Rules question: high/low games with no qualification

[SumZero]

I posted a poll in the home poker forum on this topic and started to get responses, but I was curious what the various dealers and floor persons in this forum would think. The issue comes up much more in some of the wilder home game variations but can occur in 7 card stud high/low no qualify as well. The basic issue can be illustrated by considering the following two players who are heads-up all-in and at show down with:

Player A:

[A[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] A[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]] 2[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 3[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] 4[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] A[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] [A[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]]

AAAA4 for high and AA234 for low.

Player B:

[K[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] K[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]] 2[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] 3[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] 4[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] K[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] [K[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]]

KKKK4 for high and KK234 for low.

Who should win the low part of the hand?

[pa3lsvt]

AA234 only wins if AA is considered low pair. Is it me, or should that be obvious?

[Chrisman886]

Player A scoops.

[AKQJ10]

No, it's obvious, but the two most popular seven-card games played for high-low, Stud and Omaha, both consider the ace low. Also I've seen H/L hold 'em (Ultimate Bet? I forget) and I'm pretty sure the ace was low.

Deuce-seven (Kansas City) triple draw, the most common lowball game where the ace is high-only, isn't usually played as part of high/low and only has five cards to a hand. Kings would certainly beat aces in that game, though.

[SumZero]

[ QUOTE ]
AA234 only wins if AA is considered low pair. Is it me, or should that be obvious?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes. But that is the very question that I'm asking. In these games A2346 is a better low hand than K2346. And no one has a problem with that. The problem comes that once the A is involved in a pair is it still able to be low the way it is when it is unpaired. Opinions in our group seem to differ.

[AKQJ10]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
AA234 only wins if AA is considered low pair. Is it me, or should that be obvious?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes. But that is the very question that I'm asking. In these games A2346 is a better low hand than K2346. And no one has a problem with that. The problem comes that once the A is involved in a pair is it still able to be low the way it is when it is unpaired. Opinions in our group seem to differ.

[/ QUOTE ]

No, I don't perceive any difference of opinion based on a paired or unpaired ace. If the ace is low, a pair of aces is lower than a pair of kings. That's lowball. (Three aces would be lower than three kings, aces full of treys would be lower than kings full of anything, etc.) The change in hand classification doesn't bump the ace to high if it's low in that variant.

(EDIT: I see now that you're referring to your poll. Without an explanation those "votes" are meaningless. In fact online polls are pretty much always meaningless anyway.)

The few variants where ace is not in fact low would still be consisitent. In 2-7 TD, a pair of kings beats a pair of aces. Trip kings beat trip aces.

I've never in my life heard of a variant where aces play low when unpaired and high when paired. I'd never heard of that triple-flop Omaha high-low (watch out! don't get twelfthed!) until someone showed me, either, so anything's possible in some arcane home variant.

[*TT*]

Aces paired is higher than Kings paired, therefore KK234 is the winning low hand. If the hands were different, say [AA]2345[7] vs [KK]2345[7] then the winning low hand would be A2345.

TT [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]

[2461Badugi]

[ QUOTE ]
If the ace is low, a pair of aces is lower than a pair of kings. That's lowball.

[/ QUOTE ]

I suppose confusion may arise in a split-pot game because of aces playing both high and low. But for low you make the best five-card A-5 lowball hand, and AA234 beats KK234.

[Andy B]

I cannot believe that this poll is close. Unless you're playing 2-7, when evaluating a low hand, Aces count low, no matter how many of them you have. Player A scoops.