Henway Rules

Henway is played with a standard 52-card deck and no wild cards. Each player receives ten cards, so no more than five players may take part.

Each player builds two five-card hands from their ten cards. The object is to hold either the highest hand or the lowest hand of all the hands at the table.

High hands rank according to the standard poker hand rankings. The source does not fix a ranking for low hands. The dealer shall announce it before the deal; ace-to-five is the usual home-game choice.

Every player puts an agreed ante into the pot. The dealer then deals ten cards face down to each player.

Each player looks at their cards and arranges them into two hands of five cards, set face down in two rows. Within each hand, the player also chooses the order in which the cards will be turned up.

Once play begins, the arrangement stands. By the usual practice, a player may not move a card from one hand to the other or change the order after the first card has been turned.

All players turn face up the first card of both of their hands at the same time. A betting round follows.

The same is repeated for the second, third and fourth cards of each hand, with a betting round after each.

The order of betting and the betting limits shall be agreed before play. A player who folds takes no further part in the hand.

After the fourth betting round, the remaining players turn up the last card of each hand.

Every hand at the table competes on its own. Half of the pot goes to the single highest hand and half to the single lowest hand, whoever holds them.

Nothing in the rules stops one player from holding both the highest and the lowest hand, in which case that player takes the whole pot.

Tied hands share the relevant half equally.

Groups may fix which hand is played for high and which for low. That is the structure of Ten-card Regrets, in which the two hands are built card by card instead of dealt all at once.

Wild cards, a declaration, or a rule that both hands must be shown in a set order are house rules, and the dealer shall announce them before the deal.