by Alex Conde

Even with the recent massive interest in Texas Hold’em, Five Card Draw poker is arguably one of the best-known variations of poker. It is amongst the earliest variations that people learn, and makes for an interesting game. Five Card Draw can be played by two to eight players at a time.

While casino play of Five Card Draw poker often uses blinds, home games more frequently use antes. An ante is a fixed amount that each player must contribute to the pot before a deal is made. The amount of the ante is decided upon by all players before the game is begun and stays constant for the duration of that game.

The dealing structure of Five Card Draw is very simple, as cards are dealt out until each player has five. The remainder of the deck is temporarily set aside, but it will be used again. After the five cards are dealt to each player, there is a round of betting in which they can look at their own five cards, but obviously not show them to the other players.

After the first round of betting, there is the draw. Players get to designate how many cards they want to replace from their hand. Then they are dealt the same number from the remainder of the original draw deck (sometimes with a card being burnt or discarded first). After the draw, another round of betting occurs. Then, if more than one player remains, the hands are revealed and the highest hand wins.

House rules can be established limiting the number of cards that can be drawn, or even establishing more than one draw round (with the betting rounds extended accordingly). The limitation that house rules face is the number of cards in the deck, so as with Seven Card Stud, it is often a good idea to have an extra deck of cards ready in case they are needed. House rules for this style of poker often can designate wild cards as well. A wild card is a card (or set of cards) from the deck that can be designated as any card the player chooses. If aces are “wild” a player with three Jacks, one Ace, and one Two will have four of a kind since he has three Jacks and one wild card that can be considered a Jack.