Winning Poker with the Lowest Hand

Why having the lowest valued cards will,win the game? That is what happens when you are playing lowball poker. It might have been invented with some players getting tired with having the highest hand.

With the standard deck the chances of getting a high hand is very small. This variation has such an effect on the playing a hand that it provides so many unique and amusing conditions and strategies.

In most variants of poker, the ranking of hands is the same with the original poker game. In lowball however, the ranking of hands are reverse. Some may count the ace as still the highest valued single card with the twos as the lowest. It may also be that aces count as one and is therefore lower than the ace.

In the case that the ace is the highest card, best low hand is composed of seven, five, four, three and two. But with the ace as the lowest value card, a hand of six, four, three, two and aces is the perfect low hand. A hand composed of five, four, three, two and an ace is called the wheel or bicylce; it is the lowest hand possible.

The winner is judged by the rank of the highest card. A highest card of seven defeats a hand with eight as the highest card. If the highest cars of two players are a tie, judge the second highest card and the lower one wins. The lowest card at hand is not significant. If one player has six, five, four, four and three while the other has seven, four, three, and aces, the one that holds the six wins. Flushes and straights do not count in this type of poker.

The decision to play lowball poker may be done by declaration of the winner of the previous round whether the next round of play will be a high poker or a lowball. Or at the start of a new game, each player takes two chips and moves both hands under the table. Players return one clenched hand to the table. When all have done so, they open their hands. An absence of a single hand holding a chip means the next game will be a low poker.

The five best low poker hands are as follows: ace-two-three-four-five, followed by ace-two-three-four-six, ace-two-three-five-six, ace-two-four-five-six and lastly ace-three-four-five-six.

Lowball poker attracts amateur gambler at the casino. For as they say, low ranking cards are easier to get than those superior cards.