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Five Card Draw Poker

Five card draw poker is a very popular variety of the game. It is a draw game, meaning that cards you are dealt can be held or swapped for new cards.

This varient is rarely played in casinos, or online. It is most common in home games. Although slight variations such as Lowball do feature at some land based casinos.

The game starts with each player placing the required ante, players in the game are then dealt five cards each, face down. A round of betting then occurs based on the five cards you have been dealt. Blinds are not often used in five card draw poker but can be used to encourage betting if required. The mimimum bet is usually the size of the blind. Players must either fold, match the blind or raise the bet. The minimum raise will also be the size of the blind.

After the first round of betting comes the draw. Each player (in turn) must declare if they wish to replace any of their cards with new cards from the deck. A common rule here is that you may not replace more than three cards, where you can replace all 5 of your cards it is often not allowed to take 5 consecutive cards. The player must take 3 or 4 intially then wait for other players to draw and then take the remainder.

When a player declares that he wants to replace cards he first removes the required number of cards from his 5 card hand and discards them. The dealer will then burn the top card of the deck and give the player the replacement number of cards. this continues in turn around the table until every remaining player has decided whether to draw and made the required card replacement.

Next there is another round of betting. In this round a "check" is available if no player before you has bet. If any player before you has placed a bet you can either fold, call (match their bet) or raise.

At the end of this round of betting there will be 1 or more players left that have all staked the same amount of money into the pot. If there is only 1 left then that player wins by default because they have bet the most (but remember, it may be a bluff). If there is more than 1 player left, all players will have bet the same amount and the showdown occurs with each player showing their cards. It is customary for the last person that raised the bet to show their cards first.

Lowball Variation

Lowball works in the same way as 5 card draw that is described above except that players are trying to make the lowest hand possible. An A2346 (not suited) will be the lowest hand possible.

there are variations on what are low hands depending on house rules. Sometimes the Ace is always counted as high. In other cases straights and flushes are discounted, e.g. the lowest hand possible where Aces are high and straights and flushes are ignored will be 2,3,4,5,6.

Wild Card Variations

Sometimes in draw poker a card is used as a wild card. this will either be a value card, usually the 2 or "deuce", or perhaps the joker. This wild card can be used to represent any card that would make your hand better.