Archie Rules

Archie is said to have been devised in the 2010s by a mixed-game group in Phoenix, Arizona, and named after one of its players. It has since appeared in mixed games in Las Vegas. The rules here follow the description contributed by Nick Fox, as published on pagat.com.

The game is played with a standard 52-card deck and no wild cards.

The object is to win the high half of the pot, the low half, or both.

High qualifier. A hand must be a pair of nines or better to compete for high. High hands rank according to the standard poker hand rankings.

Low qualifier. Low hands rank by ace-to-five rules: aces are low and straights and flushes are ignored. A hand must be five unpaired cards, eight or lower, to compete for low. The best low is 5-4-3-2-A. See Ace-to-Five Lowball.

There is no ante. Before each deal, the player to the dealer's left posts the small blind and the next player posts the big blind. See betting structures.

Each player is dealt five cards face down.

Archie is normally played fixed-limit. The first two betting rounds use the small bet; the last two, after the second draw and after the third draw, use the big bet, which is double the small bet.

The first betting round follows the usual blind procedure, beginning with the player to the left of the big blind.

Three drawing rounds follow. In each, every active player in turn may discard from none to five cards and receive the same number of replacements.

After each draw there is a betting round, begun by the first active player to the dealer's left.

If the deck runs short during a draw, the discards are shuffled to complete it, as in Five Card Draw.

The cards speak. Each hand is read for both high and low, and a single hand may qualify for both.

If there are qualifying hands for both high and low, the pot is split equally between the best high hand and the best low hand.

If no hand qualifies for high, the best low hand takes the whole pot. If no hand qualifies for low, the best high hand takes the whole pot.

If no remaining hand qualifies for either half, the pot is split equally among all players who have not folded.

A player can win both halves with a hand that qualifies both ways, such as the wheel (5-4-3-2-A), which is a straight for high and a five-low for low.