealer flips over community cards 1 and 3. Another round of betting ensues. The dealer then reveals cards 4 and 6, and a round of betting ensues again. Finally, the dealer flips over cards 2 and 5. This is followed by another round of betting. Finally, the dealer flips over the wild card. At this point, the other three cards that match this center card become wild, so long as they are hole cards. Community cards can never be wild in Wild Hex. A final round of betting, known as the showdown, is now played out.

Forming Hands in Wild Hex

When playing Wild Hex, you'll need to follow some specific rules in order to form a valid poker hand. As with virtually any poker game, your hand will total five cards. You'll need to use exactly two of your hole cards along with three adjacent community cards. For example, you could use community cards 123, 234, 456 or 612. So long as the community cards used are consecutive, your hand will be valid. If you have a wild card, it can be used as any suit or card value. If you wish, it can also maintain its original value, though the instances where you'd wish to do this are rare. It is also acceptable to have more than one wild card in your hole cards. For example, if you had a pair of 8s and the dealer revealed the wild card to be an 8, both of your 8s would be considered wild.