No Limit Texas Hold´em is my favourite poker-game, but I think there is room for improvement. First of all, your hole-cards are always hidden, so you basically have no idea what your opponent has. I envy the 7-card Stud players in this regard. There you get an idea what the opponent has even before interpreting his actions.

I also like that you see some of the cards those who folded had. This changes your odds of hitting whatever you are trying to hit, which I find fun. In Hold´em it is always the same old story. You have a flush-draw on the flop: 9 outs out of 47. You have a gutshot and an overcard on the turn: 7 outs out of 46. Never more, never less. Day in and day out. It gets boring.

7-card Stud has its own problems, though. No community cards. I like community cards. I guess it is because I am so used to them. And I hate that once people fold, you no longer see what cards they had, so you have to use a lot of energy trying to remember. It is like that memory-game that sucks balls. I think it is called Kim´s Game or something, where you see a lot of objects, get a short time to memorize them, then they are removed and you must list the items. Lord have mercy.

I want to take the best parts of 7-card stud and put it in Texas Hold´em. When somebody folds preflop, I want one of his cards to be revealed, say the 1st card he was dealt. If that card happens to be a queen, a non-pocket pair hand with a queen would suddenly sink drastically in value. I find this fun. It shakes things up a bit. Every time somebody folds preflop, another card is revealed. Even folds become entertaining.

Players who don´t fold preflop will still keep their cards hidden. But on the flop, all hell breaks loose. The player to the left of the button (typically the small blind) must show a card. If this player folded preflop, he shows his other card. If this player didn´t fold preflop, he shows the 1st card he was dealt and performs an action. Then the next player shows a card (and performs an action if he is still in the pot) and so on.

If a player folds postflop, he must immediately show both cards. All these showing of cards will change pot odds constantly, and the cards will stay up so people can focus on outsmarting their opponents instead of desperately trying to remember every shown card. Perhaps it is just me, but I would find that a lot more entertaining.

Another thing I want to add is a mandatory showing of cards when the hand is over. If a hand is won by someone folding to a bet/raise/re-raise, both the folder and the winner must show their hands. It is so frustrating to never find out if you would have won if you had called, so I think this is a nice addition. Besides, forcing successful bluffers to show their bluff afterwards to the unfortunate bluffee is certain to cause smiles or laughter around the table, in addition to one very red face.