High-Low, "Hi-Lo" or less commonly
known as "eight or better", is a variant of the traditional 7 Card
Stud. Its dynamics is governed by the same principles, with the exception
that the player is unable to make a large bet when there is an open pair on
fourth street.
One of the elementary differences is that the High-Low
modality is a split type game, that is to say, the pot between the highest
hand and the lowest (hence the qualifiers high and low). The rules state that
the lowest hand must be 5 cards lower than the unpaired 8.
The main difference between 7 Card Stud poker
and 7 Card Stud Hi - Lo online is that in the standard variant, the
objective is only to form the best hand with a maximum of 5 cards out of the 7
cards that are dealt in total. Being a stud type game, it combines the use of
covered cards with face cards to bind the hand.
On the other hand, in 7 Card Stud Hi-Lo, the
objective is not only to bind the best hand, but to do it in two ways:
to form the best major hand and the best minor hand, with 5 of the 7 cards
dealt and combining, at the same time, the use of covered cards and uncovered
cards.
The rules keep the main points intact, both in
the standard mode and in the Hi - Lo games. However, 7 Card Stud Hi - Lo is an extremely
technical game, in which the best high hand and the best low hand come to
the showdown to compete for the pot in an epic head-to-head match.
In 7 Card Stud Hi - Lo, seven cards are dealt
to each player over the course of the hand. Only the best five-card hand of
each player is used to proclaim the winner, with the peculiarity that the
low hand is always played with an "eight or better" requirement,
that is, the low hand must be less than or equal to 8 to be eligible for the
corresponding part of the pot.
In Hi - Lo games of 7 Card Stud poker, it is
possible that several active players reach the last betting round. In case
there were no bets in the previous street, the player who occupies the first
seat will be the first to show his cards, followed by the rest of the players
without altering the direction followed during the game.
After everyone has spoken, half of the pot will
go to the player with the best five-card high hand, and the other half will go
to the player with the best five-card low hand. If the requirements to form the
best low hand have not been met, the entire pot will go to the player who
formed the best high hand.
An important aspect of 7 Card Stud games
is the bring-in. When two or more players have a card of the same value as the
hole card, the lowest suit is used to determine the tie-breaker. The lowest
suit is clubs, followed (in ascending order) by diamonds, hearts and spades.
In case the player with the lowest exposed card
on third street goes all-in on ante and cannot make the initial bet, the
bring-in is shifted clockwise to the next player.
Let's go first to the middle cards. The
objective of the game is to win the pot without splitting it, but with
medium cards we are going to have a hard time. A good starting hand for low,
and at the same time a good hand that allows us to continue having the
potential to tie the high with a good project, can be three cards under 8
including or not an ace, or three cards under 5 with or without ace.
Any hand containing a pair of aces will be a
good starting hand, there is no doubt about that.
The game with premium cards is different. Here
we start from the assumption that we have a project with a lot of potential to
tie the high. The best starting hand that we can find is A A A, that is
a fact, followed by a trio of kings, eights or fives. Therefore, the order of
the best premium starting hands would be as follows:
It should be noted that K K K has hardly any options for low, so it is a one-way hand. 8 8 8 is a rolled up with a very low potential for low, while 5 5 5 has a lot of potential for low but is somewhat inhibited for high.
If you were interested in this article, you can't miss all the information we have collected in the post dedicated to Razz poker: rules, starting hands and optimal strategies.
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