Seven Twenty-Seven is a vying game similar in some respects to poker, and often played as a "dealer's choice" variant at home poker games. It uses the same equipment and betting system, but the value of hands does not use traditional poker hand rankings, either high or low, but rather uses the blackjack-style numeric sum of cards in the player's hand to determine its worth.
The game play proceeds like this:
- Each player is dealt a downcard and an upcard.
- A betting round begins with the player on the dealer's left, and proceeds exactly as in poker: all players must either equal the largest bet or drop out.
- After te betting, each player may draw a card, face up, in turn from the dealer's left. If all players pass on their opportunity to draw, there is one more round of betting, followed by a poker-style showdown. Otherwise the game continues with another betting round (often beginning to the left of the player who began the previous round) and another draw, so there can be as few as two betting rounds in the game, but more often three or four.
On showdown, the pot is split in half, with the hand(s) valued closest to 7 and the hand(s) valued closest to 27 splitting their chunks. If there is a tie where two players are off by the same amount, but in different directions (6 to 8), the lower hand wins. If there is an exact tie, that chunk is split. Ties are common. The same player may contest for both high and low, so a hand with a five and two aces will win the whole pot (unless there are ties).
There are a few variations in rules that complicate things somewhat: first, the rule about ties in different directions varies; also, some players play with a declaration, while others play cards speak.
