Handout 09 · Split pot · Flop and draw combined

Drawmaha

Five cards in your hand, a five-card board in the middle, and one draw after the flop. Half the pot goes to the best Omaha hand and half to the best hand you are simply holding. What "best hand you are holding" means is the variant.

Cards: Five in hand, five on the board
Draws: One, after the flop
Betting: Four rounds; limit or pot-limit
Players: Up to seven ^W
Pot: Half Omaha high, half the draw hand
Spelled: Drawmaha, Dramaha; Sviten Special

1How it is dealt and bet

Button and blinds. Each player gets five cards face down. A round of betting.
Three community cards, the flop. A round of betting.
The draw. Each player in turn discards and is given replacements.
A fourth community card, the turn. A round of betting.
A fifth community card, the river. A last round of betting, and the showdown.

That outline is common to the WSOP's rules and the BARGE rulebook. ^{W B} At the showdown the pot is halved:

The Omaha half goes to the best high hand made from exactly two of your five cards and exactly three of the board. ^{W B L}
The draw half goes to the best hand made from the five cards in your hand, with no help from the board, judged by whichever ranking the variant names. ^{W B}

Sources disagree: four details

Detail	WSOP live-action rules ^W	BARGE rulebook ^B	PokerListings guide ^L
How many cards you may draw	Up to three	Up to five in plain Dramaha; up to three in Dramaha 49 and Dramadugi	Up to five with five or fewer players; up to three with six or seven
Betting	Not fixed by the rule	Limit: small bet before and on the flop, big bet on the turn and river. Its Dramadugi entry notes a pot-limit tournament	Typically pot-limit
Drawing exactly one	Nothing special	Nothing special	The card is turned face up; you may take it, or refuse it and take the next one face down
Order at the draw	Players declare; the dealer burns and puts out the turn; then the replacement cards are given	Discards announced, replacements dealt, then the turn	Draw completed, then the turn

The face-up option on a one-card draw belongs to the Scandinavian form of the game, Sviten Special, which the guide treats as the same game. ^L It changes the value of every one-card draw, so ask.

2The variants: how the draw half is ranked

The WSOP's rules name six ways to judge the draw half: High, 2-7, Ace-5, Badugi, Badugi High and 49. ^W A Las Vegas mixed game described in print runs six as separate games in its rotation. ^C3

Variant	The draw half goes to	Best draw hand	Sources
Drawmaha High	The best five-card high hand, as in five-card draw	Royal flush	^{W B C3}
2-7 Drawmaha	The best deuce-to-seven low	7-5-4-3-2, not a flush	^{W C3 C8}
A-5 Drawmaha	The best ace-to-five low	5-4-3-2-A	^W names it; no further detail
Drawmaha 49	The hand whose pips add up closest to 49. Ace counts 1, two to ten count face value, jack, queen and king count zero	10-10-10-10-9	^{W B C3}
Drawmaha Zero	The lowest pip total, counted the same way. Tens count ten, not zero	Five face cards	^C3 only
Low-Dugi (Dramadugi)	The best badugi, ace low, from your five cards. If nobody has one, the best three-card hand	A-2-3-4 of four suits	^{W B C3}
High-Dugi	The best high badugi: four suits are still required, and pairs, trips and quads are good	Four aces	^{W C3 C4}

Marked as thinly sourced. Drawmaha Zero rests on one article. For High-Dugi we have the best hand and the general idea from two articles by the same author and one line in the WSOP's rules, but no full ranking of the hands in between, so the trainer on this site does not cover it. The BARGE rulebook notes that some online descriptions of 49 score the face cards differently; the three sources we cite all score them as zero. ^B No source we read says how a tie on points is broken beyond splitting that half.

Your hand A♠K♦7♥4♣2♠, board A♥K♣9♦7♠3♣, playing 2-7 Drawmaha.Omaha half: you must use exactly two of your cards, so you have aces and kings (A-K with A-K-9 from the board). Draw half: your five cards are an ace-high low, a poor one. The board does not help the draw half at all.
10♠10♥10♦10♣9♦Playing 49: ten, ten, ten, ten and nine make 49 exactly. Also four tens for the Omaha half's raw material, though only two of them can play there.
K♠Q♥J♦K♣Q♦Playing Zero: five face cards total zero, the best hand. Playing 49, the same hand totals zero and is the worst.

3The draw

There is one draw, and it comes with three of the five board cards already showing. So unlike any other game on this site, you choose your discards knowing most of what the Omaha half will look like, and a card thrown away for the draw half is also gone from your Omaha hand.

Computed

The draw half is a one-draw game, so the single-draw numbers apply to it directly. In Drawmaha High, the odds are those of five-card draw: a pair drawing three improves 28.7% of the time, a four-flush fills 19.1%. In 2-7 Drawmaha, they are those of 2-7 single draw: 2-3-4-7 makes an eight or better 25.5% and a jack or better 51.1%. Those figures count only your own discard as known. In this game you also see three board cards, and each one that is not a card you need improves the figure slightly: the calculator lets you enter them as dead cards.

4Starting hands

Published: 2-7 Drawmaha, limit

Most hands played are aimed at the low, so hand selection resembles no-limit 2-7 single draw, with extra weight for Omaha features: suited cards and connected cards. ^C8
Because the betting is limit, you can re-raise and call re-raises more freely than in the no-limit game. ^C8
Two-card draws are generally weak and often lose to a mediocre one-card draw; they are better kept for button steals with Omaha potential. ^C8
A hand like 7-6-5-4 is weak for low but has Omaha value, which makes it a candidate for stealing the blinds. ^C8

Published: High-Dugi

A single high pair in four suits is typically the best badugi at the showdown. Players usually discard one card after the flop to improve the badugi, sometimes two, depending on what the flop did for their Omaha hand. ^{C3 C4}

No solver baseline for any Drawmaha game. Nothing here comes from our solver.

5The key decisions

Published: 2-7 Drawmaha

Pat hands of eight or better are rare; a pat nine or better is usually a big favourite over a drawing hand. A pat ten usually holds up a little over 60% of the time against one draw, and a pat jack is a small favourite. ^C8
In multi-way pots, bet and stay pat with a strong low; break a jack unless it is part of a strong Omaha hand. ^C8
Whether to keep a ten can turn on what the ten does for your Omaha hand. ^C8

Computed

The pat-hand figures are checked on the single-draw page: 60.5% for a pat 10-8-6-4-2 and 51.2% for a pat J-8-6-4-2 against one 2-3-4-7 draw.

6Common mistakes

Using the board for the draw half. The draw half is your five cards and nothing else.
Using three of your cards for the Omaha half. Exactly two from your hand, exactly three from the board.
Not asking which Drawmaha. High and 2-7 want opposite hands. 49 and Zero want opposite totals.
Counting a ten as zero. Published In Zero, only jacks, queens and kings are worth nothing. ^C3
Assuming the draw rules. Up to three or up to five, and face-up or not on a one-card draw, are house matters.

7Cousins

Triple Draw Dramaha. Three draws of up to five cards: one as soon as the flop is dealt, one after the turn, one after the river, each followed by a betting round. The halves are the same as in the High game. ^B
Dramadugi. BARGE's name for the badugi form: draw up to three, Omaha high against the best four-card badugi from your hole cards. ^B

Drawmaha: cheat sheet

Seminar 27 · Handout 09 · five in hand, five on board, one draw, split pot

The order of play

Deal 5 → bet → flop → bet → draw → turn → bet → river → bet → showdown → split.

The two halves

Omaha half: best high hand from exactly two of yours plus exactly three of the board.
Draw half: your own five cards only, ranked by the variant.

Which Drawmaha?

Variant	Draw half wants	Nuts
High	Best poker hand	Royal flush
2-7	Worst poker hand, ace high	7-5-4-3-2
A-5	Lowest five, ace low	5-4-3-2-A
49	Most pips (A=1, J Q K=0)	10-10-10-10-9
Zero	Fewest pips (10 counts ten)	Five face cards
Low-Dugi	Best badugi, ace low	A-2-3-4 rainbow
High-Dugi	Best high badugi	Four aces

Ask before you sit

How many cards may I draw: three or five?
Is a one-card draw dealt face up with the right to refuse it?
Limit or pot-limit?

Odds for the draw half

High: pair drawing three improves 28.7%; four-flush fills 19.1%. 2-7: 2-3-4-7 makes an eight or better 25.5%, a jack or better 51.1%.

seminar27.com · Odds computed by the site's own script. Rules: WSOP live-action rules, BARGE rulebook, PokerListings, Card Player. No solver baseline for this game. For education.