Kansas Tornado Rules

Texas Tornado, with its Kansas variation, was contributed to pagat.com by Chris Gaskill. Up to ten players may take part, using a standard 52-card deck with no wild cards.

The object is to win the pot with the best five-card high hand, ranked by the standard hand rankings, or by making a bet no one calls.

There are two versions:

1.3(a) Texas Tornado: each player receives two hole cards and may combine them with the visible tornado cards as in Texas Hold'em.

1.3(b) Kansas Tornado: each player receives four hole cards and, as in Omaha, shall use exactly two of them.

Antes or blinds are posted according to the table's usual practice, and each player is dealt their hole cards face down: two in Texas Tornado, four in Kansas Tornado.

There is a round of betting, conducted as in Hold'em.

After the first betting round, the dealer counts ten cards from the deck and squares them into a neat stack.

Holding the stack face up, the dealer drops it onto the table with a twisting motion so that the cards land face up and fan out partly. The resulting pile is the tornado.

A tornado card is visible, and becomes a community card, if more than half of at least one of its corner indices (the rank and suit symbol in the corner) can be seen, and the card is still touching the pile.

The dealer decides which cards are visible. To avoid disputes, a card counts only if the dealer and at least one other player agree that more than half of its index can be seen.

Cards that are hidden, or that have separated from the pile, play no part in the hand.

The number of visible cards varies from hand to hand. The source does not say what happens if too few cards are visible for players to make a five-card hand; a table that wants a rule for this shall agree it before play.

Once the visible cards have been agreed, there is a second and final betting round.

If more than one player remains, there is a showdown. In Texas Tornado a player makes the best five-card hand from their two hole cards and any of the visible cards. In Kansas Tornado a player uses exactly two hole cards and exactly three visible cards.

The best high hand wins the pot. Identical hands split it.

Because the whole board appears at once, there is no drawing after the second betting round: every hand is complete when the last bet is made.

More than five community cards may be visible, so strong hands are more common than in Hold'em. Starting-hand values should be adjusted upward accordingly.