High-Low poker rules info

The original purpose of High-Low Poker was to give holders of poor cards a chance to play; the game was found to be so excellent in its own right that it has become almost as popular as regular Poker.

Any form of Poker may be played high-low; most games in which there are many wild cards, and most Seven-card Stud games, are now played high-low.

In a high-low game there are usually two winners of the pot: The player with the highest hand takes one-half, and the player with the lowest hand takes one-half. But in some cases there may be a single winner, if the same player holds the highest hand and the lowest hand, thus:

Seven-card High-Low Stud

Each player in the showdown may select any five of his cards as his high hand and any five as his low hand; he may win both ways and take the whole pot.

Wild-card games

The holder of a wild card may give it one rank in the competition for high and another in the competition for low. For example, a player holds D 7 5 4 3 and a wild card. For high, he calls the wild card the D 6 and has a straight flush; for low, he calls it a deuce of some suit other than diamonds and has the lowest possible hand.

Declarations

Some play that after the final betting interval, but before the showdown, each player must declare whether he is trying for high, for low, or for both. There are three principal methods of declaring. They are:

• Contract Poker. Each player in turn, beginning with the active player nearest the dealer's left, states whether he is playing for high, for low, or for both. Thus each player has a chance to hear the declarations of players before him before deciding on his own. After all active players have declared, there is a showdown.
• Before any hands are shown, each player decides mentally whether he is playing for high or low. If he decides upon low, he takes a white chip in his hand without letting other players see it; a red chip if he decides upon high. When all have decided, the players expose the colours of their chips. If all players in the call decide the same way, the best hand that way takes the whole pot.
• Playing for both high and low. In addition to taking a white or red chip, as explained in the preceding paragraph, the player may take a blue chip to signify that he is contending for both high and low. The player selects mentally two hands of five cards each from among the cards that he holds: this is possible when playing with wild cards or in Seven-card Stud. If a player claims both high and low, and is tied or beaten on either, he loses any title to the pot. If no one wins in full accordance with his declaration, all declarations are disregarded and the active players divide the pot equally.

Rank of low hands

In most high-low games, the usual rank of Poker hands is observed; therefore, the lowest possible hand is 7-5-4-3-2, not all of one suit. Players are apt to become confused in ranking the low hands; the easiest way to avoid confusion is to determine which is the higher of two hands, according to the usual Poker standards, whereupon the other must be the lower.

For example, 8-7-4-3-2 and 8-6-5-4-3; the 8-6 band is the lower, because in regular Poker it would lose to the 8-7 hand in the showdown; the deuce in the 8-7 hand has nothing to do with it because Poker hands are ranked from the top down.
It is common practice to observe one of the following variations in ranking the hands:

• Ace low. In trying for low, one may call an ace the lowest card in his hand, whereupon the lowest possible hand becomes 6-4-3- 2-A in two or more suits, and even among pairs, playing for low, a pair of aces is a lower hand than a pair of deuces.
• Wild cards low. Any wild card ranks as a "zero" and the relative low rank is determined by the other cards; therefore, with deuces wild, 7-5-4-3-2 is not so low as 7-5-4-2-2. Some play that wild cards may duplicate other cards in the hand without pairing them, so that, with ace counting low and the joker wild, 6-4-3-2-A is not so low as 6-4-3-A-joker, the latter being "double-ace low."

Division of side pots in table stakes

In High-Low Poker, when one player can win both high and low, and when table stakes are played, complications arise in the division of side pots. The rules governing the division of side pots are as follows :

• No one without the highest or lowest hand in the show- down can share in a sidepot. There is no separate comparison among players in the side pot.
• If a player without an interest in a side pot wins both high and low, all the active players in each side pot divide that side pot equally. If a player without an interest in a side pot wins one way, and a player in a side pot wins the other way, the latter receives that entire sidepot. The main pot, of course, is always split between the high and low hands.
  Suppose A and B are in the side pot, C and D are not. C wins both high and low; A and B split the side pot regardless of their hands (other players who may have been in that side pot, but have dropped, have relinquished their rights). Suppose A wins high, C wins low; A wins the entire side pot, A and C divide the mainpot.
• Suppose A and B are in the side pot, C is not. A wins high, B and C tie for low. A wins two-thirds of the side pot, B wins one-third.
• Suppose A is In the side pot, B and C are not. C wins high, A and B tie for low. A wins half the sidepot and the rest of the sidepot is withdrawn by the players.