2-7 Draw Poker Rules

 
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2-7 (Deuce to Seven) Triple Draw Lowball is a poker game in which the low poker hand wins the pot at showdown. In other words, it is a form of ‘Lowball’. It is a ‘draw’ game, meaning that you are dealt five cards, and may discard from zero to five of them on the draw, and receive that number of replacement cards. 2-7 Single Draw Lowball. 2-7 (Deuce to Seven) Single Draw is a form of draw poker, sometimes referred to as ‘Kansas City Lowball’. Lowball games reward the best low hand, making it the opposite of games likes Hold’em and Stud, in which the highest hand wins.

  1. 2-7 Triple Draw Poker Rules
  2. 2-7 Triple Draw Poker Rules
  3. 2-7 Single Draw Poker Rules
  4. Rules For 2-7 Draw Poker

2-7 Triple Draw is a Lowball poker variant played in some land-based casinos and online poker rooms. 2-7 Triple Draw, and Lowball poker games in general, have become increasingly popular in the last few years. In this article, we will cover the 2-7 Triple Draw rules so that you can get started playing your new favorite poker variant.

How to Play 2-7 Triple Draw

Set-up

2-7 Triple Draw is a game for 2-6 players, using a standard 52-card deck. There are three drawing rounds, with 5 cards per person. The potential for so many cards to be drawn, limits this game to just a 6-max game.

Hand Development

Deuce to Seven Triple Draw is a Lowball poker game, like the semi-popular Kansas City Lowball, which means players are competing for the lowest hand. Unlike most other Lowball poker games however, all normal poker hand ranks are utilized. Straights and flushes will count against you, and Aces are high. Therefore, as the name of the game implies, the best possible hand is: 2-3-4-5-7 without a flush.

Betting Structure

2-7 Triple Draw is most often played in a fixed limit betting structure. The player left of the dealer button places a small blind, equal to half the low bet, while the player left of the small blind places the big blind, equal to the low bet. The dealer button is passed clockwise around the table each time a new hand is dealt.

Fixed limit defines the amount a player may bet/raise throughout the hand. If the stakes are $2/$4, $2 is the low bet, and $4 the high bet. Therefore the small blind is $1, the big blind $2. For the first 2 betting rounds, all bets/raises must match the $2 low bet, increasing to equate the $4 high bet in the final 2 betting rounds.

Draw Phases/Betting Rounds

There are three draw phases in 2-7 Triple Draw. Each player must have five cards at all times. During each draw phase, a player may discard as many or as few cards as he wishes. Choosing to discard no cards in any draw phase is called “Standing Pat”. The dealer will replace as many cards as a player discards for each draw phase.

The player left of the dealer will always receive all necessary cards first in a draw phase, followed by the next player to his left and so on, ending with the player on the dealer button last.

Sample Hand of 2-7 Triple Draw

The 2-7 Triple Draw hand begins with the placement of small and big blind bets, followed by the initial deal, where each player receives five hidden hole cards. Blind bets are considered live bets, meaning they will only need to add enough to their current blind in the first betting round to call/bet/raise, to make up the difference and complete the wager.

1st Betting Round: Starts with the player left of the big blind, who may call the big blind, raise or fold. Betting continues clockwise until all players have called or folded to the current bet.

1st Draw Phase: All players discard 0-5 cards, however many they wish. The dealer will then replace as many cards as each player discarded.

2nd Betting Round: All betting rounds now begin with the player left of the dealer button. The first bettor may check (bet nothing) or bet the low bet amount. If a bet is placed, the following bettors must call, raise or fold until the betting round is complete.

2nd Draw Phase: Another draw phase, occurs, same as the first.

3rd Betting Round: All bets/raises now increase to match the high bet.

3rd Draw Phase*: Another draw phase occurs.

4th Betting Round: This is the final betting round, handled in the same manner as the last.

Showdown: If at any time all bunt on player folds, the remaining player instantly wins the pot. If two or more players remain at the end of the 4th betting round, a showdown occurs. Players compare their hands and the best hand (according to the 2-7 Triple Draw hand development rules above) wins the pot. In case of a tie, winning players split the pot evenly.

2-7 single draw poker rules

*Because of the considerable draw phases, it is possible to run out of cards before the hand is complete. Should this occur, the 2-7 Triple Draw rules stats that all cards that were discarded should be shuffled back together and dealt for the rest of the hand.

Where to Play 2-7 Triple Draw

PokerStars is the one and only choice when it comes to playing 2-7 Triple Draw online. They are the world's largest poker room with more players than the next twenty largest poker rooms combined. Because 2-7 Triple Draw is not a very popular game on the internet, you can not find any running games at smaller poker rooms. Depending on the day and time you want play, PokerStars will have anywhere from 5-15 active tables and 50-80 players at the 2-7 Triple Draw limit tables. This means you can find a game or two running at most limits you could be interested in playing. The no limit tables are less popular and there are normally only 2-3 tables running when the limit games become active. You can support PokerTrikz and receive a $600 deposit bonus if you sign up for PokerStars with the links on this page. Good luck at the tables.

This article was submitted by my friend Josh. I may have done some quick edits, but the main content is his.

2-7 Triple Draw Strategy »

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Origins

2-7 Triple Draw is still a relatively new poker variant, making its WSOP debut in 2004. Prior to this its origins can be traced through similar low-ball draw games. In 2002 A-5 Triple Draw was offered at the WSOP, the same year that triple draw games were first offered online by Ultimate Bet.
Prior to 2002, triple draw games were rare and most commonly were offered as part of mixed games at ultra high-limits rather than as stand-alone games.
A precursor of the 2-7 Triple Draw was offered during Amarillo Slim's “Super Bowl of Poker” tournaments which ran from 1979 to 1984. The name of the variant was “Ten-Handed Triple-Draw Lowball”. It was clearly different from the modern 2-7 triple-draw since players started the hand with 10-cards, but we can see that the origins of lowball draw games stretch back several decades at the very least.

2-7 Triple Draw Objective

2-7 Triple Draw is a lowball draw game which involves 3 rounds of drawing and 4 rounds of betting. The objective of the game is to win our opponent's chips which typically have a monetary value. In a tournament game the objective is to be the last player left standing with all of the chips.

Structure

2-7 triple draw is a positional game meaning it makes use of a dealer button similar to hold'em. Pre-draw (first round of betting before any drawing takes place), the blinds act last. The blinds must also make a mandatory payment of the small-blind and big-blind. Post-draw (after the drawing rounds have begun), the button acts last on every street while the player directly to the left of the button acts first on every street.
2-7 triple draw can be played with any betting structure, I.e limit, no-limit or pot-limit, although it is most commonly played as a fixed limit game.
Rules
The action proceeds as follows
  • Dealer deals 5-cards to each player
  • First Round of betting
  • Players draw cards
  • Second Round of betting
  • Players draw cards
  • Third Round of betting
  • Players draw cards
  • Final Round of betting
  • Showdown

Drawing

PokerOn each round players have the option to discard as many of their cards as they wish up to a total of 5. These should be replaced with fresh cards from the desk. Assuming a player is happy with their hand they have the option to stand pat, which means they don't discard or draw any additional cards.
Watching how many cards our opponents draw is an important part of hand-reading in 2-7 triple draw.
It is possible to run out of cards when playing draw variants. In such an occurrence the discard pile is shuffled and players continue by drawing from other players' discards.

Hand-Rankings

It's important to take note of the hand-rankings in 2-7 Triple Draw as they are different from other lowball variants. In the majority of low-ball variants Aces are low and flushes/straights are ignored, but this is not the case in 2-7 Triple-Draw. Flushes and straights (and any pair+) count against our hand and Aces are always high. And we mean always – A,2,3,4,5 does not make a straight in 2-7 Triple Draw.
So rather than other low-ball variants where A,2,3,4,5 is the nuts, the nuts in 2-7 Triple Draw is actually 2,3,4,5,7. Note that 2,3,4,5,6 would make a straight and would actually be a very weak hand. Essentially, when compared to hold'em we are simply trying to make the absolute worse hand possible while remembering that Aces are always high. When analysed like this some might even find hand-reading in 2-7 triple draw easier than the standard low-ball method of reading hands where straights and flushes are ignored.

Basic Strategy – The Draw

Draw
The first concept to master is understanding how many cards to discard and draw based on our hand-strength.
As a rough guide
  • 5 cards 9 or below(no pair or straight or flush etc) – Stand Pat
  • 4 cards 8 or below and a higher card – Draw 1
  • 3 cards 8 or below and 2 higher card – Draw 2
  • 2 cards 7 or below and 3 higher cards – Draw 3
Hands weaker than this should be discarded in most situations. It's generally recommended to play hands that hold a 2, but to be cautions when playing hands that hold a 6. The 6 is needed for all low straights, so without the 6 we don't need to worry as much about making a straight and losing.
It's also recommended to start out with low cards and draw to higher cards rather than the other way round. So it's better to hold 2,3,4,8 and draw to the 5,6 or 7 rather than hold the 8,7,6,3 and draw to the 4,5,or 2.

Basic Strategy – Position

Similar to other positional variants of poker, our standard hand criteria is going to be dependent on our position. We might fold something like 2,7,A,K,Q in early position yet this hand might be fine to open-raise on the BTN or the SB.
We should also keep in mind that it's better to raise-first-in if we want to play a hand rather than to open limp. There are exceptions to this however, we might be able to limp if several other players have already limped before us or if the action is on us unopened and we are in the SB. It's also fine to check-back the BB if our hand is not strong enough for an iso-raise.

2-7 Triple Draw Poker Rules

Rules

Basic Strategy - Hand Reading

There are 2 main ways that we can hand-read in 2-7 Triple Draw. The first is observing our opponents betting patterns. The second is looking at how many cards he draws. As a guide for hand reading, the strength of a player's holding is roughly proportional to the amount of cards they draw. If they draw 1 card they are likely reasonably strong while if they draw 5-cards they likely had total garbage. Assuming someone stands pat they usually have a decent made low hand, probably 10-low or better at the very least.
For the most part 9-low and 10-low hands are considered bluffcatchers while 8-low and better are considered the value hands.

2-7 Triple Draw Poker Rules

Basic Strategy - Betting Structure

Whether the game is played no-limit or fixed-limit will have a big effect on the correct strategy. There are 2 main differences with the fixed-limit variety of the game. Firstly we will have less fold-equity on any given street since we can only bet in accordance with the allowed fixed bet-sizing. Secondly we will have less implied odds in any situation since it is not possible to get all of the remaining stacks in at any given time.
This will often have an effect on the types of hands we can play profitably pre-draw. Certain weak draws we might be able to play profitably in no-limit while we can't make them profitable in fixed-limit. In a no-limit game we might pick up a big payout if we hit our draw, and we also might be able to bluff our opponent post-draw if he shows weakness.
This is a lot harder to do in fixed-limit. We won't get a big enough payout if we hit to justify our pre-draw investment, and it's overall less likely that we will be able to successfully bluff our opponent post-draw.

Why You Should Play 2-7 Triple Draw

2-7 Single Draw Poker Rules

If you like draw games, especially lowball games that generate a ton of action then maybe 2-7 Triple Draw is for you.

Rules For 2-7 Draw Poker

Since 2-7 Triple Draw is less studied and understood by the average person it can be easy to find soft games and make money with less effort than in more popular variants such as Hold'em.