09-23-2001, 03:14 AM
I don't know if this has been thought of before but why not play hi-lo draw without splitting the pot? In other words, simply include low hands in the high rankings and fight for one pot. The rankings are: an eight or seven low beats trips, a six low beats a flush and a five low beats a full-house. I haven't tried it, but the new hands come in at the serious betting level just above trips, so it could spice things up a little. If anyone tries it, let me know. Ditto if it's been tried before.
I don't think that playing for one pot would work very well for hi-lo open-poker games, but lowball rankings could be modified in another way for open poker. The problem with stud for low or high/low is that an exposed high card is too much of a burden: If you start with a king exposed your hand is automatically dead. One way to get around this is to play highball/lowball, in which the highest hands are a top straight at one end, and either an ace to five or a duece-to-six straight at the other. Pairs are bad for both types of hand. Sorting out which hand was best would take a while to get used to, but you just count from each end and whoever has the highest low card in a high hand or lowest high card in a low hand wins, if you get my drift. Sticklers for "correct" rankings could try "southern" highball/lowball in which Aces count high in low hands and low in high hands, and straights and flushes are penalised as well as pairs, in which case the two highest hands are a duece-to-the-seven at one end and eight-to-the-king at the other, with pairs and aces equally bad at both ends. Might be fun to try anyway.
DZ
I don't think that playing for one pot would work very well for hi-lo open-poker games, but lowball rankings could be modified in another way for open poker. The problem with stud for low or high/low is that an exposed high card is too much of a burden: If you start with a king exposed your hand is automatically dead. One way to get around this is to play highball/lowball, in which the highest hands are a top straight at one end, and either an ace to five or a duece-to-six straight at the other. Pairs are bad for both types of hand. Sorting out which hand was best would take a while to get used to, but you just count from each end and whoever has the highest low card in a high hand or lowest high card in a low hand wins, if you get my drift. Sticklers for "correct" rankings could try "southern" highball/lowball in which Aces count high in low hands and low in high hands, and straights and flushes are penalised as well as pairs, in which case the two highest hands are a duece-to-the-seven at one end and eight-to-the-king at the other, with pairs and aces equally bad at both ends. Might be fun to try anyway.
DZ