Course notes · Draw games and the carnival games
Seminar 27
Draw poker is the part of the mixed game that hold'em does not prepare you for. There is no board to read, the ace changes sides from game to game, and a straight can be the best hand or the worst. Most players get by on rules of thumb. These notes are an attempt to do better: the rules with their sources, the odds counted exactly, and every piece of strategy labelled for what it is.
The name is the best hand in deuce-to-seven lowball: 7-5-4-3-2. You are dealt a pat seven 0.16% of the time, about once in 640 hands. Everything else in the game is the art of drawing to one.
7♥5♦4♣3♠2♥
How to read these notesThree kinds of claim, never mixed
Every strategic statement on this site carries one of three labels. If a sentence has no label and no citation, it is a rule of the game or plain arithmetic.
A fact we counted ourselves: outs, draw odds, how often a hand is dealt. The script that produces every such number is in the site's repository and can be re-run.
What a named author has put in print, with a link. It is their judgement, reported, not ours and not proven.
Output of our own solver on a simplified heads-up limit game. A starting point for study, with its limits stated on the page. It is not a solution of the real game, and we do not call it one.
Where two rulebooks disagree, the page says so in a red box and names both. More on the method.
SyllabusThe draw games
- 01Deuce-to-seven triple drawLimit. The worst hand wins, the ace is high, straights and flushes hurt. With the pot-limit version.
- 02No-limit 2-7 single drawThe same ranking with one draw and no cap on the bet.
- 03Ace-to-five triple drawLimit. The ace is low and straights and flushes do not exist.
- 04BadugiLimit. Four cards, four suits, four ranks.
- 05Five-card drawHigh. One draw. The original.
Syllabus, continuedThe split-pot draw games
- 06BadeuceyDeuce-to-seven low against badugi, ace high on both sides.
- 07BadaceyAce-to-five low against badugi, ace low on both sides.
- 08ArchieHigh against low with a qualifier each way. Three rules the rulebooks do not agree on.
- 09Drawmaha and its variantsA draw hand against an Omaha board: High, 2-7, A-5, 49, Zero and the badugi forms.
- 10The carnival gamesWhat the term means, who uses it, and the rules of the rest: Razzdugi, Razzdeucey, Super Stud, Duck Flush and others.
WorkbookPractice and reference
- AWhich hand wins?A drill for each ranking system, with the traps mixed in. Driven by the same tested evaluator that produces our odds.
- BDraw-odds calculatorEnter the cards you keep and the cards you have seen. It counts your outs and gives the chance with one, two or three draws.
- CSolver baselinesWhat our solver says about the limit triple-draw games, what it leaves out, and how far to trust it.
- DGlossaryPat, snow, rough, smooth, tri, bug, scoop.
- ESourcesEvery rulebook and article cited, with what each was used for.
If you are coming from hold'emFive things that are different
| Game | Ace | Straights and flushes | Best hand |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2-7 lowball | High only | Count against you | 7-5-4-3-2, mixed suits |
| A-5 lowball | Low only | Ignored | 5-4-3-2-A |
| Badugi | Low | Straights ignored; a repeated suit kills a card | A-2-3-4, four suits |
| Badeucey's badugi half | High | As badugi | 2-3-4-5, four suits |
| Five-card draw | High, or low in 5-4-3-2-A | Count for you | Royal flush |
The same five cards, 5♠4♥3♦2♣A♦, are the best hand in ace-to-five, a straight in five-card draw, and a poor ace-high in deuce-to-seven. Learning these games is mostly learning to see that at a glance. The trainer exists for exactly this.