How to get into non-HE poker

What ever happened to 5 card draw?

[AKQJ10]

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What ever happened to 5 card draw?

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Long story short (keep in mind this is all before my time):
<ul type="square">[*]Not enough short-term luck is involved so fish dried up or migrated to games where luck played a bigger role.[*]California legalized "stud" games such as hold'em [sic.] in.... I wanna say 1987, but at any rate sometime in the late 80's/early 90's. Until then Gardena had been the capital of draw poker, usually jacks-or-better to open but also including lowball. After that everyone migrated to hold'em, especially led by the fish.[/list]
Just my understanding, I hope to get responses from those who were around in that day.

You can still play 5-draw on some sites: Paradise, UB I think, not sure what others.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

Paradise has it.

[Tom Bayes]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
What ever happened to 5 card draw?

[/ QUOTE ]

Long story short (keep in mind this is all before my time):
<ul type="square">[*]Not enough short-term luck is involved so fish dried up or migrated to games where luck played a bigger role.[*]California legalized "stud" games such as hold'em [sic.] in.... I wanna say 1987, but at any rate sometime in the late 80's/early 90's. Until then Gardena had been the capital of draw poker, usually jacks-or-better to open but also including lowball. After that everyone migrated to hold'em, especially led by the fish.[/list]
Just my understanding, I hope to get responses from those who were around in that day.

You can still play 5-draw on some sites: Paradise, UB I think, not sure what others.

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I'm a big five-card draw fan even though I wasn't around in the "good old days" of California draw/lowball. Draw was the only poker game that was legal to spread in California for many years, based on a quirky ruling that games with no exposed cards were games of skill but games with exposed cards were not.

One thing I like about draw is that you are usually a bigger favorite when you get your money in than you are in games like holdem or PLO (i.e. it's less likely the fish will draw out on you). Bad players don't like the game for this reason.

Draw also rewards being "tight" more than most other games. It's usually wrong to chase draws. A problem with draw is that a game among a table of players that are all "tight-aggressive" will have little action.

Online draw puts a greater emphasis on figuring out your opponent's betting patterns and drawing patterns than other games since you can't rely on physical tells online and you don't get to see any part of his hand like you can in stud games or flop games. Once you've played with a group for a while, you know who to fold 2 pair against and who to re-raise with the same hand, who always has trips when he draws 2 and who never has trips when he draws 2.

Anyone who wants to dabble in online draw should read this article: http://www.cardplayer.com/poker_maga...13&amp;m_id=69

If you want to get serious about 5 card draw, the standard books are Winning Concepts in Draw and Lowball by Mason Malmuth (2+2 obviously), SuperSystem I (chapter by Mike Caro), and Winning Poker Systems by Norman Zadeh (find it used at Amazon or E-Bay).

As mentioned, there are several places online to play draw. Planet has the softest games and microlimits-most players there are either rocks or calling stations. Usually only very small games are going, if any. A decent player for a draw newbie to start, but you can't always get a game [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

The other sites have more action but most start at the $1/$2 level. 24h has a decent amount of PL action at lower limits, especially during the European evening. They also play as high as €5/€10 and €10/€20 PL there, but that's not a place for a beginner to go. The $1/$2 limit games at Paradise and PokerRoom aren't very tough (although I haven't played at Paradise in several months).

Paradise: Limit cash games
PokerRoom: Limit and PL cash games, PL tournaments
Planet: Limit and PL cash games (usually only 1 micro-limit games going), Limit/PL/NL tournaments (small)
24h/other B2B sites: PL cash games, PL tournaments, PL SNGs
Canbet/other Boss sites: Limit cash games

We sometimes talk about five-card draw (and other games like lowball, triple draw, pineapple and badugi/padooki) in the Other Poker forum.

[dandy_don]

Microlimit stud is nothing like small to mid limit stud. If you sit at a table that has 50-60% seeing 4th street every hand, someone will draw out to a big hand with even the worst starting hands. When you can raise 2 bets and 4 players call, you need to find another table or higher limits.

Also, watch out for the ante structure; Paradise has a $.5/$1.00 no ante stud game that should be played real tight (good for learning). The Paradise higher games along with Prima and Stars stud tables have a low-to-medium ante for most games that is best played tight (but not quite as tight as Paradise's no ante game). On the other hand, Party's $.5/$1 game has a $.25 ante (I think) that is extremely high that should be played loose and will have a wild variance. The tight games fit my style so I play mostly at Paradise, Prima and Stars.

I recommend playing stud HI for a while before diving into H/L.

Come jump in the Stud forum; we have a great group of very wise players that enjoy teaching others the game with very little flaming. Post a few hands for discussion and I promise you'll get some of the best advice around.