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The Insider's Guide to Triple Draw
Background
People are always looking for ways to make poker games more action-packed and thrilling – adding extra cards, betting rounds, draws or exchanges to the mix. Rarely do these gimmicks catch on – with one major exception, which is Triple Draw.
Triple Draw is played just like ordinary Draw, except that instead of drawing once, you draw three times. There are a total of four betting rounds – before the draws, and after each draw. Often you’ll hear these betting rounds referred to as ‘preflop’, ‘flop’, ‘turn’ and ‘river’, just like Hold’em, although the names are not strictly accurate when used in the draw context.
Almost any draw game can be turned into Triple Draw, but the most common variant (especially online) is Deuce to Seven Lowball. In both the World Series of Poker and World Championship of Online Poker, the game is played limit, with two blinds and no antes (for many reasons, triple draw usually makes for an awful pot limit or no limit game). The lower limit is used before and after the first draw, and the higher limit is used after the second and third draws. Because of the large number of cards required, the game is played six-handed at most.
Starting Hands
In single draw lowball, a pat nine would be a very strong starting hand with which you’d stand a lot of action. In Triple Draw, a nine won’t usually win at the showdown, particularly if the pot is multi-way. The average hand is much stronger than it would be if there was only one draw, and you’ll frequently see big pots contested between two sevens, or a seven and an eight. A nine is essentially a bluff-catcher that you can use to pick off busted draws, and it can only be bet for value in exceptional circumstances.
Because hands are typically much stronger in Triple Draw, it’s important to draw only to strong hands yourself. With a rough nine, you wouldn’t even enter the pot unless you were attempting to steal (from late position) or defend (from the blinds). With a smooth nine, such as 9-5-4-3-2, you would almost always discard the nine and draw to a stronger hand.
The best possible draw is 5-4-3-2-x. A very strong draw includes a deuce, but not a six, and not four cards of a suit – some examples are 7-4-3-2-x, 7-5-4-2-x, etc. In general, a six is a dangerous card for many reasons. Hands with sixes tend to become rough hands at showdown – and there is a big difference between 8-6-5-4-3 and 8-5-4-3-2 when it comes to value betting after the third draw. Draws with sixes are also more likely to make straights.
As with pretty much every poker game, to enter the pot from early position you should usually have a strong hand. A pat eight or a strong wheel draw are both candidates for an early position raise. In middle position, you can open up slightly and add weaker draws to sevens and eights into the mix. In late position, you can add some pure steals, pat nines, and strong two-card draws. Stealing the blinds can be more important in limit poker than it would be in No Limit or Pot Limit with deep stacks, and it’s usually cheaper to attempt a steal in limit than it is in No Limit, so it should be attempted relatively more frequently.
Drawing
There is a convenient guideline to follow in Triple Draw, which is that if you drew fewer cards than your opponent did, you should usually come out betting after the draw, whether you improved or not. If you and your opponent drew the same number of cards, but you had the betting lead before the draw, you should also usually keep betting.
There are a few reasons to keep betting, even if you haven’t improved:
- If your opponent drew more cards than you, you were probably ahead before the draw. That means that most of the time, you’ll still be ahead. You are betting both to extract value from a weaker draw and to deny that draw a free card.
- If you’re not still ahead, you want to find out as soon as possible, while the bets are still cheap. Your opponent’s reaction to your bet will often tell you about his hand. Flat calling often means ‘I missed, but my draw is too good or the pot is too large to fold right now’ (in which case, you may well bet after the second draw also, hoping they missed again).
- If your opponent drew the same number of cards as you, but you have the betting lead, you’re making a continuation bet, similar to that you would make after a preflop raise in Hold’em. This bet gives you a chance to win the pot immediately if your opponent has missed, and your opponent may even fold the best hand.
Checkraising
Well-timed checkraises are an important part of your overall strategy in limit poker games. Because the player with the lead will usually keep betting after the draw, you’ll get regular opportunities to checkraise in Triple Draw. Obviously, doing so only when you have improved gives too much away, so you should occasionally check-raise in other situations.
For example, if you and Player X drew one, and Player Y drew two, you may be able to increase your equity in the pot by checkraising to eliminate Player Y. You check, Player Y checks, and Player X bets. You then raise. Player Y now has to call two bets cold, his pot odds are halved, and there is the possibility that Player X may raise again behind him. Often Player Y will fold in this situation, which is usually a positive result, especially if you actually have improved to a shaky pat hand (like an eight).
After The Draws
After the draws are over, you have a couple of key decisions to make. Should you bluff, or call a possible bluff? Could you value bet and be called by a worse hand?
At this point, the pot is usually quite large, especially if the hand began multiway. You’ll often be getting 7-1 or more on a call, meaning that you only have to win the pot 12.5% of the time to break even. It’s obvious then that you shouldn’t be folding many hands at this point, particularly if your opponent was still drawing on the third draw – the chance that your opponent could be bluffing, relative to the pot odds, is just too significant.
Despite this, you should actually attempt to bluff more often (assuming your opponent will fold at least some of the time), because the potential reward is so great relative to the amount it costs you to bet. You might be betting $50 to win a pot of $400, for example.
If you were still drawing on the third draw, you can value bet much weaker hands than you would if you were pat earlier. This is because your opponent should call with a wider range of hands, recognising that you’ll be bluffing more often – this is one of those rare situations where you’d consider value betting a nine, and certainly an eight.
If you were pat but your opponent was drawing, often you should consider checking a marginal hand (such as a weak eight) if out of position. You want to encourage your opponent to bluff (which you will pick off), and lose the minimum when you have been outdrawn.
Dealing Tips
2-7 Triple Draw is dealt in a very similar way to other draw games. Remember to burn a card before each draw, and that each player should declare how many cards they want to draw before you deal any replacements. Also remember that if you deal a face-up wheel card (2,3,4,5 or 7) to a player, they must keep it, and if you deal any other card face-up it must be exchanged.
If you run out of cards, you’ll need to reshuffle the deck. Exactly how this is done varies significantly from place to place, but the key point is that a reshuffle should make it as unlikely as possible for a player to receive back a card that they’ve already discarded (some online sites use an algorithm that actually makes it impossible, but unfortunately this can’t be achieved with a tangible deck of cards). Never include the active player’s own discards from the current round in the reshuffle (you can however use discards from players who have already drawn). Apart from that, the method you use doesn’t really matter as long as you are consistent.
Variants
The other common version of Triple Draw is Ace to Five Lowball, which we touched on in last month’s issue. Not many adjustments are required, as unlike the single-draw version, the joker isn’t usually used. Just remember to adjust the hand rankings accordingly, remembering that the best possible hand is 5-4-3-2-A.
You’ll occasionally find Double or Triple Draw versions of high Five Card Draw. In these games, the key adjustment is to recognise that your chance to make a full house or quads greatly increases, and pat hands such as straights and flushes won’t stand up as often to heavy action. Because of this, often you would rather start with big trips than a straight or a flush, because trips will be much easier to play on the subsequent betting rounds.
