Flush royal is believed to be the strongest possible combination of cards one might have in his hand, and rightfully so. However, this only applies to classic variations of poker, where the strongest hand wins.
The term “high” refers to the strongest possible hand. In such variations as Texas Holdem or Omaha, this hand is flush royal. On the contrary, “low” is the weakest possible hand, and there are some requirements to how exactly a player collects it:
Low can’t have cards with a value more than 8;
Ace in this case is considered the lowest card;
Straights and flushes can’t form a low.
Sometimes a single hand can be both high and low, which means the player with such a hand wins both parts of the pot.
The most popular variation of poker where high-low is present is High-Low Omaha. The main point of high-low games is the way the pot is split among the players. The pot is divided between the player with the best traditional high hand and the player with the low hand. However, if no player manages to collect the low hand, the pot is taken by the player with the highest hand, just like in classic poker variations.
The way the draw and the betting works are similar to classic variations, but the way the pot is divided greatly alters the strategy. For example, it might be great to collect the “wheel hand” (A-2-3-4-5, also called ace-to-five low), which possibly allows you to win both parts of the pot.
In high-low split games where each player is dealt more than five cards, each player chooses five of his cards to play as his hand.
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