Five Card Draw Rules

Five Card Draw picks up the award for being the easiest for of poker to pick up. For this reason, it's generally used as the type of poker used in home games or in poker scenes from your favourite TV show or movive.

Antes / Blinds

Different players use different rules when it comes to money going into the middle of the table before action starts. If an ante is being used, then each player will need to place a small bet worth between 10%-20% of the small betting limit before they receive their cards.

Due to the rise of Texas Holdem, some players prefer to use blinds rather than Antes. If that's the case, then the player sitting next to the nominated dealer will need to put a small blind worth half of the betting limit. The player sat next to the small blind will be the big blind and need to put in a chips equal in size to the small betting limit.

Therefore in a $2/$5, the small blind would be worth $1 and the big blind would be worth $2.

Dealing the cards

If you're playing in a casino or a large cash game, you will be assigned a dedicated dealer who will always deal out the cards. In this case, a small plastic "Dealer Button" will rotate around the table so that every player at some point is nominated the "Dealer" even though they won't be handing out any cards.

In smaller games, the deck is will usually be passed around the table (along with the dealer button) and a different player will deal out the cards each hand.

No matter method is used in your game, the dealer will hand out one card to each player. This card will be dealt face down, and once every player has a received a card, the dealer will then go on to deal out a second card to each player. This process will continue until every player has five cards dealt face down on the table in front of them.

First round of betting

Once the initial cards have been handed out, the first round of betting will start with the player to the immediate left of the dealer. Action will then continue in a clockwise direction with each player having the decision of whether to call, raise or fold.

Only when the maximum bet has been matched by all players can the game proced to the Draw. It should be mentioned that the amount of chips submitted by the big and small blind will count towards any bet that they need to make.

Draw

Once all the bets have been made, players are able to exchange some of the cards in their hand.

Some games insist that players can only discard a maximum of three cards unless an Ace is being held in the hand. In that case, all cards can be discarded apart from the Ace itself.

The general rule, however, is that players can exchange as many cards as they like at this stage.

Second round of betting

Once these new cards have been dealt out, a second round of betting begins. The player sitting to the immediate left of the dealer is expected to act first and play then continues in a clockwise fashion, as you would expect.

Showdown

As long as at least two players survive the second round of betting, there will be a showdown. In this situation, each player must turn over his cards to reveal his hand. The player with the best hand wins the pot.

Should only one player make it to the showdown, that player is allowed to collect the chips without showing his cards.