Hi/Low
simply means that half of the total pot goes to the winner
but now the other half goes to the player with the Low.
However it's not just that easy. The "low" can only be specific
cards and has no poker hand rules except that it must be
five cards total. The low is ONLY NUMBERS (1-8). This means
the Ace is counted as a (1) and is the best low card, and
the (8) is the worst low. So the best low hand possible
also happens to be a straight which is A, 2, 3, 4, 5. Now
the Ace becomes even more powerful than before since it's
high AND low. How do you know which low is better than which?
Well it's counted from the 8 downwards. Whoever has the
highest low card has the WORST low hand. I know you need
examples at this point so here they are. The hand marked
in BLUE is lower and is the best low hand of the two.
(A6384) vs. (25634).
Here the 2-5-6-3-4 which is also a straight is lower than
the other hand even though the other hand has an ACE because
the Highest
Low Card in the 2nd hand is a 6 but in the first
hand it's an 8. So in poker terms it would be an 8-6 low
against a 6-5 low, so 6-5 is the winner.
Here
are some more examples. The Hand in Blue is the best low:
[(24678) vs. (A2468)] , [ (34567)
vs. (A2348)] ,
[(A2347)
vs. (23456)]
What
if there is more than one low and it's the same?
If there are 3 people in a hand and one has the high like
(AA774) and the other two have the SAME low of (A2347) then
the high still get half of the pot but the low players split
the other half and receive only 1/4th of the pot and therefore
actually lose money if there were only three people in to
begin with . Now there could even be three or FOUR people
with the low in the same hand or even two or three of the
same HIGH hand or even a MIXTURE! So as you see this is
much more difficult than straight forward poker so you must
be very careful and know exactly what you are doing. Since
the most widely played Hi/Low game is Omaha Hi/Low I will
focus mainly on that. In fact Omaha Hi/Low is much more
played than Omaha Hi. In
Omaha Hi/Low you still must use two cards of the four to
make your hi hand but you can also use the two others, the
same two, or a mixture to make your low hand. After Omaha
Hi/Low the most common Hi/Low game is 7 Card Stud Hi/Low
and after that is Pineapple Hi/Low. The others are very
rarely played in a Hi/Low form but I will still provide
examples of each type.
Below are examples of some winning low's
and high's and how much of the pot they would each receive.
Almost all the pots in stud hi/low have
just ONE low and or One high hand.
In 7 card stud you start with three cards
and the 3rd one is face up. So the first player was going
for the high since he started with two queens and an Ace
while the second player started with 3 low cards, a two-six-seven.
The
fourth card, also called '4th street' in Stud, didn't really
effect the high player however the Ace of Spades greatly
helped the low player. Now
he only need one more low cards out of the next three cards,
plus he could get another Ace to ALSO take the high.
After
the 5th and 6th cards the left player still had a higher
pair, however the right seat player was in MUCH better shape.
Since he already had his low made (Ace, 2, 6, 7, 4) AND
had a pair of sevens, he was already about to win half the
pot for sure but if he made two pair on the 7th card or
get a 3rd seven he would have received 100% of the pot.
Low cards are much more important in Stud Hi/Low than
high cards. When the other player improved on the last
card and made two pair (Ace, Q, Q, J, J) it didn't matter,
he still received only half the pot. So as you can see ...half
or ALL is a much better position than half or NOTHING.
Very rarely will you see two of the same
exact low's in stud hi/low.
However, this is what it would look like.
In this hand all 3 players came in with
good Stud Hi/Low hands. (3, 4, 2), (6, 5, 3) and (Ace, 5,
6).
On
4th street the 1st player got a pair, the 2nd player had
4 diamonds and the 3rd player did not improve with that
king but since no one bet at all in that round so the 3rd
player never folded or thought about folding. However the
5th card gave the 1st player a 2-3-4-5 which is great for
taking the low and the high with a possible straight. The
center player did not improve but the 3rd player now had
an Ace-3-5-6.
The
sixth card for each player was HUGE and the bet piled up.
A straight and a perfect low was made by the left player
(Ace, 2, 3, 4, 5). The center player got the best card in
the deck for his hand, the Ace of diamond gave him 4 lows
and 4 diamonds. A low of Ace-2-3-5-6 was made by the right
player who didn't know was beat. On the last and 7th card
the right ASLO made a perfect low and straight of Ace through
five, but it was a nightmare since the center player made
an Ace high flush and took half the pot while the other
2 players split the rest and got quartered. Once you play
Hi/Low Stud you will see how rare this is.
