Graveyard Poker Book

High-low split is perhaps the most mechanical variant of poker. Despite this, it is also the most befuddling to players in a tournament structure. Tournament fields break down in to several player groups or types. The first group is the regular tournament “professionals” who play with great skill within the limited bankroll structure of tournaments.

A second group is “the specialists” who excel in one game, regardless of its format, whether ring or tournament. As their moniker implies, they play their specialty and almost nothing else. A third group is the “Game players,” also known as the “non-specialists who think they are specialists.” The play ring games reasonably well and possibly excel in a particular poker variant but simply put, have no understand of the different skills and the mindset required for tournament play.

You will find all three groups of players in a Limit Hold’em tournament but the high level of random luck involved gives all players a decent shot at scooping a couple of pots. In high-low, all like the “game players” as they are easy meat. No other variant of poker changes so much when you go from a ring game to a tournament. Even worse (or better) is that this variant will change even more during the tournament. If this were the Pacific Ocean, the game players are at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. They should just hand over their money and leave.

The basic ring game strategy also happens to be the best strategy for the first rounds (depending on the amount of chips you get). Once your survive the early killing frenzy that takes out the game players, everything changes unless you have a sufficient bank roll to play speculative hands that can scoop huge pots.

If you did not scoop, then your style has to change. In general, almost any player with an Ace showing will make a move at the pot and get away with it, so do not screw up in these situations, and play the high cards. The game players that made it will find themselves drawn in and played out with their 3-4-5 hand – normally very playable in a ring game. (If you have the bring-in with 3-4-5, and it goes to a full bet, calling the complete is usually the right call.

High-low split poker is fundamentally about sweeping the high “half” of the pot by scooping the pot. Speculative hands my get great odds but are hard to call through to the end where you either make or break the hand. Split kings are normally a miserable hand in a ring game but line the road to tournament victory.

High low poker in tournaments will not only test your skills and poker logic like other tournaments. It will also test your ability to adapt and thrive or simply die. I may be oversimplifying it here, but I am trying to give the game players a hand: Play low cards early, and play high cards late.