Buy Your Card Rules

The game is played with a standard 52-card deck without jokers, by up to six players.

Each player holds a five-card hand throughout. There are no wild cards.

The game is played high-low: the best high hand and the best low hand share the pot. High hands rank according to the standard poker hand rankings. The low ranking, and whether a low hand must qualify, shall be agreed before play; ace-to-five low is the usual choice in home games.

A unit is equal to the ante, which is also the minimum bet. Card prices are expressed in units.

Each player antes one unit. The dealer then deals each player five cards: two face down and three face up. Players may look at their face-down cards.

The dealer then deals three cards face up in a row in the centre of the table and places the rest of the deck face down at one end of the row.

The four cards on offer are priced by position:

2.3(a) The face-up card furthest from the deck costs 1 unit.

2.3(b) The middle face-up card costs 2 units.

2.3(c) The face-up card next to the deck costs 3 units.

2.3(d) The unseen top card of the deck costs 4 units.

A buying round goes once around the table clockwise. At their turn, a player may:

3.1(a) Buy: discard one card from their hand and take one of the four cards on offer in its place, paying its price into the pot.

3.1(b) Stand pat: keep their hand unchanged, at no cost.

3.1(c) Fold: throw in their cards and take no further part in the hand.

Money paid for a card is not a bet. Other players do not call or match it.

A player who buys the top card of the deck looks at it and keeps it face down, even if it replaces one of their face-up cards.

A player who buys a face-up card keeps it face up if it replaces a face-up card. If it replaces a face-down card, the bought card is turned face down, even though the other players have seen it.

Every player shall keep at least two cards face down at all times, and may have more.

When a face-up card is bought, the dealer replaces it at once with a new face-up card from the deck, at the same price. If the last player in a buying round buys a face-up card, the gap is not filled until after the following betting round.

Each betting round is started by the player whose face-up cards make the best hand at that moment.

After the third betting round, each remaining player declares high, low or both. The method (simultaneously with chips held in the fist, or in turn) shall be agreed before play.

The best high hand among those who declared high takes half the pot, and the best low hand among those who declared low takes the other half. If no one declares one way, the other side wins the whole pot.

Under the usual convention, a player who declares both must win, or tie, both ways; otherwise they win nothing and the pot is shared by the other winners.