This basic poker game is the variation found on many video poker machines. One is dealt 5 cards and must decide which, if any, to keep or to discard all to make the best possible poker hand. Plain draw poker machines, in fact, are good tools to practice making hands in 5 Card Draw. You can become adept at deciding which cards to keep or lose. When playing in a live game, however, your betting decisions are much more involved than how many coins to play on that hand. In 5 Draw, usually played with a group of up to 8 people, there are two wagering rounds, each with one bet and three raises. The third raise - the final increase in the bet -- is called the cap. If betting continues after raises are capped, subsequent bettors may only Call or Fold.
To play in a table game, each person in the hand pays an ante, the small forced bet that makes the initial pot. Then five cards are dealt to each person, face down. After the deal, there is a round of bets, and they are set at the table’s minimum bet. During this round, a player has two choices of action: He must make a bet now when his turn comes, or fold.
Next comes the "discard" or "draw" round, when all cardplayers may choose to discard none, all or some of their cards and draw the same number of new ones, in hopes of improving their hand. One may draw anywhere from zero to five new cards. Once the draw is completed, a betting round follows it. But now, bets are set at the game’s maximum, usually double. A player now may Check (pass the action to next person by betting nothing), as well as Bet or Fold. In 5 Card Draw, Check/Raising is permitted.
After all bets are equalized, the Showdown comes, when remaining players in the hand reveal their cards. Highest poker hand wins.
In online games or in a cardroom, this game uses a dealer button and the ante is in the form of blinds. These are the Small Blind, a forced bet made by the person to the immediate left of the dealer (or person with the dealer’s button) equal to one-half of the table minimum; and the Big Blind, the bet put up by the person to the left of the Small Blind, which is the full amount of the table minimum bet. These bets make up the starting pot and to make it a shared burden, the dealer’s button goes around the table to everyone in turn, so all are eventually in Blinds position. The blinds count towards a bet when the action comes back around the table to that person’s position; if you paid a $3 blind at the beginning of the round, and the bet has been raised to $6, you need only pay $3 to call that bet. Furthermore, when a new arrival wants to enter a game midstream, he must pay the big blind when he enters.
