Lowball poker is like a 5-card Stud Poker, with one huge difference – the winning player is the one with the lowest card. If you’re already familiar with playing 5-card stud, but would like to use lowball poker to make your poker night more interesting, then you should learn this game. However, be aware that having low cards are just as hard as having high cards.

Lowball poker is played by dealing five cards to each player, placed face down so no one can see the cards except the player. Depending on your set of cards, decide if you’d like to bet or fold. Before you can move to the next round, you need to fold, raise your bet or match the highest bet. Although you’re not sure if your final hand would be enough to win the game, you can bluff your way during this round of betting.

Determine the bad cards and remove them. Any player still active in this round may chance the cards they don’t like to receive new ones. You can trade one, two, three, four or all cards and the dealer would give the replacement cards, facing down. This time, you need to decide whether to place more bets because it would be your last chance to bet. If any of the players choose to ‘check’, he neither folds nor bets, but bets from other players can still be made. The final cards are then placed on the table to see who has the winning hand.

The scoring of lowball poker may differ depending on the variation of game you used. The standard version of lowball is called California lowball. This game is usually scored as Ace-to-five low, which means that the winning hand is an Ace and the next best hand is Two, Three, Four and Five. Another variation of lowball is called London lowball wherein the game is scored Ace-to-six low. This type of game recognizes a straight as a high-scoring hand, so it never scores in lowball poker. Another version of lowball poker is called Kansas City Lowball, wherein the Ace, flushes and straights are considered high value.