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Five Card Draw Poker Rules

In this page, brought to you by the poker experts of Poker4Real.com, five card draw poker rules are explained in details and easily.

Before we go into the more advanced card draw rules, here is some general information about the game you need to know:

Five Card Draw Basics

  • Five Card Draw Poker is played by 2-5 players, with a 52-card deck.
  • Five cards, face down, are dealt to each player.
  • After the deal, the first betting round starts. At the end of the first betting round, each player may discard and draw up to five cards.
  • A second round of betting ensues, followed by the showdown.
  • The winner of the Five Card Draw hand is the player who holds the highest hand according to the poker hand rankings.
  • Five Card Draw is played with a dealer button, a small blind and a big blind. Five Card Draw Poker can be played as a Limit, Pot limit or No limit game.
  • Five card draw poker is one of the variations of online poker available for online players.

Before players gets their draw card there are initial bets that need to be placed. This is to make sure that the pot is not initially empty. To understand these bets, you need to be familiar with the following consepts concerning who makes those bets.

  • Dealer - Although dealing is automatic, one player of Five card draw poker is marked as "the Dealer", by a sign called- "the Button". When the cards are dealt to players, they are dealt in a manner as if the player was actually. Each hand the role of the dealer is switched from one player to another in a clockwise rotation. The dealer is referred to as being "on the button".
  • Small Blind - The Five card draw player who sits to the left of the Button, and has to place an initial wager into the pot in the sum of the minimum bet.
  • Big Blind - The player who sits to the left of the Small Blind and has to place an initial wager into the pot in the sum of double the minimum bet.

Dealing Five Card Draw is done starting from the player left of the dealer, and then in a clockwise rotation for all the poker players around the table. The Five Card Draw players will be dealt five cards face down.

First Betting Round

The Five Card Draw player seated to the left of the big blind will start the round of betting. This player can only fold, call, or raise. The other players will then have their turn to either fold, call, or raise until we reach the big blind. In the turn of the big blind, if no one has raised by the time the play comes back around to the big blind, the big blind has the option to check his own blind wager or raise. Once all Five Card Draw players have completed the first round of bets, they will proceed to discarding cards and drawing new cards.

After the first betting round each player can click on any of his cards, discard them and draw new cards instead of them. After all players have discarded and drawn their cards, the second betting round starts.

Second Betting Round

The first Five Card Draw player seated to the left of the dealer button starts the second betting round. This player can fold, check or bet. If the first player folds or checks- the next player in turn will have the same options as the first player. If the first player bets- the next player will have the option to fold, call or raise. The number of discarded cards for that player is displayed to everyone.

The Showdown - The first player to show his Five card poker hand is the player who had played the last bet, raise or re-raise. If only one player remains by the end of the rounds he does not have to show his Five card draw. The winner of Five Card Draw Poker will be decided according to the poker hand rankings.

Betting Limits - In fixed limit Five Card Draw Poker rules there is a maximum of four bets allowed in each betting round. A bet, a raise, a re-raise and a cap. A cap is the third raise in a betting round, after which no more betting is allowed. Pot limit and No limit games allow for an unlimited number of bets and raises.

Mitch Thompson - Senior Editor