If you have ever thought about learning poker games other than Texas Hold ‘Em, now might be the time to give them a try.

Don’t worry if you don’t know what you are doing … you’ll soon find out that your opponents are just as bad. Or, more likely, worse.

With just a little preparation and knowledge of the basics of these other games, you’ll find an exciting new challenge and potentially financially rewarding endeavor. What’s more, Texas Hold ‘em seems a lot easier when you go back to it after you learn and experience some of the more complicated games.

After ESPN aired extensive coverage of this year’s $50,000 buy-in HORSE event – a tournament that most top pros consider the real world championship – I wondered if the attention would spark an increased interest in some of the lesser-publicized and less-played games.

Sure enough, online HORSE sit-and-gos that used to sometimes take hours to fill were suddenly ripe with eager participants, stud tournaments that were often canceled due to lack of interest were getting more than 100 takers, and $1-$2 cash games that often went empty now had waiting lists.

The new craze, it seems, officially is on. The good news, for you, is much like they did when hold’em became the craze, dozens of new players are taking to the virtual felt with no clue about how to play the HORSE games. This becomes evident by merely watching them for a couple of minutes. In other words, online HORSE is full of donkeys.

HORSE is an acronym that stands for limit hold’em, Omaha Hi/Lo, Razz, Stud, and Stud Eight-or-better. I had some experience with pot-limit Omaha, Stud and Razz, but was somewhat unfamiliar with the Hi/Lo versions of Omaha and Stud.

No problem. Simply learn the rules and find a few sources of basic information to get you going. In my case, I had a copy of T.J. Cloutier’s “Championship Omaha” lying around that I had purchased for pot-limit Omaha advice, but had never delved into for tips on the Hi/Lo game. I read it and realized the same principles would apply to Stud Hi/Lo, so a good part of my basic education was found there.

Then, I learned through playing some HORSE, that the biggest mistake that beginners make, and what you should avoid, is poor starting hand selection. Not surprisingly, this is the top mistake novices make when playing hold’em, too. Learn the value of starting hands in a 10-seated game, short-handed or in late position, and heads-up and you’ll already be ahead of the game.

The good news about stud and its variations – Razz and Hi/Lo – is that each player’s exposed cards give you a good, and sometimes definitive, idea of where you stand in the hand. Have you ever played a hold’em game when there was a bet after the flop, five players call, and you wonder how they all possibly could have a good enough hand to call? Well, this phenomenon is worse in HORSE games.

In the stud variations, four of a player’s seven total cards are exposed for all to see. This should make some decisions delightfully easy. Each player starts with two down cards and one exposed, and you make your best five-card hand from the seven dealt to you.

So say a player with an ace showing raises, and you call with 7-7 in the hole and a king showing. Fourth street brings your opponent an ace – that you can see! – while bringing you a queen. He bets, and the action is on you … fold! It’s that easy. Your opponent may have raised without another ace in the hole – or he could have trips, you never know – but none of that matters now. There is clear visual evidence that you are beat; you can only call if you have two pair, which might not be good, or some sort of monster draw like an open-ended straight flush that could still lose if you run into a full house. Better to not take that chance and just save chips while you are clearly behind. And yet, an astounding number of players will call in this situation.

This is an even bigger trend in Razz, a variation of stud in which the worse non-paired, five-card hand wins, with the absolute nuts being the wheel, an A-2-3-4-5 straight. Say you raise with an ace showing and 3-4 in the hole, an excellent starting hand, and somehow get called by a player showing a 10 (his first mistake). You bet when a 7 hits your board on fourth street and, surprisingly, your opponent calls when a jack hits his. The next part is what kills me the most; on fifth street you are dealt an ace that pairs your showing ace, and your opponent is dealt a king. Because his king is actually lower than the pair of aces you are showing, he is first to act, similar to the highest showing hand being first to act in stud.

Your opponent is nearly drawing dead. Here is the skinny: unless you somehow make a full house on sixth and seventh street – which is unlikely and would be extremely unlucky – there is no way he can beat your hand. But you would be surprised at how many players with the king showing will bet in this situation. They clearly don’t know how to play the game, and essentially think, “Well, the curser is blinking on my avatar … the action is on me … this must mean I have the best hand … I bet.” When this happens – and it will happen often – get in as many raises as you can.

Another common flaw in these games is players betting when checked to when they have no chance of winning. In Razz and Stud, you’ll often have a drawing hand and, even if you have the best hand showing, it might be in your best interest to check and see what develops if other players show threatening boards.

Without fail, if you and another player or two check, someone in late position will bet. This makes no sense because, for one, if there is $300 in the pot and the bet is $30 or $60, nobody with a decent draw is folding for one bet. What’s more, the person who bet acted late or last in the hand because he has the WORST hand showing! People don’t understand that this isn’t hold’em, it isn’t no-limit, position is not nearly as important, and, betting when checked to do will accomplish nothing but build a bigger pot that someone else is going to win.

These players just don’t get it, and it’s because they’ve never taken the appropriate time and research to get a grip on the game before playing. The most common mistake in Omaha is calling bets with draws to less than the nuts in both the high and low variations, and calling with just backdoor low draws after the flop.

But you will not make these mistakes because you know that chasing with inferior hands is a recipe for disaster. You’ve done your homework and only enter pots with premium starting hands. You realize bluffing is a bad idea that stands little chance of working, especially against this level of competition. You wait for good hands and pounce when the calling stations do all their calling and you’ve got the nuts.

With a little research and a lot of patience, you’ll find that HORSE is a fun game and surprisingly easy to beat. You can thank your less-motivated opponents for that.