Some card-playing friends and I are having a friendly argument over what constitutes the lowest five-card hand in poker.

Q. Some card-playing friends and I are having a friendly argument over what constitutes the lowest five-card hand in poker. They say it is either a 6-4-3-2-A or even a 5-4-3-2-A. I think the latter is particularly ridiculous since it is a 5-high straight. I contend it is the 7-5-4-3-2. There is no "1" in poker, yet both of my "friends" are, in effect, arguing that an ace is a 1. Even in an A-5 straight, an ace is always an ace, so it cannot be part of the lowest possible poker hand. So, if absolutely no changes, twists or bends are made to official, unaltered poker rules, I say 7-5-4-3-2 is the lowest hand.

-- J. Thomas of Millstadt

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A. If you're going purely by classic rules, you apparently have hit the jackpot. But when you actually sit down to play, don't bet the farm unless your buddies are ready to follow suit.

According to Walter Gibson's interpretation of Hoyle, when you have to decide a game strictly by high card, a hand of 7-5-4-3-2 in mixed suits would indeed be the worst you could hold.

August Morehead, another Hoyle interpreter, agrees. Even if you play a game such that high and low hands split the winnings, the unsuited broken straight of 7-5-4-3-2 would always claim the low hand, according to his "Official Rules of Card Games."

Tom Eversgerd, however, antes up another answer.

"He's right the way he's thinking," says Eversgerd of your logic. "But I'd say the perfect low overall is the 6-4 (3-2-A)."

The Germantown man certainly has the credentials to argue his case. He started playing five-card stud as a young pup and, now at 62, he's still putting on his poker face 50 years later. In 2004, he qualified for the 35th annual World Series of Poker, where he survived for seven hours with 2,600 other players.

Eversgerd contends that in many or most rule books today, you'll find that aces can be counted as low in this instance, making 6-4-3-2-A the worst hand in poker.

And, as you have already found, there are other varients of lowball poker, too. In perhaps the most radical, aces are low and straights are ignored, so that a hand of 5-4-3-2-A would rake in the chips. In a seldom-used variation, a 2-6 hand would win with aces high, but straights and flushes ignored.

But, as I'm sure you know, you'd better make sure everybody else is on the same page when you sit down to play. Even Eversgerd remembers a post-Super Bowl poker game in which he once folded the lowest hand because he assumed the gang was playing by different rules.

Source: Belleville News