Draw Poker Games

GR88 offers four different draw poker games in our online poker room. We deal Five Card Draw, as well as three triple draw games - Badugi, Ace to Five Lowball and Deuce to Seven Lowball.

5 Card Draw

Five Card Draw is a very popular poker game, and is often the first game learnt by players as it is very simple. Play starts with a big and small blind bet to the left of the dealer, then players are dealt five cards, one at a time, face down. A round of betting ocurs, then the draw phase begins where players elect to discard and replace anything up to all five of their cards. Another round of bettting is completed and the remaining players turn over their cards, the last raiser first. The player with the best poker hand takes down the pot.

At GR88 there are two varitations of five card draw - both with and without a joker. When the joker is in use, it is not a truly wild card as it may only be used an ace, or to complete a straight, flush or straight flush. If used in a flush it becomes the highest card in the hand. When the joker is in use 5 aces becomes the best possible hand. (four aces and the joker)

Badugi

Believed to be of Korean origin, Badugi is a triple draw poker game where players are dealt four cards face down and the object is to make a 'badugi' hand. A badugi hand consists of different value cards from each of the four suits. In badugi, the lowest cards make the best hand and pairs are not counted. So A234 of four different suits is the best possible hand.

If after three rounds of betting and drawing you still have cards of the same suit or value, only the different cards are counted. For example a hand of A335 of different suits would become a three card hand of A35. Any four card hand would beat a three card hand. If you had three hearts and a club, your hand value would be decreased to two cards - the club and the lowest heart.

Badugi is a lot of fun because hand values can change dramatically over the course of three drawing rounds.

Lowball

The GR88 poker room deals both Ace to Five and Deuce to Seven Lowball games.

Ace to Five Lowball is the most well known game and play is very similar to five card draw, except players try to make the lowest possoble hand over three draws and four betting rounds. Straights and flushes are not counted, so the best possible low hand is A2345 regardless of suit. This hand is referred to as a 'wheel'.

In Deuce to Seven Lowball Aces are high and straights and flushes do count as high hands. So the best possible hand is 75432, which gives the game it's name.

To get started playing draw poker games at GR88, click through to download our free online poker software for either Windows or Mac computers.