Five-Card Draw
Also known as: Draw Poker
Quick Rules
- Each player is dealt 5 private cards - no community cards at all.
- First betting round happens before anyone trades any cards.
- Then each player may discard up to 3 cards (sometimes 4, with certain exceptions) and draw replacements from the deck.
- A second betting round follows the draw, then remaining players show their hands.
- Best standard 5-card poker hand at showdown wins the pot; everyone else folding also wins the pot without a showdown.
How to Play (Quick Overview)
- 1
Each player antes a small forced bet, or the dealer posts a blind, depending on the house rule in use.
- 2
Deal 5 cards face down to each player.
- 3
Hold a betting round: players may check, bet, call, raise, or fold, same as any poker betting round.
- 4
Players remaining in the hand may then discard between 0 and 3 cards (occasionally 4, if holding an Ace) and draw that many replacement cards from the deck.
- 5
Hold a second betting round after the draw.
- 6
If more than one player remains, reveal hands at showdown; the best standard poker hand wins the pot.
Objective
Build the best 5-card poker hand you can, using the one chance you get to trade cards, and win the pot either by having the best hand at showdown or by getting everyone else to fold first.
Setup
Choose a dealer. Depending on the house rules, either every player antes a small forced bet before the deal, or the two players left of the dealer post small and big blinds (similar to Hold’em). Shuffle a standard 52-card deck and deal 5 cards face down to each player - these are the only cards any player will see; there are no shared community cards in this game.
How to Play
After the initial deal, hold a betting round. Players may check, bet, call, raise, or fold, exactly as in any other poker variant.
Every player still in the hand then gets one chance to improve their hand: each may discard between 0 and 3 cards from their hand (some house rules allow discarding 4 if you keep an Ace) and draw that many replacement cards from the remaining deck, face down.
A second betting round follows the draw, working the same way as the first.
If two or more players are still in the hand after this final betting round, it’s a showdown: each remaining player reveals their 5 cards.
Scoring
There’s no running point score - chips move from hand to hand. At showdown, standard poker hand rankings apply directly to each player’s 5 cards (no combining with anything else, since there are no community cards): from high card up through royal flush. The highest-ranked hand wins the pot, with ties splitting it.
Winning
Whoever holds the pot at the end of the hand wins it - either the last player left after everyone else folds, or the best hand at showdown. A full session ends whenever the group agrees to stop, or when one player has won all the chips.
Variations
- Lowball: some variants reverse the hand rankings entirely, so the worst standard poker hand wins the pot instead.
- Jacks or Better: a common house rule requiring a player to hold at least a pair of Jacks to legally open the first betting round.
- Deuces Wild: all four 2s are wild cards, usable as any card needed to complete a hand - significantly changes what counts as a strong hand.
History
Five-Card Draw is one of the oldest poker variants, closely tied to poker’s own development in the early-to-mid 19th century United States, particularly around New Orleans and Mississippi riverboat gambling. It was the dominant form of poker played in America - including in classic Western films and TV, where it’s the version most often depicted at the table - until Texas Hold’em overtook it in popularity during the second half of the 20th century.
Fun Fact
Five-Card Draw’s status as “the” poker game of American film and television, thanks to its dramatic simplicity of a single deal and draw, means many people first learn what a poker hand ranking looks like from watching a variant that’s now played far less often at real poker tables than Texas Hold’em.