[Tom Bayes]

You've gotten a lot of good advice in this thread. Weisenberg's Card Player articles are, to my knowledge, about the only material available about draw as it is played online. Mason's book and Caro's chapter are good resources, but both assume the structure (antes, jacks-or-better, joker as the bug) present in the California draw games before holdem was legalized.

Here's some of my impressions of the 3 sites I've played draw at (all three use blinds and open with anything):

Paradise: 5-seated limit games from $1/$2 to $5/$10, no joker, no tournaments. I'm not crazy about the 5 player max. Always several $1/$2 tables going-the bigger games don't always go. There are a few big fish and a lot of mediocre players, but a lot of good players as well. There is a core of draw regulars who constantly multi-table hunting out newbies to grind a living off of. Most players know enough to not be chronic limpers. Players range from very tight to maniacal, with most in the middle. The higher limit games are hit-or-miss; the players in those games are either the best or the worst draw players online.

Planet: 8-seated limit and pot-limit ring games, usually only 1 or 2 micro-limit games are running. Most players very poor, either total calling stations or rocks. Most passive draw games on the net. The most common game running is the $25 pot limit with $0.10/$0.25 blinds. Most of the regulars play it like a limit game and rarely make more than min-bets. A pot-sized raise usually means a monster. I think most of the player base is older Americans. Planet used to have draw MTTs which I loved. I hope these tournaments return shortly when they get the multi-tables running on the new software. The blinds escalated slowly and you had plenty of play. The calling stations would bleed their stacks away chasing draws and playing short pairs. The rocks were easy to rob blind in the later stages once the blinds got to a meaningful size.

24h: 6-seated games spread strictly pot-limit. Currency used is Euros rather than dollars. Several tables usually going in the smaller games (0.25-0.50 and 0.50-1.00); I've seen as high as 5-10 Euros being played. Player base is mostly European-many are sports betters. Games totally unlike Planet-these are the most aggressive draw games on the net. There are some very good & tricky players and a lot of complete maniacs. Many players here will raise the pot on stone cold bluffs. 24h also has tourney-I've only played a few. IMO, all tournaments on 24h suffer from a very crap-shooty structure that I do not care for.

P.S. Planet uses a single joker as the bug (i.e. limited wild card which can be used as an ace or to complete a straight or flush). Paradise and 24h do not use the joker.