Most gamblers haven’t heard of Q-Ball and disregard it in favor of Texas Hold’em. And they clearly don’t know what they’re missing out on. For this reason, we advise you not to play the same form of poker over and over again — broaden your horizons. Trust us; you won’t regret it. And Q-Ball should be on top of your list.

Those who play it often say that it’s an interesting addition to standard poker rules. In many types of draw poker, players get their cards and have an opportunity to discard them. If they do, then they exchange them for new ones. The main reason for that is that they are trying to form the best winning hand.

Therefore, this is the aim of Q-Ball as well. But unlike in some other poker games, here, you want to score the strongest five cards by following the rules of the Lowball Variant. Hence, the hand rankings are different here. It can be perceived as a home game which uses three forced bets (i.e., blinds). We’ll delve deeper into this form of poker below.

The Rules

If players want to commence playing Q-Ball, then they need to make three forced bets. The dealer places the first small blind together with the player to their left. After this, a person who’s to the left of that small blind posts another big blind. The betting structure here is as follows: 1:1:2. This means that the bet of the third player is two times the amount of the small blind.

It’s important to mention that the standard Q-Ball deck uses one joker as well. Now, as the game starts, all players are dealt three cards facing down. Having received them, they examine their poker hand and prepare for wagering. Here, a player who is sitting left of the big blind makes the first bet. In this round, a player can raise, fold, or call. But they cannot check.

Following the end of that betting round, the fourth card is dealt to remaining participants. This means that another round of betting can take place. The first one to bet is the active player to the dealer’s left. Also, players cannot check during this part of the game either. The first participant, therefore, has to either fold or open (i.e., place a bet).

Following this, each person at the poker table gets the fifth card. And it marks the start of yet another round of betting. Again, wagering starts to the dealer’s left. However, in this third round, players can check if they want. The rest of the game progresses as most draw poker games do. Players finally get a chance to draw cards. Hence, they can replace a certain number of cards — up to three, or four if they’re holding an ace or a joker. Alternatively, they might decide to keep all of them.

After this, they can make the final bet. Those remaining face off at showdown. The person with the lowest ranking cards wins the pot. Bear in mind that the gist of this poker variant is to get cards of the lowest value. In other words, the best hand is: A-2-3-4-5.

Sometimes, this game applies a fixed limit. If it does, then it follows a certain betting structure. In this case, it is 1-2-2-4. In other words, you examine the amount of the bet in the first round and then double it in the second and third betting rounds. As for the fourth round, it makes it possible for you to place a wager which is four times bigger than the one in the first round.

Summary

In conclusion, we believe that you might find Q-Ball to be a riveting game to explore. After all, who wants to play the same thing over and over again. Even though Stud poker can be entertaining, we all need another type of game to keep us going. So why not try this one?