1. Free 5 Card Hold'em Poker
  2. 5 Card Hold'em

When the poker boom hit in 2003 after Chris Moneymaker famously won the World Series of Poker Main Event, Texas Hold ‘em was all the rage. But for many in the years prior, their introduction to poker came through a very different game.

The order in which Texas Hold’em is dealt is very specific and, assuming you’re playing with a table full of lucid, honest people, never changes. First, you are dealt two hole cards. Then comes the flop, turn and river cards. The flop After a round of betting for the hole cards, a card is burned. In poker, players form sets of five playing cards, called hands, according to the rules of the game. Each hand has a rank, which is compared against the ranks of other hands participating in the showdown to decide who wins the pot. In high games, like Texas hold 'em and seven-card stud, the highest-ranking hands win.

Five Card Draw has always been one of the games that people would play around the house or at parties. For anyone that didn’t know how to play poker, the simplicity of the rules made it an easy variation of the game to start with.

It is one of the earliest forms of poker on record. In addition, it is one of the most famous as any movie that poker was a part of in the pre-poker boom era most likely featured Five Card Draw.

Five Card Draw is the game believed to have been played during the days of the Wild West when “Wild” Bill Hickok was famously shot to death while playing. As legend has it, he was holding two pairs, Aces and Eights, a hand that is now nicknamed “The Deadman’s Hand” due to this ominous occasion.

The game is no longer spread in brick and mortar casinos unless requested. Online you can find plenty of games, however. Luckily, if you’ve never played before, Five Card Draw is one of the more basic and straightforward forms of poker.

So getting a grasp on the rule set should be a cinch.

The best place to start when discussing the basics is the hand rankings. Before diving into how the game is played it is important to know what constitute a good hand so that you can determine what you should do when it is your turn to draw cards.

Five Card Draw follows the same high hand guidelines as all of its fellow poker game variants. To understand the hand rankings of a poker game take a look at the graphic below:

Five Card Draw will usually be played 6-handed. Because of the draw nature of the game, anything more than 6 and you risk not having enough cards in the deck to cover everyone’s draw.

The hand will start in one of two ways depending on the betting structure being used. In Five Card Draw you will sometimes see it played where everyone posts an ante, but the more popular way and the way that you will see it played online is that there will be a small blind and a big blind.

If you’re familiar with Texas Hold ‘em or Omaha than you know this format quite well. If you are new to poker entirely here is what we mean by small blind and big blind:

Small Blind
The small blind is the first forced bet by the first player on the direct left of the dealer. The amount of the small blind will be half of the big blind, which is considered the full bet amount.
Big Blind
The player to the direct left of the small blind will post the second forced bet known as the big blind. This big blind amount constitutes a full bet.

Once the blinds are posted the dealer deals each player five cards face down.

At this point, the first round of betting occurs, starting with the player on the direct left of the big blind. Once this round of betting has completed it is now time for the players to draw.

The Draw

The “draw” in Five Card Draw is the heart of the game. After the first round of betting, players have the option to discard cards they do not want and draw new ones from the top of the deck.

If a player likes the first five cards they were dealt they can choose not to draw any cards. This is known as “standing pat”.

After each player left in the hand has had a chance to discard and draw new cards, another round of betting occurs. After this final round of betting the remaining players table their hands and the player with the best hand is declared the winner.

5 Card Holdem

The betting structure of Five Card Draw resembles that of Texas Hold ‘em. Each hand starts with a small blind and big blind posting their bets. The game can either be played in the fixed limit structure, or the no limit structure.

In fixed limit Five Card Draw, betting is done in increments of the big blind equivalent. In no limit Five Card Draw the only limitation to how much you can bet is the amount of chips in your stack.

Overview

By now you have found that the rules of Five Card Draw are fairly simple and straightforward. A quick recap of the game sequence is as follows:

  • Each player is dealt five cards.
  • A round of betting, starting to the left of the big blind occurs.
  • Players discard the cards they do not want and draw new cards
  • A round of betting starting with the first live player to the left of the dealer.

In Five Card draw you will most likely always be drawing cards. It is fairy rare to be dealt an extremely strong hand on the first deal.

For reference, take a look at this mathematical chart below of the chances of being dealt certain strong hands prior to the drawing round:

  • Royal flush <0.001%
  • Straight flush (not including royal flush) <0.002%
  • Four of a kind 0.02%
  • Full house 0.14%
  • Flush (excluding royal flush and straight flush) 0.20%
  • Straight (excluding royal flush and straight flush) 0.39%
  • Three of a kind 2.11%
  • Two pair 4.75%
  • One pair 42.30%
  • No pair / High card 50.10%

At this point it is pretty safe to say that you have a solid understanding of the rules of Five Card Draw.

To understand the game even deeper and to get some tips and tricks on how to be more profitable at the tables check out our Guide to Five Card Draw section and best of luck along the way.

No limit 5-card draw is still very soft and it should be possible to show a profit with the following pointers. If you are not sure how 5-card draw works check out the 5-card-draw rules article here on pokervip.com

Raise First In

Similar to NLHE if we want to play a hand we should be coming in for a raise most of the time. The other players at our table will likely be limping a lot, especially if it's a lower limit game of 5-card-draw. Avoid the temptation to follow suit.
To every rule there are exceptions. It can be OK to limp behind or complete in the SB if there are 2 or more limpers already in the pot. It can also be OK to complete the SB vs the BB in a heads up scenario where the action is unopened and we are on the SB. Finally it's perfectly OK to check back hands in the big-blind depending on the strength.

Our Objective

Our primary focus when playing 5-card draw should be attempting to make three-of-a-kind. We look for decent pairs and then draw 3 cards hoping to make trips. Drawing three gives us statistically the highest chance to make trips. You will often see players at your limit holding on to one of their kickers and drawing only two cards, but in most cases this is incorrect.
Other players will be making trips with a reasonable frequency and we want to insure that our trips is better than their trips on average.
For example we are dealt K-K-5-2-A. We should hold on to the two Kings and discard the Ace. Many players are not aware of this and will discard only the 5 and 2 in this example.
It's not the case that any 3-of-a-kind is going to be good at showdown. Other players will be making trips with a reasonable frequency and we want to insure that our trips is better than their trips on average. This means there is a lower limit to which pairs we should play.
In most cases we should avoid drawing to flushes and straights. It may seem attractive to be dealt 4-to-a-straight or 4-to-a-flush, but we usually won't hit them often enough to make up for our preflop investment.
The exception is that there are already 2 limpers in the pot, in which case it's fine to limp behind some straight-draws and flush-draws, but gut-shots should typically be folded. We don't want to make hard and fast rules here but there are some exceptions vs passive opponents where we can get away with cold-calling these hands for one of the two following reasons in a no-limit-game
  • Our opponent just can't fold at showdown and hence we have great implied odds. (Note that this applies purely to no-limit 5-card draw games and it's nearly always going to be a mistake to call a raise preflop with a straight-draw or flush-draw in a limit game)
  • Our opponent plays extremely face up on the final street and we can pick up pots as a bluff. (Note that again this applies more frequently to no-limit games as our opponent is less likely to fold anything to a min-bet in a limit game)

RFI Ranges

Our raise-first-in ranges are dependent on our position, similar to no-limit holdem. As mentioned we want to be playing pairs which are likely to make the best trips.
  • UTG KKxxx+
  • MP QQxxx+
  • CO JJxxx+
  • BTN 99xxx+
  • SB TTxxx+ (however it's OK to complete some weaker hands with reasonable potential)

Isolating

Since our opponents are going to be limping a ton we have a great opportunity to iso-raise preflop. Likely any JJxxx+ is strong enough for an iso-raise. In most cases our opponent is going to play face up on the final street, especially when he is out of position.
Pairs lower than JJxxx are referred to as “shorts” and are generally considered trouble hands in 5-card draw, so play with caution. These should often be folded preflop, but again it is somewhat villain dependent. We might be able to play some smaller pairs as limp-behinds and take the opportunity to turn them into a bluff on the river vs face up opponents.

The Draw

Our draw decision is really based around the following. We'd rather make an above average strength hand frequently than a super-strong hand rarely.
  • If we have a pair we draw 3 and try and make trips.
  • If we have trips, we draw two and try to make Quads or a boat.
  • If we have a flush-draw or straight-draw we draw one and try to hit.
  • If we have total garbage (usually in a free play situation) we can hold on to cards above a Queen or Jack and replace the others.
Understanding these basic principles will allow us to hand read against our opponent based on how many cards they draw.

Hand Reading

Like in all poker formats the number-one tool for hand reading is our opponents' tendencies. But we can make pretty reasonable assumptions about unknowns based on the amount of cards they draw.
5 card texas holdem
5 cards – Naturally this indicates that the player has garbage. Assuming he is in a free-play situation (I.e checks back BB) this can be normal. Assuming he has open-raised or cold-called preflop then it indicates he is a very weak player. There is no chance he has the odds to draw 5 fresh cards given his preflop investment, and he should have been folding preflop. You can mark this type of player with a coloured tag and assume that playing against him will be extremely profitable.
4 cards – Essentially the same as above. There is no situation we should be drawing 4-cards except in a free-play situation.

3 cards – In most cases this will indicate that the player has a pair and is trying to pick up three-of-a-kind. A very bad player might be drawing to a flush or straight with only 2 cards. It's always worth taking a note of this kind of thing if you discover at showdown that the player drew 3 cards and does not even have a pair when he shows down.
2 cards – Most frequently this will indicate that the player has trips so ultimately this is quite a strong looking draw. Again it's seemingly common for recreational players to have 3-to-a-flush or 3-to-a-straight and make a draw against the odds. So mark these guys as fish if you discover this kind of thing at showdown.
1 cards – Ironically this is slightly weaker than a 2-card draw in many cases. This indicates that the average player has either 2-pair or a 1-card straight-draw, flush-draw, or gutshot. Good players will end up having 2-pair more often. It's also possible that players have a hand such as 9-9-9-A-3 and decide to hang on to the Ace kicker even though it's statistically better to draw 2. This is not necessarily always a bad play however and has a deception element to it which can be decent at higher limits. (More on this under advanced tactics)
0 cards, Stand Pat – Be careful, this player is representing a 5-card hand. The minimum he is representing is A-5 straight.

Showdown

In most cases we should be value-betting Jacks-up (2pair and better) vs one opponent. Assuming it's a limped pot we can likely value bet any 2-pair hand. Against multiple opponents we should at least have Kings-up to consider value-betting.
There are exceptions. If our opponent drew one he will very frequently have a busted straight or flush on the river, so there is not generally any need to value-bet. It's better to let our opponent bluff. If on the off-chance he did draw 1 with trips then we lose anyway with 2 pair.

Advanced Tactics

Free 5 Card Hold'em Poker

5 Card Holdem
Naturally we don't want our draw to give away the strength of our holding against good players. So we should be mixing up the amount of cards we draw in some situations even if it is not statistically optimal.
Drawing One with Trips – We should occasionally draw one with trips. It's true we don't give ourself the best chance of improving this way but it can help our range. We will have trips in a spot where we are perceived to either have a 2-pair hand or a busted draw.
Our opponent will often call with 2-pair in this situation hoping to either beat our 2-pair or bluff-catch against our busted draws. In other words, drawing 1 allows us to represent a weaker range with a strong hand. Note that this only makes sense against semi-decent opponents. The average fish may not even care how many cards we draw, in which case we should always draw 2 with trips and give ourselves the maximum chance of improving.
Standing Pat with Air – It would naturally be an unbalanced poker strategy if we only stand pat when we have a strong 5-card holding. Since most guys won't use this line as a bluff it can actually be a really great way to print money until our opponents catch on. Imagine we get dealt a really terrible hand in SB vs BB for example. We can open-raise in an attempt to steal. If we get called, rather than drawing 5, we can stand pat and fire every time on the next street.
Our opponent will usually fold unless he improve to trips or better. And even if he has trips it won't theoretically be a correct call unless he expects us to be bluffing like this since we are representing a 5-card hand which beats his trips. Obviously we have to be careful not to over-use this line. If we stand-pat every hand it's going to become obvious pretty quickly that we don't have anything.
Drawing Two with a Pair – As mentioned we can rep a little more strength with this line than drawing 3 with a pair. Again it's not statistically optimal, but might help us to turn our hand into a bluff on the final street to fold out better pairs.

Using Position to Bluff

The best example of this is a situation where we are in position on the final street and both opponents check to us after drawing 1. The vast majority of the time they are going to have a busted draw for a few reasons.
  • They would lead for value if they hit a strong draw
  • They would lead for value a decent amount if they had 2 pair
  • It's overall pretty unlikely that they'll spike their draw
What this essentially means is that in some cases we can actually expand our defending ranges in position if our opponent has a tendency to play very face up.
The common 5-card-draw advice of “don't play straight or flush draws” (sometimes known as “come” hands), is somewhat equivalent to the NLHE advice “don't play SC's OOP”. But NLHE players understand that SC's can be played profitably OOP, it all depends on what occurs postflop.

So if our opponent has a tendency to go for hugely unlikely draws then we can defend much wider in position even with some weak hands ourselves. We might not get the pot-odds to defend the hand, but if our opponent simply check folds final-street every time he misses, our preflop odds don't matter.
So essentially the advice “don't play come hands” is very situational and somewhat outdated. FL 5-card draw was possibly a more common variant when this advice originated. In FL we have way less fold-equity on final-street and way less implied-odds vs bad opponents when we hit.

In Summary

The above pointers should be enough to achieve a positive winrate in at least the lower stakes 5-card draw games. There are very few professional 5-card draw players. Most professionals are playing NLHE or PLO. As a result we don't need a super robust strategy to beat the 5-card draw games.

5 Card Hold'em

However like any poker variant we should always keep in mind that the number one factor that has a bearing on our decision is how our opponents play and their tendencies.
Happy crushing!
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