(I considered posting this in GQ, but decided it didn’t have an according-to-Hoyle answer. It’s more of a poll: What’s the house rule where you play?)
Our club started a Friday night poker game last night, and I played my first ever for-real, for-money poker. My initial poker lesson cost me two dollars and change, which I thought was pretty cheap tuition considering all the dumb mistakes I made.
There was one Joker in the deck, which was the bug.
The game: Three Card Lowball. At the showdown, one guy lays down an A-4-Joker. Arguement ensues, since it’s our first game and we don’t have established house rules. Opinion is divided into three camps:
Joker doesn’t count at all. You’re not required to use the bug as an ace. A-4 is a low hand, winner.
The bug must be an ace. It’s a pair, high hand, loser.
You don’t use a Joker in lowball. It should have been pulled from the deck in the first place. Bzzzzt, foul!
After some searching online this morining, I came up with a different interpretation:
3a. It’s OK to have a Joker in lowball, but it shouldn’t be a bug, just a normal wild card. Winner.
How it’s handled is you decide what the wild is going to be BEFORE you play your first hand. Did you guys seriously not expect this exact scenario to occur?
I don’t play lowball, but there are two popular ways of playing a joker in regular games such as pai-gow, 7 card stud, etc. 1) A true wild that can be used as anything you wish. 2) A semi-wild card that defaults to an Ace unless it is being used to complete a flush or a straight.
I would imagine that in lowball, the second scenario wouldn’t be applicable. Therefore, the logical assumption is that a joker is a true wild card and can any card in the deck you wish it to be. It’s still just an assumption though and should have been cleared up ahead of time.
As Enderw24 said, that’s a rule you call before you deal. Were we to play that at my game, it would be truly wild and the described hand above would’ve called it a 2.
Somebody did think to specify beforehand that in lowball, aces would be low and straights and flushes counted (both of which, I understand, can vary from house to house), but I guess nobody thought of that one.
Call us absent-minded. Like I said, it was our first game, and although everybody (except me) seemed to be more-or-less experienced players, they were a little rusty.
In the poker games that I’ve played, when the Joker is called the “bug”, it’s good for aces, straights, and flushes - that’s for high hands. For low hands, it was wild (we usually played high-low).
But everyone who said that this needs to be discussed before hand is right - as all of my poker games have been friendly, misunderstandings like this have essentially been voted on, with the host having the tiebreaking vote (house rules and all). But if it isn’t a friendly game, or you don’t know people very well, it can get ugly.
Just out of curiosity, dono, what did you eventually decide?
Sorry to be so long in responding, Linus, but - I’m embarassed to say - I didn’t remember. I wasn’t involved in the showdown, having chickened out long before, so I was more interested in the debate than its resolution.
I finally ran into one of the other guys a little while ago, who said it was decided option 1 - low hand, winner.
You can bet this will be specified beforehand next Friday.