Mexican Poker is a poker-style game played with a 41-card deck (standard 52-card deck with the 8’s, 9’s, and 10’s removed, plus a single Joker). Players compete against one another to construct the finest five-card poker hand. Are you interested in learning how to play mexican poker? Here is all you need to know.
Game Play
In seven-card stud high-low split games, each player is dealt seven cards. He must use two of those cards in combination with five board cards to make the lowest possible hand, and the remaining five cards to play the highest possible hand.
- The first three community cards dealt in stud high-low are the three upcards;
- two are face down community cards (fourth and fifth street);
- and the final card is faced up (sixth street).
Betting commences on third street. After each betting round, the dealer deals one more card to each of the players remaining in the hand, except in a situation where a particular reload is done on third or fourth street. If a player doesn’t want to play, he can fold his hand and lose his ante bet.
Once all remaining players have each had the opportunity to receive their new card, the final round of betting begins, and it is now said that the game has “reached fifth street.” The betting action repeats until only one player remains.
Joker
In Mexican Poker, the Joker can take on two meanings. If it is dealt face down to a player, it is considered entirely wild and may be played as any other card. This is true even if the player later reverses the Joker and obtains a fresh face-down card during a dealing round. When dealt face up to a player, the Joker is considered a bug (though it is sometimes referred to simply as a “joker”). The dealer will frequently place a special button or sign on the table to signify that the visible, exposed joker is not wild, but rather a bug (or “partially wild”).
A wild card will often be used to represent an unknown card based on the relative ranking of other cards in the hand being held. It can also be used as a bug to complete straights, flushes, or aces. This wild card can either be dealt face up or face down in order to maintain ambiguity. This removes confusion since players can turn cards face up independently while yet maintaining the “wildness” of a Joker.
Hand Rankings
Mexican Poker is a card game that uses a deck of 52 cards in four suits, but with a small change in hand ranking: the best possible hand is a straight flush. Without the 12 cards, the sole variation in hand rating exists in Mexican Poker; only a flush beats a full house. This happens because the flush is harder to make with only 12 cards.
Otherwise, all card hands are ranked as they would be in standard Poker. The highest value straight flush is 5-high, not ace-high. Also in Mexican Poker, point value of each card is equivalent to the number on the card—i.e., 3 points for the 3 and 10 points for the 10.