Going into the year 2000, the most popular form of poker by far was fixed-limit hold’em. However, in the present day, very few people play fixed-limit hold’em at all. This game has fallen to the side because it’s less exciting than big bet games like no-limit hold’em and pot-limit Omaha. These two games are the two biggest and most popular forms of poker by far. If you’re looking to get into poker and make some money, it’s almost a requirement to be very familiar with one or both of these two forms of poker.
No-limit hold’em was pushed into the limelight with Chris Moneymaker’s big win in the 2003 World Series of Poker Main Event. Before then, very few no-limit hold’em cash games were even played, and the game was a bit of an oddity. In the years that followed, Moneymaker’s story, and his incredibly convenient last name, pushed no-limit hold’em into being the most popular poker game of all time. More no-limit hold’em games are played right now than all other forms of poker combined. What draws people to no-limit hold’em is that it’s an easy game to learn, compared to other poker games. Since the game has a lot of action, it also draws in players from all walks of life.
A similar game with slightly different rules, known as pot-limit Omaha, is also very popular. Omaha is an action game like no-limit hold’em, and is easy to teach someone who already understands no-limit hold’em. The additional action in Omaha comes from players starting with four hole cards instead of two hole cards, meaning that players make big hands much more often, and chips go flying as a result. Pot-limit Omaha is the second most popular poker game played online, and it’s so far ahead of third place that it’s hard to even tell what the third place game is.
For a poker game to rival no-limit hold’em or pot-limit Omaha, it’s going to need to be easy to teach, but difficult to master. If a game is too difficult to teach, not many new players will want to play, and the game won’t be able to grow. If the game is too easy to become proficient at, then players will get bored with it after a while and stop playing, which will also stop the growth of the game. Neither no-limit hold’em or pot-limit Omaha suffer from these problems, which is why experts believe these two games will be the most popular poker games for a very long time.