When you're at a really weak table, which happens a lot in low level HORSE, 80% limps preflop, etc.

Do you find it profitable to play high only hands?

I find the exact opposite to be true. I only play low hands unless I'm holding a really strong high like trips or big draw. I also play the micros, so this definitely factors into the gameplan.

No way, man, high only hands need fewer opponents, not more. If lots of people are limping the chances of someone hitting a qualifying low are greatly increased, which greatly increases the chances that you'll be chasing only 1/2 the pot (and possibly getting scooped).

The ideal spot for a high only hand is when there are lots of folds and you can get heads-up against a low hand. As long as he hasn't qualified for his low yet and his cards aren't scary high, then you can keep driving your high hand.

I recently went through a bit of a losing stretch playing .25-.50 Stud-8 and realized that one of my major leaks during that stretch was playing high only hands (and marginal ones at that) against several opponents.

you play poker?

This is one thing I'm wondering about.

With more people playing lows, the low cards are getting eaten up, therefore the wheels and low straights are less likely to be made. And in fact lows in general will be less likely

But I haven't really committed to this theory yet.

Are you kidding, I still brag about that 600 person tourny I final tables 4 years ago on Doyle's room

Don't blindly go by that logic though, because a *ton* of the lesser folks play all kinds of split pair and 3-to-an-8 garbage. Just like when holding 3 babies on 3rd, with a solid pair on 3rd, you are going to need to have something legit by 5th or toss.

Lower pairs are generally a pain simply because you can hit a set and still be racing against 3 lows who have some form of a gutshot to beat you if you don't boat up.

I'm not good enough at the maths to figure this out but my guess is that there would have to be a whole lot of low cards out there to make your high hand a fav to scoop.

There are 32 low cards in the deck, right? Say you have 5 opponents and all of them have 3 babies on 3rd. That's 15 cards (not including the babies in other hands). There are still 17 low cards out there. Say they all stay in and pick up a low draw on 4th. Still 12 low cards live and only one of the low hands has to hit one of the remaining low cards on 5th-7th streets to complete a low and take half your pot.

Playing hi only hands can work in O8 because everyone needs to use 3 community cards. If the board comes high only or 2 high, you stand a great chance of scooping if it hits you, as all those low hands who paid to see the flop now have close to nothing.

In Stud 8, everyone gets their own cards, so it's not as profitable to play against several low hands. The chances greatly improve that someone will spike a low: if 4 players are one card away from a low... you may get lucky and 3 players can whiff, but the 4th player can spike. The chances of everyone missing low, even with all the low cards out, are miniscule.

ive heard it argued both ways and both arguments made sense to me.

Here's something interesting. I just ran a high hand against several low hands and here are the results:

cards scoop HIwin HIlos HItie LOwin LOlos LOtie EV
Ks Kd Qh 24932 244198 255785 17 0 0 0 0.269
3s 4d Ah 33374 64612 435114 274 160976 56996 1847 0.236
7s 2c 4h 15352 48855 450973 172 86070 87477 996 0.144
Ac 5d 8h 21139 69747 430086 167 78198 117491 934 0.161
5s 3c 6d 34188 72106 427560 334 111083 84715 1277 0.190

Add in two more low hands:

cards scoop HIwin HIlos HItie LOwin LOlos LOtie EV
Ks Kd Qh 20298 238420 261544 36 0 0 0 0.259
3s 4d Ah 25492 58422 441375 203 125820 48280 1943 0.193
7s 2c 4h 11481 39059 460765 176 83368 67363 1254 0.129
Ac 5d 8h 15549 58818 441021 161 68319 105658 1048 0.137
5s 3c 6d 28948 60415 439253 332 103405 70332 1453 0.169
6s 8d 2h 11012 44330 455506 164 62447 111587 926 0.113

however, unless they improve into monsters high hands suffer from low visibility, especially on later streets.

edit: this actually might be a reason to bloat the pot early if you have an edge, since then later you can just call down and never be making that bad of a mistake.

Sure, but does it really matter if the low hands still have to draw successfully? Assuming you're playing against players who will keep drawing to their low.

Are you 'balloonpops' at Absolute??

yes, because they get to draw cheap and then drive the betting on the big bet streets.

BG, if you can play high only hands profitably over a large sample in a game where 80% are limping third, i'll vote republican in 2012.

Interesting.

The thing is however, that you'll be putting money in on 3rd where your equity may be higher, but with high only hands, your equity's going to decrease significantly as all those people with low draws equity will increase.
So you'll be putting in less money on 3rd and 4th where your equity's higher, then 5th 6th and 7th you'll be putting in more money as your equity decreases, which is totally counter productive.

So then it would only seem logical to put in more money on 3rd (ram and jam), but not necessarily 4th, because people sometimes pick up scoop draws here....opponent dependant; and to check/call down 4th(sometimes), 5th,6th and 7th unless we make some sort of ultimate full house or something in which we can turn the lows against each other by raising.

Well the other thing is that with those equities shown, you know exactly what the other players have. Sometimes though if you're ramming and jamming on 3rd, someone will have AA and your equity won't be that good, and even when nobody has AA, you're still never knowing quite exactly where you are on later streets. It's just tough to play KK profitably in a multiway pot.

Agree 100%, this is exactly the problem I've had trying to play high only hands: even when it looks like your opponents are going low, in a multiway pot someone inevitably steals your high thunder by picking up a low straight or a hidden 2P or trips (assuming you haven't improved to 2P or trips). If you look at the first set of stats I posted, the KKQ is only a slight fav over the A34, and overall only has slightly more than 25% equity - which means 75% of the time you're still going to end up on the losing end with that hand.

Think about it this way: would you rather play a high only hand multi-way, where you may be a favorite to win but with only 25% equity and not really knowing where you stand, or heads-up where you're basically a coinflip and have a much better idea of where you stand as the hand progresses?

fwiw, the problem with running those numbers is that you basically made it near impossible for anyone to make a straight due to dead cards, and that kind of skews your resulting equity numbers. as i've said before, running pure odds calculations in split and lowball games is pretty useless since as long as you're playing not-quite-retarded (fiscal republicans, like the OP. barely) or better players, because the early equity edges are significantly smaller than the later ones.

as someone (antistuff i think) alluded to above, the problem with high only hands is somewhat akin to what good ol' doyle used to say about AA in hold em--you either win a small pot or lose a big one. generally when you play a high hand, and things get to 6th or so, you're HOPING that you're getting freerolled and they miss. generally, if you get a lot of action on the big bet streets, the best thing you can hope for is half a pot, and that's pretty icky.

contrast this with o8, wherein if a high hand hits hard, there's rarely a low for your opponent to hit, and you're playing for the whole pot a whole lot more often. this is why high hands in o8 have more value than in stud8.