An important thing to remember that poker is the one of those casino gambling games that does not allow ‘going south’. This concept, also notoriously known as ‘ratholing’, can be explained as the tendency in a player to remove a sizeable portion of the big pot he had won so that he can safeguard his interest in future play and may not incur too heavy losses. This attempt to cushion the risk is commonly indulged in by rookie players but unlike many other games of fortune, is disallowed in poker. Therefore anyone who wants to protect his winning in poker games must do so by strategic means of playing safe but not by removing the dough from the table.

A common regulation of the card speak playing rule is that a player must qualify to play the low hand by having a specific hand value or better. So when a nine or better low game is being played, only those players who have a hand of 9 high or better, such as a hand of 8 high or 7 high, qualifies to play for the bottom half and stands the chance to win it. So even if a player has the lowest hand but his highest card is more than 9, he is not qualified to play and cannot win. If it turns out no player qualifies, then the high hand winning player scoops the entire pot. Though no such qualification is required to play the high hand, some variants like any pair/no pair rule needs a player’s hand to have at least one pair to win the high and no pair to win the low.

If players are dealt more than five cards, he can choose the best possible combination of 5-card hand separately to play for the high and the low game. This sometimes leads to overlapping, as in a 7-card stud poker game. So a player with 7, 7, 6, 4, 4, 3 and 2 cards can form his high hand with two pairs with 7, 7, 4, 4 and 6 cards and form his low hand of 7 high with 7, 6, 4, 3 and 2 cards.

The most frequent way of playing high/low split poker games is either by the declaration method or by the cads speak rule. If a game is being played where players need to declare their intention, either a verbal announcement is made or players express their wish of play choice by using markers, whereby zero means playing for low hand, one means playing for high hand and two means playing for swing, that is both hands. The person who declared to play for low and has the lowest hand wins the bottom half and he who was contesting for high and had the highest hand wins the top half of the pot. In cards speak rule, players simply reveal their cards during showdown and he with the best high hand and he with the bets low hand split the pot equally between themselves.

In high/low split poker games, the odd chip is invariably awarded to the player who has the high hand. However, in case the game ended in a tie, then pot splitting is not done on basis of high and low and both players have equal hand values. In this situation the player who has the highest ranked single card wins the odd chip and if there is tie even in this determination, then high card by suit rule is applied by alphabetical order; thus clubs is lower than diamonds which is lower than hearts which is lower than spades. A variation of this rule of awarding chips in case of a tied game is when the player who is seated closest to the dealer in clockwise manner gets the odd chip. Since in some casino poker games, the house dealer is present and dealer button system is not used, instead of positional rule, the high card by suit rule is applied. Another variation of rule in order to award odd chip when ties take place is to give the leftover odd chip to neither of the winners and instead use the extra chip as an additional ante wager in the next game. This method is commonly followed in private and home poker games.

If due to multi-way ties, the pot gets repeatedly split and players get only a fractional share a special rule is used to award the odd chip. So, in a high/low split game, where the high hand wins alone and the low hand is tied calling for further splits, the extra chip is not given to the high hand and put on the bottom half.

The process of splitting the pot is interesting. One player takes all the chips out from the pot using both his hands and make a stack of them by piling it on the game table. The chip stacks are now placed next to one another and compared according to their denomination. If equal stacks have been formed, the arrangement is kept aside. If the pot contains an assortment of chips, with mixed vales, then the chips of highest values are formed into stack first, followed by the chips of subsequently lower values. In case while forming the chip stack of high denomination, it is found that they cannot be evenly matched, then some chips of lower value are used to make the stacks equal in value. This process of splitting the pot by sharing all chips equally continues until all the chips, from the highest up to the lowest denomination down have been done. In case the split is not between just two players, but among three or more, this process of splitting is followed. If any odd chips are left over, then it is determined by following any one of several possible rules which one of the winners get the award of that extra chip.