Frequency of 5-card Lowball Poker Hands
In understanding Lowball (sometimes called California Lowball), it is very important to understand the frequency of 5-card lowball poker hands. Below we show the different variations and probabilities including when you enter a joker into the mix.
But first, let's review how Lowball poker works.
Lowball is just five-card draw where instead of the highest hand winning the pot, the lowest hand wins it.
The lowest hand, depending on what game you're playing may be defined two ways. Usually in games with a low hand, straights and flushes don't count against a hand being low, so A-2-3-4-5 is the lowest hand. The ace to five straight is also called "the bike" or "the wheel."
In some home games, however, they define the lowest hand as the "worst" hand, with straights and flushes counting. In that case, the lowest hand is A-2-3-4-6, not of the same suit.
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Take double-draw, add another draw with another round of betting, and you've got the triple-draw part of this game. But this game is also played for low, only the best low hand here is 2-3-4-5-7. Straights and flushes do count against you, and aces are always high.
As discussed above, Lowball Poker uses a low hand to determine the winning hand. In most variants of lowball, the ace is counted as the lowest card and straights and flushes don't count against a low hand, so the lowest hand is the five-high hand A-2-3-4-5, also called a wheel. The probability is calculated based on 
, the total number of 5-card combinations. (The frequencies given are exact; the probabilities and odds are approximate.)
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| Hand |
Distinct hands |
Frequency |
Probability |
Cumulative |
Odds |
| 5-high |
1 |
1,024 |
0.0394% |
0.0394% |
2,537.05 : 1 |
| 6-high |
5 |
5,120 |
0.197% |
0.236% |
506.61 : 1 |
| 7-high |
15 |
15,360 |
0.591% |
0.827% |
168.20 : 1 |
| 8-high |
35 |
35,840 |
1.38% |
2.21% |
71.52 : 1 |
| 9-high |
70 |
71,680 |
2.76% |
4.96% |
35.26 : 1 |
| 10-high |
126 |
129,024 |
4.96% |
9.93% |
19.14 : 1 |
| Jack-high |
210 |
215,040 |
8.27% |
18.2% |
11.09 : 1 |
| Queen-high |
330 |
337,920 |
13.0% |
31.2% |
6.69 : 1 |
| King-high |
495 |
506,880 |
19.5% |
50.7% |
4.13 : 1 |
| Total |
1,287 |
1,317,888 |
50.7% |
50.7% |
0.97 : 1 |
As can be seen from the table, just over half the time a player gets a hand that has no pairs or three- or four-of-a-kind.
If aces are not low, simply rotate the hand descriptions so that 6-high replaces 5-high for the best hand and ace-high replaces king-high as the worst hand.
