My fellow workers bet on five card draw heads up, ten dollars a hand.

My fellow workers bet on five card draw, heads up, ten dollars a hand. Who ever loses the hand owes the other ten dollars. These matches usually go on until someone is stuck to the point where they would rather just pay the debt than try to reduce it and perhaps lose more in the process. To me it seems like a coinflip, but the fact that there is one guy who wins at this way more than the others makes me wonder if somehow he is getting an edge. I am reasonably sure he is not cheating. So what I think is going on is that he is making better drawing decisions than his opponents. I am not sure though, and would like to get the opinion of others.

[henrikrh]

If people are drawing to flushes and str8s then he is simply making better decisions and you should get in on the action quick.

[Tom Bayes]

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If people are drawing to flushes and str8s then he is simply making better decisions and you should get in on the action quick.

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I think that some of these people are routinely drawing to low straights & flushes. They aren't getting the correct odds to do so with the weird betting system and they give themselves little chance to win the hand unless they hit the draw, since pairing up one of their small cards will rarely be good enough. I bet the "winner" is taking tons of pots with small unimproved pairs and ace high against these guys.

This game sounds like it's easy money against dopes but would be very tedious & pointless with two players who knew what they were doing-that would be the equivalent of a coin-flipping contest.

[henrikrh]

Firstly I assume we are playing with no jokers, so straights can at best be open ended, not 16-way or anything.

The odds in this gmae are so easy even I can do em, adn I suck at odds. 4 to a flush you have 9 outs, 9/47 (aobut 19 percent). The pot is always giving you 1-1 since you either win or lose the same amount, and there are no implied odds.

Since flushes hit 19% of the time and str8 can at max be 8 out so will always hit less it will always be wrong to draw to any straight or any flush in this game.

Therefore, always draw 3 keeping your highest 2 cards, draw 3 if you have a pair. All the rest is pretty obvious if you start with 2 pair, a set or better.

Then again I could still be wrong, with a hand like TJQK2, drawing 1 to str8 might be good since you can make a decent high pair aswell.

I'll task a shot at the math here. With KQJT you have 8 outs from the str8 and 12 outs to mkae a pair, 20/47, which is 42.5%.

Drawing 3 cards with KQ, you have 6 outs 3 times to hit a K or Q, which is about 38% (probably messsed this one up a bit) And you have the chance to pair the other cards coming in, which I think should be above 5%, which is the amount you would need to make it a better play than the OESD play.

Either way, you could tear this game up pretty easy, but once peoepl know how to play it just becomes a game of chance, might as well hit the slots.

[tonypaladino]

I played a game exactly like this once. It was hella stupid. It is correct not to draw to straights and flushes.

[Kaeser]

I think I've got you trumped here. My old co-workers on the boat used to play 5-card draw. Catch was they had no ante and no bet before the draw. They also had about 8 wild cards so I can't see why you'd ever play anything but 5-aces.

[timprov]

Even if both players are playing optimally, you should have a slight advantage if you can maneuver to always act last.

Thank you all very much for you input on this matter. I know for a fact that these folks are not taking any kind of odds into account. They make fun of me at times for reading books on poker, and tell me it's all luck. It makes good sense to never draw to a flush or a straight in this game, but they don't see it that way at all. It is interesting to me to watch them gamble with each other. Perhaps I can introduce to them a variation of the game they are playing now.

[Khabbi]

Instead of changing what they are playing, why don't you try to get into the action and releive them from their money?

[henrikrh]

[ QUOTE ]
Thank you all very much for you input on this matter. I know for a fact that these folks are not taking any kind of odds into account. They make fun of me at times for reading books on poker, and tell me it's all luck. It makes good sense to never draw to a flush or a straight in this game, but they don't see it that way at all. It is interesting to me to watch them gamble with each other. Perhaps I can introduce to them a variation of the game they are playing now.

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If they are adamant that flushes and str8s hit often then I'd try and get the following bet going; Set up a hand where you have ace high, and draw 3 every time, and one of them has a flush draw and not ace high, and tell them you'll run that situation aginast them 100 times, for $10 a pop, best hand wins. If they are hesistant, say you'll make it interested and let them have a gutshot straight flush draw.

Easy money.

Then teach them NL Hold'em.