Triple Draw Poker Rules

Deuce to Seven Triple Draw is a 5 card draw low game. Each player is dealt 5 cards and the goal is to make the lowest possible 5 card hand. There are four rounds of betting and three draws in this game. After each round of betting players choose cards to discard, anywhere from 0 to 5, and the dealer deals them replacement cards. 2-7 Triple Draw. 2-7 (Deuce to Seven) Triple Draw Lowball is a poker game in which the low poker hand wins the pot at showdown. In other words, it is a form of ‘Lowball’. It is a ‘draw’ game, meaning that you are dealt five cards, and may discard from zero to five of them on the draw, and receive that number of replacement cards. Rules of the Game. Ace to Five Triple Draw is a lowball game where the best hand is A2345 and neither straights nor flushes count against you. Essentially it is the same game as Deuce to Seven Triple Draw except with different hand rankings.

2-7 Triple Draw Poker Rules
2-7 Triple Draw Poker Rules
Triple Draw Poker Rules

If you'd like to learn the remaining rules of 2-7 Triple Draw, keep reading. 2-7 Triple Draw Rules. Since 2-7 Triple Draw starts out exactly the same as 2-7 Single Draw, we decided to condense this article so it wouldn't be a mile long. If you've already read all of the above steps, keep reading to find out the remaining rules of 2-7 Triple.

Hand rankings

In Deuce to Seven Triple Draw players try to make the lowest possible 5 card hand. Aces play for high only and deuces play for low. Because you are trying to make the lowest possible hand, straights and flushes count against you. This means that 23456, for example, is a very bad hand. It is not considered a 6-low. It is a straight and is therefore worse than holding AKQJ9.

The best possible hand you can make is 23457 with no flush. This hand is called a wheel. The next best hand is 23467, again with no flush. This hand is often referred to as Number 2. Likewise, 23567 is referred to as Number 3 and so on.

Because Aces play for high 2345A is not a straight. It is the best possible Ace-low you can make-also called the Nut Ace. 23458 is the Nut 8. 23459 is the Nut 9 and so on. AKQJ9 is the worst possible unpaired hand you can make, since your goal is to make a low hand. 22345 would be the next best hand after that. Trips are worse than pairs. Straights are worse than pairs and trips. Flushes are worse than straights. And full houses are worse than flushes. The worst hand you can hold in this game is a Royal Flush. So, the hand rankings are the inverse of the hand rankings in a regular high game.

How Deuce to Seven triple Draw is dealt

Deuce to Seven Triple Draw is dealt as a 6 player maximum game. The game uses a dealer button just as in hold'em. The player directly to the left of the dealer button posts a live small blind and the player two to the left of the dealer button posts a live big blind. Each player is dealt 5 cards and there is a round of betting. The first betting round starts with the player to the left of the big blind, just as in hold'em. Each player in turn has the option to call, raise or fold.

After the first round of betting is complete, each player who has not folded has a chance to draw. Players are prompted in order to discard any cards they wish to replace in their hand. The first player to act is always the player closest to the left of the button. Players can discard from zero to 5 cards. If a player chooses to discard zero cards he is opting to stand pat. After a player acts on his hand and decides how many cards to discard the next player is prompted in turn to discard and so on until all remaining players in the pot have acted on the draw.

After each player has decided on their discards, the dealer begins replacing their cards in turn. For example, if the first player discards 3 cards, the second player discards 2 cards, and the third player discards 1 card the dealer would deal the first player 3 cards, then take that player's discards into the muck. The dealer would then deal the next player 2 cards then take that player's discards into the muck. The dealer would then deal the last player 1 card, then take that player's discards into the muck.

After the draw is complete, there is another round of betting. The players then have an opportunity to draw again. After the second draw is complete, there is another round of betting. The players then have one more opportunity to discard. After this third and final draw, there is one more betting round.

What happens when there are not enough cards to complete the draw?

Sometimes, there are not enough cards to complete a drawing round. When this happens, the muck has to be reshuffled and the draw is completed after the reshuffle. The cards that are included in the reshuffle are the mucked cards from all previous drawing rounds and the mucked cards of any player who has gotten all of his replacement cards on the current drawing round.

Going back to our previous example, let's say that Player 1 discards 3 cards, Player 2 discards 2 cards and Player 3 discards 1 card. The dealer then deals Player 1 three cards and Player 2 one card. At this point there are no more cards left in the deck. The mucked cards from any previous betting rounds are now shuffled with the discards from Player 1 only. Player 2's discards are not included in the reshuffle since all of his discards were not replaced. This means that it is impossible for a player to ever get his own discards back on a given round of betting.

Betting Structure

Deuce to Seven uses the same betting structure as hold'em. During the first two round of betting the limit is the small bet. So, if the game was a $10/$20 game during the first two round of betting a player could call or raise in $10 increments. The second two rounds of betting the limit is the big bet. In our example, a player can call or raise in $20 increments.

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Origins

2-7 Triple Draw is still a relatively new poker variant, making its WSOP debut in 2004. Prior to this its origins can be traced through similar low-ball draw games. In 2002 A-5 Triple Draw was offered at the WSOP, the same year that triple draw games were first offered online by Ultimate Bet.

Prior to 2002, triple draw games were rare and most commonly were offered as part of mixed games at ultra high-limits rather than as stand-alone games.

A precursor of the 2-7 Triple Draw was offered during Amarillo Slim's “Super Bowl of Poker” tournaments which ran from 1979 to 1984. The name of the variant was “Ten-Handed Triple-Draw Lowball”. It was clearly different from the modern 2-7 triple-draw since players started the hand with 10-cards, but we can see that the origins of lowball draw games stretch back several decades at the very least.

2-7 Triple Draw Objective

2-7 Triple Draw is a lowball draw game which involves 3 rounds of drawing and 4 rounds of betting. The objective of the game is to win our opponent's chips which typically have a monetary value. In a tournament game the objective is to be the last player left standing with all of the chips.

Structure

2-7 triple draw is a positional game meaning it makes use of a dealer button similar to hold'em. Pre-draw (first round of betting before any drawing takes place), the blinds act last. The blinds must also make a mandatory payment of the small-blind and big-blind. Post-draw (after the drawing rounds have begun), the button acts last on every street while the player directly to the left of the button acts first on every street.

2-7 triple draw can be played with any betting structure, I.e limit, no-limit or pot-limit, although it is most commonly played as a fixed limit game.

The action proceeds as follows

Dealer deals 5-cards to each player
First Round of betting
Players draw cards
Second Round of betting
Players draw cards
Third Round of betting
Players draw cards
Final Round of betting
Showdown

Drawing

On each round players have the option to discard as many of their cards as they wish up to a total of 5. These should be replaced with fresh cards from the desk. Assuming a player is happy with their hand they have the option to stand pat, which means they don't discard or draw any additional cards.

Watching how many cards our opponents draw is an important part of hand-reading in 2-7 triple draw.

It is possible to run out of cards when playing draw variants. In such an occurrence the discard pile is shuffled and players continue by drawing from other players' discards.

Hand-Rankings

It's important to take note of the hand-rankings in 2-7 Triple Draw as they are different from other lowball variants. In the majority of low-ball variants Aces are low and flushes/straights are ignored, but this is not the case in 2-7 Triple-Draw. Flushes and straights (and any pair+) count against our hand and Aces are always high. And we mean always – A,2,3,4,5 does not make a straight in 2-7 Triple Draw.

2-7 Triple Draw Poker Rules

So rather than other low-ball variants where A,2,3,4,5 is the nuts, the nuts in 2-7 Triple Draw is actually 2,3,4,5,7. Note that 2,3,4,5,6 would make a straight and would actually be a very weak hand. Essentially, when compared to hold'em we are simply trying to make the absolute worse hand possible while remembering that Aces are always high. When analysed like this some might even find hand-reading in 2-7 triple draw easier than the standard low-ball method of reading hands where straights and flushes are ignored.

Basic Strategy – The Draw

The first concept to master is understanding how many cards to discard and draw based on our hand-strength.

As a rough guide

5 cards 9 or below(no pair or straight or flush etc) – Stand Pat
4 cards 8 or below and a higher card – Draw 1
3 cards 8 or below and 2 higher card – Draw 2
2 cards 7 or below and 3 higher cards – Draw 3

Hands weaker than this should be discarded in most situations. It's generally recommended to play hands that hold a 2, but to be cautions when playing hands that hold a 6. The 6 is needed for all low straights, so without the 6 we don't need to worry as much about making a straight and losing.
It's also recommended to start out with low cards and draw to higher cards rather than the other way round. So it's better to hold 2,3,4,8 and draw to the 5,6 or 7 rather than hold the 8,7,6,3 and draw to the 4,5,or 2.

Basic Strategy – Position

Similar to other positional variants of poker, our standard hand criteria is going to be dependent on our position. We might fold something like 2,7,A,K,Q in early position yet this hand might be fine to open-raise on the BTN or the SB.

We should also keep in mind that it's better to raise-first-in if we want to play a hand rather than to open limp. There are exceptions to this however, we might be able to limp if several other players have already limped before us or if the action is on us unopened and we are in the SB. It's also fine to check-back the BB if our hand is not strong enough for an iso-raise.

Basic Strategy - Hand Reading

There are 2 main ways that we can hand-read in 2-7 Triple Draw. The first is observing our opponents betting patterns. The second is looking at how many cards he draws. As a guide for hand reading, the strength of a player's holding is roughly proportional to the amount of cards they draw. If they draw 1 card they are likely reasonably strong while if they draw 5-cards they likely had total garbage. Assuming someone stands pat they usually have a decent made low hand, probably 10-low or better at the very least.

For the most part 9-low and 10-low hands are considered bluffcatchers while 8-low and better are considered the value hands.

Basic Strategy - Betting Structure

Whether the game is played no-limit or fixed-limit will have a big effect on the correct strategy. There are 2 main differences with the fixed-limit variety of the game. Firstly we will have less fold-equity on any given street since we can only bet in accordance with the allowed fixed bet-sizing. Secondly we will have less implied odds in any situation since it is not possible to get all of the remaining stacks in at any given time.

This will often have an effect on the types of hands we can play profitably pre-draw. Certain weak draws we might be able to play profitably in no-limit while we can't make them profitable in fixed-limit. In a no-limit game we might pick up a big payout if we hit our draw, and we also might be able to bluff our opponent post-draw if he shows weakness.
This is a lot harder to do in fixed-limit. We won't get a big enough payout if we hit to justify our pre-draw investment, and it's overall less likely that we will be able to successfully bluff our opponent post-draw.

Why You Should Play 2-7 Triple Draw

2-7 Triple Draw Poker Rules

If you like draw games, especially lowball games that generate a ton of action then maybe 2-7 Triple Draw is for you.