Bored now. Invent a novel poker variant.

[MarkGritter]

Inspired by the recent question about 2-7 rankings... let's have a game which really does use the inverse of the normal 5-card ranks.

6-card "deuce to eight" lowball: Each player gets dealt 6 cards to start. Play proceeds as in triple draw lowball. At showdown, each player makes his best 5-card high hand. The lowest such hand wins the pot.

Examples:

234567 vs. AAKKQQ: The first hand makes a straight (34567) while the second is "just" aces-up (AAKKQ) so the second hand wins.

24569T vs. 223458: The first hand is a T-high (T9654) and beats a pair of deueces (22854).

A23458 vs. 234578: The first hand is an five-high straight and loses to the latter's 87543 (which is the nuts.)

This idea could be expanded to larger hands. In 10-card lowball ranked using "true inversion" like this,
2345789TQK (KQT98-high) with no flushes is the nuts.

With more cards, avoiding a flush probably becomes part of the drawing strategy. Keeping pairs to avoid a straight is probably necessary as well.