Archie 49/0

It’s Archie, except the scoring is arithmetic

Archie is five-card triple draw with a high half and an ace-to-five low half, each with a qualifier. Archie 49/0 keeps the whole structure and changes how hands are scored: instead of poker rankings, you add up the pips on your cards.

Fair warning before the rules: this is a festival-only novelty, and the two sources I found disagree about what the game is. Read the “Rooms disagree” section before you sit down anywhere that spreads it. If someone’s running it, ask the dealer to say the qualifiers out loud.

30-second cheat sheet

• Structure is exactly Archie: five cards, button and blinds, three draws, four betting rounds, limit.
• Card values for the points: ace = 1, two through ten = face value, jack, queen and king = 0.
• Ten is ten, not zero. This is the number one mistake.
• On one version of the rule sheet: the pot splits between the lowest point total (best is 0) and the highest (best is 49), “typically” with qualifiers on both sides: 35 or more for high and 8 or fewer for low.
• On another account, “49” and “Zero” are two separate games, each pairing a points hand against a conventional poker high hand.
• Suits and pairs don’t matter for the points side. Only the pip total does.

Full rules

The deal and draws

Played “just like regular Archie” (Card Player Lifestyle). Button and blinds (some structures let the big blind be called, and others require the open to be double the big blind). Each player gets five cards face down. There’s a betting round, then up to three draws, each followed by a betting round, for four rounds in all. Limit, with the bets doubling after the second draw.

When the stub runs low, the WSOP’s Archie rule says to shuffle the old discards and mucks, but not the discards from the draw in progress, and to use the very last stub card only if it completes all remaining draws.

Scoring: the pips

Each card is worth its pip value: an ace is 1, the twos through tens are 2 through 10, and the jacks, queens and kings are 0. A hand’s score is the total of all five cards.

• The lowest possible score is 0, which is five face cards.
• The highest possible score is 49: four tens and a nine. There are only four tens in the deck, so five tens isn’t a thing.

That makes a 49-point hand a hand of tens and nines, and a zero-point hand a hand of jacks, queens and kings. A king is just the same as a jack.

What wins

This is where the sources split.

The Card Player Lifestyle version. The pot splits between the lowest point total and the highest, “typically” with qualifiers on both sides. Their example qualifiers are 35 for high and 8 for low.

The Poker Chip Forum version. A forum post from October 2024, passing on what a player learned at the Bellagio Mixed Game Festival, describes two separate games. In Archie 49 the points hand needs 35 or more to qualify and splits the pot with the best poker hand. In Archie Zero the points hand needs 10 or fewer to qualify, again splitting with the best poker hand.

[UNVERIFIED] Which one is the standard is unresolved. If you play it, treat the rules as unsettled.

What if nobody qualifies?

Not documented for the 49/0 version. Regular Archie in the WSOP rules says: no qualifying high means the best low scoops, no qualifying low means the best high scoops, and if neither qualifies the pot is split among everyone remaining. Whether that carries over is [INFERENCE]. Ask.

Rooms disagree

• What the two halves are: points high versus points low (Card Player Lifestyle), versus points versus a conventional poker high hand (the forum report).
• Low-points qualifier: 8 or fewer (Card Player Lifestyle) versus 10 or fewer (forum report). The high-points qualifier is 35 in both.
• Plain Archie’s own qualifier varies by room. Nines in the WSOP, sixes in some rooms. This probably applies here too, but that’s [INFERENCE].
• It isn’t in the WSOP live-action rules, which name only Archie and Ari. Card Player Lifestyle’s Mixed Game Festival sheet is the only rule text I found for it.

No sourced rule for the odd chip either. This page doesn’t use one, so ask.

How you’ll embarrass yourself

• Counting tens as zero. Tens are ten points. Only J, Q and K are zero. Haney flags the same mistake in Drawmaha Zero.
• Keeping kings for the 49 side. You want tens, nines and eights for the high total, not kings.
• Treating it like a poker hand. For the points half, suits and pairs mean nothing. A hand of four tens and a nine is a monster here.
• Assuming you know the rules. It’s a festival novelty. Before the first hand, ask the dealer what the qualifiers are and whether the other half is a poker hand.

A forum player notes one thing that makes the draw easy to play: in Zero, the cards you keep for points (faces and aces) are the same cards you’d keep for a conventional high hand, so the strategy is straightforward.

Lore and reputation

Archie itself, per Haney, comes from the Phoenix area and was named for a player who had a bad run when it was introduced. He rates it 8/10.

Archie 49/0 appears only on the Card Player Lifestyle Mixed Game Festival rule sheet. A Poker Chip Forum poster says a friend learned the variants at the Bellagio Mixed Game Festival, and the same poster’s group later tried Archie Zero and Archie 49 and reported both were “duds” not kept in rotation. Haney’s 2025 Archie article covers “Archie 777” instead and doesn’t mention 49/0. The Coach’s Game at Resorts World lists plain Archie, Drawmaha 49 and Drawmaha Zero, but not Archie 49/0.