If we jump into a DeLorean and visit the early 19th century, even before Mad Dog bullied Seamus, we’ll find smokey saloons where players play this new card game. That new card game used a 20-card deck and had players receive five cards, who bet on having the strongest hand. The name of that game? Why, poker, of course!
Now, returning back to the 21st-century future, we have millions of people all across the globe playing the same game — well, a more famous variant of it, that is. Nowadays, after the poker boom (which happened mainly thanks to televised poker tournaments), you have players throughout the world playing Texas Hold’em. But as you’d expect, with so many players around, it would be ridiculous if they confined themselves within only one game. Consequently, we can now play a multitude of poker variants. One such variant is Courchevel Poker!
But what is Courchevel Poker? Well, you’re at the right place! It’s a subtype (of a subtype) of Omaha Hold’em, and to learn Courchevel, you’ll have to figure out Omaha first. Let’s do it!
Omaha Poker
Omaha Hold’em, just like its popular brother, Texas, is a community card poker game. This signifies that players, alongside receiving hole cards which they keep to themselves, also have a set of community cards which the dealer lays out for everybody. Then, alongside other players, you use community cards, together with your own hole cards, to form a hand.
The difference between Omaha and Texas (other than one being a city and the other a state) reflects in how many hole cards each player gets. When playing Omaha, you get four hole cards, contrary to Texas’ two! With the addition of these two cards, you have nine cards to combine with instead of seven. This results in the number of hand combinations jumping from 169 to whopping 16,000! Consequently, the relative strength of hands changes.
Namely, the hand rankings don’t change — the scaling starts with a High Card and ends with a Royal Flush. That’s fixed. But with the number of cards you have at your disposal, stronger hands are a more frequent occurrence. Therefore, in Texas, the majority of rounds end up with a player holding a Pair or Two Pairs being victorious. In Omaha, however, you shouldn’t push with these because it’s a relatively weak hand. Oftentimes, players will have Straights or Full Houses.
Furthermore, Omaha is what we call a “nut game.” In plain English, this signifies that you need to have the best version of a hand ranking. For instance, if you’re holding a Straight of, say, 5-6-7-8-9, it’s probable that someone will have a better “nut potential,” holding at least a 6-7-8-9-10. You ought to be mindful of such instances.
How Hand Forming Works
There’s a rule in Omaha which represents a major stumbling block for newcomers to the game. Especially to those who’re making a switch from Texas (which, let’s be honest, is pretty much everyone). The rule says that you must use both community and hole cards to form your hand. And not just any way you like it. It has to be exactly two hole cards and exactly three community cards. That’s a fixed rule which many new players neglect. Subsequently, they often raise or call bets thinking they have a stronger hand than they actually do.
With this, the relative strength of your hole cards is different as well. For example, in Texas, pocket Aces are a great pre-flop hand, whereas in Omaha, the strength of two Aces largely depends on the other two cards. If you get four Aces (unlikely, but possible), you can end up with an Ace-high as your hand because you’ll often be unable to pair them with community cards. It’s an essential rule to this game which makes it more difficult.
Courchevel Poker
So what happens when you start making subvariants of other variants? You have Omaha Hi-Lo, where you halve the pot and have two different hand valuations for winning each one. There’s also a Five-Card Omaha. As the name suggests, instead of getting four hole cards, you receive five. Then, there are additional rule changes, one of which will give you Courchevel.
Courchevel is a Five-Card Omaha. Here, the difference is that the dealer places a flopet or a spit card on the table. This signifies that one community cards will be revealed at the same time when you receive your hole cards — during the pre-flop. Then, betting commences. The first player left of the button labeled “dealer” posts the small blind, and the next one posts the big blind. Betting starts with the player left of the big blind. Then it proceeds clockwise, and the betting is completed once all remaining players (those who haven’t folded) have placed an equal bet.
After that, during the first dealing street, the Flop, the dealer places two cards on the table, completing the three-card Flop together with the flopet. The game then goes on as regular Omaha game, with the fourth community card and the final community card joining the game during the River and the Turn.
Final Thoughts
The attraction of Courchevel is in the fact that there’s a flopet. With the flopet, you can have a better sense of what your hand potential is since you know one of the community cards before you make your pre-flop bet. Moreover, since it’s a Five-Card Omaha variant, you have ten cards at your disposal, meaning that you have even better odds of getting a strong hand.
Afterward, there are further distinctions which come down to your personal preference. You can play Courchevel Hi-Lo, splitting the pot in two. There’s also a pot-limit Courchevel, which is a fixed-limit game, and you can also enjoy a no-limit Courchevel, where the betting rules are like those in Texas.
Courchevel is a rather infrequent poker variant, and it won’t be easy finding a community of Courchevel players. However, that said, if you become good at it, it’ll be easier to defeat your opponents and make a profit since the competition is lacking. Good luck!