Free Royal Poker Games

How to Play Royal Poker Online

Royal Poker – sometimes known as Royal Hold’em – has one defining feature that gives it both its name and its all-action reputation:

• It’s played with a deck containing only Tens, Jacks, Queens, Kings and Aces!

Other than that one (pretty huge) difference, Royal Poker plays identically to Texas Hold’em, so if you’re already familiar with that game it should be easy to pick it up quickly. If you need to brush up on the rules to Texas Hold’em you can find them right here, but here are the main points to remember:

• Each player receives two hole cards
• Three community cards are dealt (the flop), which all players may use to create their five-card poker hand
• A fourth community card is dealt (the turn)
• The final community card is dealt (the river)
• The pot is won by the best poker hand, or the last player left who hasn’t folded

Betting rounds take place after the deal and after each new round of community cards, with small and big blinds posted pre-flop to get the first betting round started.

These rules all apply to Royal Poker online, and just like Texas Hold’em you’ll also find that it’s most often played as a no limit game. Standard hand rankings apply.

Due to the reduced number of cards in the deck, Royal Poker is played with a maximum of six players at a table.

Royal Poker Strategy

So, does a Hold’em player need to change their approach when it comes to playing Royal Poker? You bet they do!

Playing with just five ranks of cards means you’ll need to make some adjustments when it comes to evaluating the strength of your hands. A pair of aces may be a great starting hand in Texas Hold’em, but in Royal Poker it’s not quite as exciting. Bigger hands are very common, and usually necessary to take down the pot.

With fewer cards in play, you should consider these facts when developing your Royal Poker strategy:

• Any pair on the board is highly likely to have given someone trips or a full house
  
• The only possible unpaired board is a straight
  
• The only possible flush is a royal flush
  

This means, for example, that if you make a straight on the turn, the river will either a) be the fifth card to the straight, making the nuts on the board for a split pot, or b) pair a board card, most likely giving someone a full house.

The result is a truly dramatic game filled with big hands and exciting showdowns, where full houses, quads and royal flushes are all much more common (and so getting big hands like these won’t count towards your Replay Poker Achievements).

Royal Hold’em Poker is a game we’d recommend to any poker player looking for a new, fun game to try. And at Replay Poker you can play it for free against real opponents, worldwide, without risking a cent!