Ace-to-six lowball
Ace-to-six lowball is another variation of poker and is a type of low poker hand game, quite like Ace-to-five, Deuce-to-Seven and others. The main objective of the game is to get the weakest hand possible, instead of the regular high hand. Aces are considered as low cards and this fact makes Ace-to-six different from Deuce-to-Seven, the game it is most similar to.
Like all other low hand poker games, pairs as well as trips are not a good thing, as a hand with no pairs defeats a one pair hand, which in turn tops a two pair hand and all beat a triple pair hand. So a low hand cannot contain any pairs. This means that although an A-A-9-5-3 would beat a 2-2-5-4-3, both hands would lose if there was a no pair poker hand in the group.
Under the circumstance that there should be two hands with same pairs, then just like in high poker, kickers are used to break the tie. But in the case of Ace-to-six lowball, the concept is reversed and hence a 3-3-6-5-2 will top over 3-3-6-5-A. Also, Ace-to-six lowball allows jokers, wherein the joker, or the wild card, is equivalent to whatever rank would make the hand the lowest possible poker hand. For example, if a hand contains Joker-5-4-3-2, the joker would be considered a 7, as a six would make it straight, and thus would make it a high hand.
Similar to the Deuce-to-Seven game, in an Ace-to-six lowball game, straights and flushes are included when judging the ranking of the winning hand, where they considered as high hands. Another rule includes that low hands should not have any card which is more than eight.
During showdown, it is important to remember that low hands are actually the highest ranking card in the hand. So a nine-high poker hand will actually be lower than a eight-high poker hand. In case the highest cards match, two cards can be compared, so a 8-6-5-4-2, will be a better hand than a 8-7—5-4-A.
The best possible hand in ace-to-six lowball poker is 6-4-3-2-A, without a flush. This is another feature where Ace-to-six lowball differs from Deuce-to-seven, where the best possible hand is 7-5-4-3-2-A, again without a flush. Ace-to-five accepts 5-4-3-2-A, irrespective of suite, as the best hand.
Ace-to-six lowball is also known as London Lowball by many players and is played both online as well as on land-based venues.
Forrige begrep: Ace-to-five lowball, Neste begrep: Act/Action
