Five Card Draw
Also known as Draw Poker, Five-Card Draw, Jackpots
- Players
- 2-6 players (best with 6)
- Deck
- 1 standard deck (52 cards), plus chips or counters for everyone
- Time
- 20-60 minutes
- Difficulty
- Simple
- Category
- Bluffing
Setup
This is the poker most people picture when they picture poker: five private cards, one chance to swap some of them, and nothing at all on the table. Nobody ever sees a card that is not their own until the hands are compared, which makes it the shortest set of rules in the family and the sensible one to learn first.
Two people can play and six is about the ceiling, and the arithmetic sets that ceiling rather than taste: a player can consume eight cards in a hand, five dealt and three drawn, and six times eight is forty-eight of the fifty-two. Seven or eight can sit down, but then the pack can run dry part-way through the draw, which is why six is both the usual stated maximum and generally reckoned the best game.
Cards rank ace high, with the ace also serving as the low end of a five-high run. Suits never break a tie; equal hands divide the pot.
Give everyone chips and agree the stakes before anything is dealt. Decide at the same time whether betting is fixed-limit, which is traditional and keeps a home game friendly, or no-limit.
Every hand opens with an ante: each player pushes a small chip into the middle before the cards come out, so there is a pot worth playing for from the first turn. Rotate the deal clockwise after each hand, since dealing last is a real advantage and should be shared.
The dealer shuffles, offers a cut to the player on the right, and deals five cards to each player one at a time face down, going clockwise and starting on their own left. What is left of the pack stays face down in front of the dealer; it is the stock the draw comes from.
Play
THE FIRST BETTING ROUND
Pick up your five cards and keep them hidden. Betting opens on the dealer's left and runs clockwise. On your turn you may check while nobody has bet, bet if the round is still unopened, call the current amount, raise it, or fold and drop out. The round ends when every player who has not folded has put in the same amount and everyone has had a turn. Under the usual fixed limit a round allows a bet and four raises, after which the betting is capped and the remaining players may only call or fold. If nobody bets at all, the hand is over before it has begun: the cards are thrown in, the deal passes on, and the antes stay in the middle with everyone adding another to them, so the pot grows until somebody is willing to open.
THE DRAW
Starting with the first active player clockwise from the dealer, each player in turn says how many cards they want to change, slides that many face down toward the dealer, and is immediately dealt the same number of replacements from the top of the stock. Announce the number rather than silently pushing cards out, and wait while the dealer counts them; when the exchange moves on to the next player you should be holding exactly five, and any other total kills the hand. Sequence matters as much as arithmetic. Discards leave first and replacements arrive second, with no overlap between the two, which is what makes it impossible to accuse anyone of picking what to throw once they had already seen what came back.
Keeping all five is standing pat, and it is announced out loud like any other choice. The dealer draws last and serves themselves.
How many you may change is a house matter, so settle it before the first deal, along with whether the dealer burns a card off the top before dealing replacements — some do and some do not. Three is the common cap. Many home games allow a fourth card if you show the ace you are keeping, and games of five or fewer players often let you change all five. At a full table of six the cap has to stay at three or the pack will not stretch.
A stock that empties partway through the draw gets rebuilt rather than abandoned. What comes back is what earlier drawers traded away, together with any card burned and the bottom card of the pack where a table sets those aside; that heap is shuffled and cut, and the deal resumes from where it stalled. Folded hands stay dead. One set of cards is deliberately held back from it: whatever the player currently waiting on replacements has just pushed out, since the whole point of the exercise is defeated if somebody is handed back the very cards they chose to be rid of. None of this is workable unless the discards have been stacked neatly face down all along, so keep them that way from the first exchange.
THE SECOND BETTING ROUND
A second round, opening with the same player who opened the first and following exactly the same rules. This is the round that carries the game's information: how many cards each opponent took is the only public fact anyone has, and it is the thing you are reading and the thing you are dressing up. A player who stood pat is claiming something very strong and may well hold nothing.
THE SHOWDOWN
If two or more players remain, hands go face up. The player who made the last bet or raise shows first; if the round was checked around, the first remaining player clockwise from the dealer shows first. Anyone who is beaten may throw the hand in face down rather than reveal it.
The moment every other player folds, the last one standing takes the pot and shows nothing at all. That happens often, and it is a legitimate way to win rather than a lesser one.
Goal & scoring
The object is the pot in the middle, and you get it one of two ways: by holding the best five-card hand when the hands are compared, or by betting in such a way that everyone else gives up first. Nothing is scored on paper and nothing carries from hand to hand; what you have is the chips in front of you.
Hands are compared by the standard poker categories. Ties within a category are broken by the ranks involved, highest first, and then by the remaining cards one at a time as kickers. Two hands that match on every card split the pot evenly, with any odd chip going to the player closest to the dealer's left. Since all five of your cards are yours alone, exact ties are far rarer here than in games built on shared cards.
A player who has run out of chips mid-hand may put in everything they have left and stay in for a proportional share: they can win from each opponent only as much as they themselves contributed, and any surplus is set aside as a side pot for the players still betting.
A session ends whenever the table decides. Count the chips, settle whatever the stakes were, and the person with the most in front of them has won.
Variants
Jacks or better (jackpots) — The oldest fix for a game where everyone checks and nothing happens. No one may open the first betting round without holding at least a pair of jacks, and the opener has to be able to prove it after the hand. If the whole table passes, the cards are gathered and dealt again with the antes left where they are, so the pot swells until somebody finally holds an opening hand. The requirement is sometimes raised to a pair of aces on a redeal.
Lowball — The ranking is turned upside down and the worst hand takes the pot, which changes what a draw is for entirely. Under the ace-to-five version the ace counts low and straights and flushes are ignored, so the perfect hand is five-four-three-two-ace. Under deuce-to-seven the ace is always high and straights and flushes count against you, making seven-five-four-three-two of mixed suits the best possible holding. Both are usually dealt with blinds rather than antes.
Blinds instead of antes — Borrowed from the modern casino games and now common online. Rather than everyone contributing equally before the deal, the two players clockwise from the dealer post a small and a big forced bet, and the first betting round opens with the player after them. It shifts the pressure onto rotating seats instead of taxing everybody every hand, and it pairs naturally with a no-limit betting structure.
Wild cards — A staple of kitchen-table games: some rank is declared wild and stands for whatever its holder needs, deuces wild being the usual choice, sometimes with jokers added to the pack. Agree beforehand whether five of a kind is possible and where it sits, since it beats even a straight flush. Wild cards inflate every hand at the table, so a full house stops being worth much and hand values need rethinking from scratch.
Rules checked against Pagat, PokerNews, CardPlayer, PokerListings, Pokerology, Official Game Rules, Wikipedia.