Patent ID: 7438295

Claim:
A method of conducting a card game having one or more betting rounds comprising: dealing one or more players, and a dealer, three to five, face-down hole cards; dealing common cards face-up in a interrelated pattern, said common cards being dealt in at least two stages, wherein the pattern is not a single straight line and includes at least two pre-designated groups of unique common cards wherein at least two pre-designated groups of unique common cards within the interrelated pattern include at least one same common card; regardless of a poker strength of the three to five face-down hole cards, requiring each player and the dealer to discard at least one hole card after each of said at least two common card dealing stages such that at an end of the game each player and the dealer holds only two hole cards; after all common cards have been revealed, evaluating poker hand ranks by combining each player's, and the dealer's, two hole cards with any pre-designated group of three common cards forming part of the pattern such that each player's five-card hand and the dealer's five-card hand is of the highest poker hand rank possible; and awarding one or more players a payout for holding a poker hand outranking said dealer's best poker hand.