What I Know About Poker
Lessons
in Texas Hold’em, Omaha, and Other Poker Games
Alex Scott
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2010 Alex Scott
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Play poker online at www.fulltiltpoker.com
Dedication
This book is dedicated to the people in the poker industry who are working day and night to make poker a better game for everybody. You know who you are.
Introduction
I’ve been writing about poker strategy for the poker media since December 2004. In my time in the industry, I’ve contributed writing to many major brands, including PokerStars, PokerStrategy, Gutshot, Betfair, InsidePoker Magazine, and PokerPlayer Magazine. My work has also been translated into Swedish and published in FirstPoker Magazine.
This book is a collection of my most popular and personal favourite material from the past six years. Some of the chapters that follow were originally published in Britain and Sweden and have been revised and updated for this book. There is also a significant amount of new material that has never been published.
Poker is not a ‘get rich quick’ scheme. Becoming a consistent winner takes effort and dedication. While natural talent can accelerate the learning process, it cannot replace hard work and many hours of practice. One of the reasons I love poker so much is because it rewards people directly in proportion to the effort they put in – it is entirely fair and just, which is not always true of life in general. If you work hard, you’ll do well. However, if you approach the game thinking you have nothing to learn, as so many people do, you will inevitably lose.
No Limit Hold’em is the fashionable game of today, but it wasn’t always so. Just a few years ago, No Limit Hold’em was dying out, because the skill gap between novice players and professionals was so large as to make the games unsustainable. The introduction of capped buy-ins and greatly renewed interest in the game due to TV and internet poker has brought No Limit Hold’em to the forefront.
Accordingly, this book focuses mostly on No Limit Hold’em. However, I’ve dedicated a few chapters to other games, for good reasons. First, I believe that poker should be fun, and there is no greater fun to be had in poker than playing a home game with a group of close friends, making up games as you go along. Learning the fundamental concepts that apply to all games will allow you to adjust to any new variant that you play.
Secondly, I don’t believe you can call yourself a good poker player if you only know how to play one game. The greatest players in the world excel at many different variants – for example, at the time of writing, Phil Ivey has won eight World Series of Poker bracelets in seven different games –Omaha, Stud Hi/Lo, SHOE, Stud, Draw Lowball, OE and HORSE. Had Phil Ivey been solely a Hold’em player, it’s possible that he may have no bracelets at all!
Most importantly, the edge in No Limit Hold’em is getting harder and harder to find. The wealth of information available has made the learning curve in internet games very steep. Combine that with the abundance of software tools designed to help people play a better game, almost all of which focus on No Limit Hold’em, and you have a game that is getting tougher by the day.
Learning new games will teach you skills that are essential to being a good all-round poker player – skills that will enable you to always sit down in the best game in the room, whether it be Pot Limit Omaha or a mixed game, and skills that will serve you well if No Limit Hold’em loses popularity, as it has in the past. Those same skills might also improve your No Limit Hold’em game, and save you a big pot here and there.
I could easily have called this book ‘What I Think About Poker’. To some extent, anyone who writes about poker is simply stating their own personal opinion. There are very few absolutes in poker, few strategies that should be used 100% of the time. Two world-class players, when presented with the exact same situation, may recommend entirely different strategies, and they may both be able to justify their opinion with reams of logical discussion and supporting evidence.
You should approach this book, and any poker book, with a certain amount of scepticism and reserved judgement. What works for me may not work for everybody. I’m also acutely aware that people may not agree with my advice and opinion. I’m always happy to hear constructive criticism which I can use to improve this book and my future writing. Write to me at whatiknow [at] alexscott [dot] eu if you have any such comments.
Contents
For Beginners
Five Steps to No Limit Hold’em Greatness
How to Play Stud Eight or Better
How to Play Omaha Eight or Better
How to Play 5 and 6-Card Omaha
How to Play Double Flop Hold’em and Omaha
Playing Your First Live Tournament
Specific Strategies and Concepts
Necessary Evil: When to Pass Up Close Tournament Gambles
Sizing Up: Bet Sizing Mistakes and Myths
Easy Money: A Short Stack Strategy
Advanced Sit and Go Strategies
Philosophical
Why Nietzsche Was Right about Poker
Quizzes
A Poker Primer
This book assumes that you know the basic rules of Hold’em – that is, how to bet, raise and fold. Beyond those basic rules, there are certain fundamental concepts that apply to all varieties of poker – the foundations on which you can build more complex strategies and ideas. This chapter will introduce you to a few of those concepts, so that you can understand the rest of the book. Don’t worry if the maths seems a little confusing – winning at poker requires only very basic mathematical skills. In poker, general concepts are more important than a fine appreciation of maths.
Expected Value
Winning at poker is akin to making business investments. The most successful investors make lots of investments, some of which succeed and some of which fail. While these business moguls do not expect to make a profit on every single investment, they do expect to make more money from successful investments in the long term than they lose from unsuccessful ones.
Expected Value, or EV, is a theoretical term that describes the average profit or loss of a particular decision if it were possible to repeat the same decision a very large number of times. EV is key to understanding gambling problems.
The
general formula for EV is as follows:
(p1
* e) + (p2 * e) …
Where
px is the probability of each condition
occurring, and e is the profit or loss from each condition.
Consider
flipping a coin for $1 per flip. Every time the coin lands on heads,
you win $1. Every time the coin lands on tails, you lose $1. Each
situation (heads or tails) is equally likely to occur. The EV of the
play is:
(0.5 * $1) + (0.5 * -$1) = $0
If you
stopped after one flip, then you would either be ahead $1, or you
would be losing $1. However, if you could somehow make the bet an
infinite number of times, then you would expect to break even
although you would go on some very long winning and losing streaks.
The play breaks even in the long run (i.e. it can expect to
neither make nor lose money).
Now
imagine that every time the coin lands on heads, you win $2. Every
time it lands on tails, you still lose $1. The EV of the play is
now:
(0.5 * $2) + (0.5 * -$1) = $1 + -$0.50 = $0.50
Now
the play is profitable, because you’re being paid more when you win
than you will have to pay when you lose, and each scenario is equally
likely. On average, every time you make the bet, you win $0.50.
To
consider a slightly more complicated situation, imagine that you roll
a six sided die. When it lands on 1, you win $1. When it lands on 2,
3, 4, 5, or 6, you pay $1. The probability of the die landing on 1 is
one in six, and the probability of it landing on any other number is
five in six. The EV of this play is therefore:
(1/6 * $1) +
(5/6 * -$1) = -$0.67
This bet loses $0.67 on average
each time you make it. Although you pay the same as you win, you will
lose much too often to make the play profitable.
In general, if a bet breaks even, it can be made profitable by increasing the probability of winning, increasing the profit when the bet is won, or decreasing the amount paid out when the bet is lost. The same bet can be made a losing proposition by reducing the amount of profit to be made, increasing the amount paid out when the bet is lost, or decreasing the probability of winning.
In poker, you try to make correct (positive EV) decisions, and try to influence your opponents to make incorrect (negative EV) decisions as much as possible. Obviously, if an intelligent player could see your cards, he would make decisions with as high an EV as he could (or as low a negative EV as possible).
Consequently, whenever your opponent plays a hand differently to the way he would if he could see your cards, you gain EV-wise, and whenever you play a hand differently to the way you would if you could see your opponents’ cards, you lose EV-wise.
For example, on the river in Hold’em you have A♠ K♥ and the board is K♠ Q♥ 7♦ 6♣ 2♦, which gives you top pair top kicker. If you somehow knew that your opponent held Q♥ Q♣ (three queens), your best possible play would be to check and fold to any bet since you have no chance of winning the pot, and every penny you put into it increases your loss (barring the extremely unlikely chance of your opponent folding). If you were to call a bet in this situation, which is a –EV decision, you would be making a mistake.
There are situations, with more cards to come, where you would call without the best hand in hopes of drawing out on your opponent, and that’s where pot odds come in.
Pot Odds
Pot Odds are the ratio of the money in the pot relative to the size of the bet that must be called. For example:
The pot is $200, and the bet is $100. The pot odds are 200 to 100, which is equivalent to 2 to 1.
The pot is $1000 and the bet is $100. The pot odds are 1000 to 100, or 10 to 1.
The pot is $2500 and the bet is $1700. The pot odds are 2500 to 1700, or 1.47 to 1.
Pot odds form the basis for a great deal of regular decisions in poker. Calculating pot odds at each stage of the hand, even if only approximate, should become second nature.
There are many factors which affect how you act based on the pot odds you are getting, including your position relative to your opponents, and the amount of money you can win or lose in later stages of the hand. We’ll discuss these later.
Some common uses of pot odds include:
Deciding how much to bet (if different bet sizes are allowed), or whether to bet at all
Deciding whether to call your opponent’s bet with the probable worst hand in hopes of drawing out on them
Deciding whether to call on the last betting round with a marginal hand in the hope that your opponent is bluffing
Position
Your position at the poker table relative to your opponents is a very important consideration in deciding how to play a hand. In games that use a dealer button, like Hold’em, Omaha, and Draw, your position is fixed throughout each hand. In other games, like Stud, your position can vary.
It is generally advantageous to act after your opponent(s). That way you get to see what they do before you act, and you can use that information to make better decisions. For example:
You are dealt 5♠ 4♠, a hand which has good potential, on the button in a full Hold’em game. Four people call the big blind before you act. You can call without worrying too much about being raised (only the blinds can raise you).
Contrast this to being dealt the same hand in first position (under the gun or UTG as it is sometimes known). Now the same hand should usually be thrown away because you don’t know how much it will cost to play the hand, or if any of your opponents are going to show strength.
Having to play out of position, where you act before your opponents, is such a disadvantage that you should play much more conservatively and straightforwardly when in an early position.
Other Fundamentals
There are one or two other fundamental concepts that will help you to win at poker as a beginner.
Play Tight
If you play better starting hands than your opponents do, then you will tend to have the best hand at the showdown more often. This means that although you will be throwing away lots of starting hands, when you do enter a pot you’ll be doing so with an advantage.
In early position, play only the very best hands. In a Hold’em game with 9 or more players, consider throwing away hands worse than A♠ J♠. Don’t play speculative hands whose primary strength is in their potential to make a straight or flush. With the hands you do play, raise to limit the field, build the pot and simplify your future decisions.
Expand your starting requirements as your position improves, to include suited connectors like J♣ 10♣ and smaller suited aces like A♥ 9♥ , plus medium strength high card hands like K♥ Q♠ and Q♠ J♣.
Avoid hands with serious kicker trouble like A♥ 4♣, K♠ 7♦, and Q♦ 6♠.
Play Aggressively
If you’re first into the pot, you should often open with a raise. This gives you two ways to win – your opponents can fold, or you can go on to make the best hand and win at the showdown.
If you make a good hand on the flop, you should usually bet or raise. Most importantly betting increases the size of the pot which you expect to win, but it may also prevent your opponents from getting the correct odds to draw to beat you, and gives them the biggest chance to make a negative EV decision. Another reason to bet your good hands is to enable you to bluff later – if you only bet with bad hands, you would become very easy to play against!
Bet correctly
In limit poker games it’s not possible to choose the size of your bet. However, in No Limit and Pot Limit games, choosing the correct bet size is extremely important, as it determines what pot odds you offer your opponent. For example, if the pot is $100 and you bet $100, you offer your opponent 2 to 1 odds (the pot is $200 and they have to call $100). The ideal bet size is big enough to make it incorrect for your opponents to call, but not so big to make them fold. If you could see your opponent’s hand, you might be able to choose the ideal bet size, but since you cannot, try to offer them odds that are unattractive.
Don’t vary your bet size depending on the strength of your hand. If you bet big when you have the nuts and check when you have nothing, your astute opponents will always know what type of hand you hold and won’t make as many mistakes.
A preflop opening raise when you are first into the pot should usually be around 3 big blinds. For example, if the blinds are $1 and $2, a ‘standard’ opening raise is to $6 (later in the book, we will look at other opening raise sizes and the arguments for and against them). If any other players have entered the pot, you should increase the size of your raise accordingly.
A standard bet in the later stages of the hand should be around two-thirds of the pot size. If you don’t have enough solid information about your opponent’s hand to make a more educated bet, bet two thirds of the pot size as a default. For example, if the pot is $30, consider betting about $20.
Don’t make the minimum size bet or raise. By doing so you offer your opponent excellent pot odds to call.
Play conservatively
Until you have a great deal of experience it is best to avoid marginal situations where possible. Play straightforwardly and conservatively, and you give yourself easy decisions. This type of play will get the money against weak opponents.
Five Steps to No Limit Hold’em Greatness
Step 1: Know What Makes a Good Starting Hand
The strength of a two card Hold’em hand can be ranked on three scales:
High Card Strength – the higher both cards are, the better. The scale is exponential – so a three is only slightly better than a deuce, but an ace is significantly better than a king. A hand like 3♦ 2♠ has very little high card strength. A hand like A♠ 2♦ has medium high card strength, since only one of the two cards is high (whenever you are likely to only use one of your pocket cards to make your best hand, the hand is instantly weakened). Hands like A♠ K♠ and Q♦ Q♥ have a significant amount of high card strength.
Suitedness – Having both cards the same suit is an advantage, due to the possibility of making a flush. If one of the cards is an ace, even better, as this gives you the chance to make the best possible flush (nut flush).
Connectedness – Having both cards adjacent in rank is an advantage, due to the possibility of making a straight. The closer together the cards are in rank, the better – so 10♣ 9♥ is significantly better than 10♥ 7♣.
To play a starting hand, it should be strong on at least two of the three scales. Let’s look at some examples:
A♥ K♥: This hand is suited and the cards are adjacent (these combinations of cards are called ‘suited connectors’). The hand has a great deal of high card strength. Because the hand is strong on all three scales, it’s a powerful holding.
A♠ A♦: This hand has the best possible high card strength. It cannot be suited or connected, but because it is so strong on the high card scale there are very few situations in which you wouldn’t play it.
7♦ 2♠: This is considered by most to be the worst starting hand in Hold’em. It has very little high card strength, and it cannot make a flush or a straight using both cards.
K♣ Q♥: This hand has good high card strength, is not suited, but is connected. It is strong on two scales, making it a reasonable but not excellent holding.
A♠ 6♦: This hand has medium high card strength, is not suited, and is not connected. It should very rarely be played in a full game.
How you weigh each of the three scales depends on many factors, but most importantly on the number of players in the game. In all situations, high card strength is the most important factor. At a full table (9 or 10 players), it is possible to play cards that have little high card strength but are suited and connected – like J♣ 10♣. As the number of players decreases, the value of having suited or connected cards decreases. In a short-handed game (6 or fewer players), high cards are the most important factor.
Remember that before the flop, you are betting on the potential of the cards you hold to turn into a strong poker hand. What is a favourable situation preflop can quickly turn into an unfavourable situation when the board is dealt. Don’t get committed to cards before the flop and play them badly when you miss. If in doubt, fold.
Step 2: Know Your Position
Your position relative to other players is one of the most important factors in poker. It is nearly always an advantage to act after other players, because with each player that acts before you, you gain information. This is why in very early position you need a better hand to play in the first place.
At a 9-handed table, position can be broken down like so:
Seats 1 and 2: The Small and Big Blinds. This is a special situation – you have an advantage preflop, but a considerable disadvantage after the flop. In this kind of position you want to play cards that have the potential to develop into very strong holdings after the flop.
Seat 3: ‘Under The Gun’ or First Position. In this position you are first to act before the flop, and often first to act afterwards. This is a considerable disadvantage, and you should adjust to this by playing only the very strongest starting hands, and exercising considerable caution after the flop.
Seats 4 and 5: Early Position. Much of the field has an advantage on you. Play strong hands only, and exercise caution.
Seats 6 and 7: Middle Position. Here you can loosen up your starting requirements slightly, but you should still be aware that there are players still to act.
Seat 8: Late Position. Here you have an advantage over most of the other players and should act accordingly.
Seat 9: The Button. Now you will act last on every betting round except the first, where you will be in an ideal position to steal the blinds when people show weakness. This is a considerable advantage, and you can afford to relax your starting standards provided you can play well after the flop.
The later the position you are in, the more inclined you should be to play drawing hands, like suited connectors, particularly if several players have already limped in. The earlier your position, the more you should stick to high cards.
Step 3: Know the Odds
Here is a handy reference for common draws and odds in Hold’em. In some cases the odds are approximate because it’s more important to know the odds for different types of situation than it is for very specific matchups.
There are situations when it is correct to call on a draw. For example, if you will make your hand 37% of the time, but only have to call for 20% of the pot size, the call shows a profit in the long run.
Probability of Being Dealt Specific Starting Hands in Hold’em
Odds of Improving on the Flop in Hold’em
*Always using one of your pocket cards
Hold’em Hand Matchups
All percentages are affected slightly by the flush and straight potential of the cards involved, plus the potential for a split pot.
There are also some rare ‘freak situations’ that can occur, e.g. J♦10♦ can be a favourite over a small pair, and A♠K♠ can be a favourite over a pair of deuces.
Step 4: Know How Much to Bet
The size of your bet in No Limit Hold’em is dictated by the size of the pot or the blinds.
Before the flop, a ‘standard’ opening raise is three times the big blind. So if the blinds are $0.50 and $1, a good sized opening raise is $3. This gives your opponent bad odds to call with a drawing hand.
After the flop, a standard bet size is two thirds of the size of the pot. So if the pot is $3, bet $2. This gives your opponent bad odds to call with a drawing hand and forces them to make a decision. If your opponent were to then raise to $6, the decision would be on you.
There are situations where you would want to bet more or less than this standard size. Ideally, you would prefer to bet more with your strong hands and less with your weaker hands. However, doing so might convey too much information to your opponents.
If you make a hand on the flop, such as top pair, and there are possible draws (such as two suited cards or two cards to a straight), it is usually best to make a bet in order to protect your hand, and extract money from your opponent. Giving away free cards to your opponents by checking, giving them a chance to catch up, can be disastrous.
Step 5: Know the Other Players
Players are often classified by poker writers on two scales:
Tight or Loose: A tight player plays relatively few hands and is reluctant to bet or call without a decent holding. A raise from a tight player often means business! A loose player plays relatively more hands and is more likely to call or bet with mediocre holdings.
Passive or Aggressive: A passive player is more likely to call a bet than to make one. An aggressive player makes a lot of bets and raises, and forces other players to make decisions.
It is generally thought that the best style to be is Tight and Aggressive. In other words, wait patiently for the right situation, and then exploit it to the full with aggressive play.
If you notice a player is playing very tight, be more inclined to bluff him. When he bets or raises, assume he has a good hand more often.
Against loose players, play more hands that can become very strong (like nut flush draws), since you are more likely to be called when you make your hand against this kind of player. Be less inclined to bluff a loose player. When he bets or raises, assume he has a good hand less often.
Notice what kinds of players are at your table and adjust accordingly!
How to Play Five Card Draw
Five Card Draw is simple game with only two betting rounds. Each player is dealt five cards. There is a round of betting, followed by a draw, then a second round of betting, and a showdown.
On the draw, each player can exchange as many cards as they wish for new ones – they can even change all five if they want. If a player declines to draw any cards, they ‘stand pat’ and action moves to the next player.
Draw plays best with two blinds and an ante, and can be played with as many as eight players, although it is often played with fewer players online.
Starting Hands
Two key concepts come into play when deciding what hands you should enter the pot with in draw. They are position and the gap concept.
Having position in draw games is extremely beneficial, because not only do you get to see what your opponent does on each betting round before you have to act, you also get to see how many cards they draw before you draw yourself. This enables you to make much better decisions than you would if you were first to act.
The gap concept suggests that you need a much stronger hand to call a raise than you do to raise yourself. It’s common to all games but is particularly powerful in draw.
The net result of this is that you will enter a great deal of pots for a raise when in late position, whereas in early position you will fold some seemingly strong hands. Because the blinds and antes are quite large, it is usually a mistake to limp in, especially in early position.
To open for a raise in early position, you generally want at least a pair of aces, or two pair, kings up. You should usually fold smaller two pair hands like queens up, and pairs weaker than aces. As strong as these hands look, the chances that you are beat already, combined with the chances that you will be outdrawn by one of your opponents, makes them an easy fold.
As your position improves, you can start to open with hands as weak as a pair of jacks or a medium two pair. You can also add in some one-card draws to open-ended straights and flushes, which have a lot of potential in Pot Limit, and the occasional outright steal. Don’t be tempted to call raises with the weak pair and two pair hands, however. They don’t have much chance to improve and will rarely win a big pot when they do.
Unless the table is extremely tight, you should not open with two-card flush or gutshot straight draws. These and similar hands should hit the muck.
Drawing
Don’t keep a kicker. If you opened with K♣K♦A♥2♠5♠, you should draw three to the kings and discard the ace, deuce and five. It’s a common mistake to keep the ace, and you should only do so occasionally for deception, and to confuse opponents when you draw two to trips. Drawing three does announce your hand as a pair; however it doesn’t necessarily prevent you from getting paid off after the draw. For example, if you draw three to aces, and make trips, you may well get paid off by a hand like kings up or a smaller set of trips.
You should usually draw one card to two pair. Providing you also open with one-card draws to straights and flushes and bluff often enough, you should be able to get paid off after the draw by weaker two pair hands. If your two pair is small and the pot is multi-way, the chances of your hand holding up unimproved are slim, so you may consider drawing three to the larger pair and trying to make trips, which is a hand you can be more confident about.
If you have a pair plus an open-ended straight or flush draw, your decision is more difficult. If the pot is multi-way or one or more of your opponents has stood pat, you should consider drawing to the straight or flush instead of the pair, hoping to win a big pot after the draw (or lose a small one).
Trips is a more complicated hand, because by drawing two you will usually give away your holding. Depending on the circumstances, you may want to draw only one card to disguise your hand. You actually don’t hurt your chances of improving much by doing so – they drop from 10.36% to 8.51%.
After The Draw
After the draw, a good two pair like Aces up can occasionally be bet for value, but it’s about the weakest hand with which you can do so. A single pair, no matter how big, or two small pair, is basically a bluff-catcher with which you’ll hope to pick off busted flush and straight draws.
Be cautious with trips and small straights if your opponent has stood pat. Depending on how tight your opponent is, these hands may be easy folds if there is a bet. However, in most circumstances you can bet these hands with confidence.
Always consider what range of hands your opponent may have, rather than focusing on the strength of your own cards. Draw is a prime example of a game in which you play the player, not the cards, and there are many bluffing opportunities to be had after the draw.
The Effect of Wild Cards
Draw is often played with wild cards. Many players look down on the use of wild cards, but if you can adjust properly, they can make a tight game full of nits suddenly very profitable.
Wild Cards affect the basic probabilities on which the poker hand rankings are based. Some hands become easier to make than others, and the average hand becomes much stronger. With wild cards, an entirely new hand rank comes into play – Five of a Kind, which beats a Royal Flush.
Adding one wild card to the game means that it’s slightly easier to be dealt trips than two pair, and makes it more than four times as likely that somebody will make quads. A single wild card also significantly increases the chances that you will make a flush or straight draw, particularly if your draw includes the wild card itself. Adding four wild cards to the game means it’s easier to make a pair than no pair, easier to make quads than a flush or a full house, and easier to make five of a kind than a Royal Flush!
In general, the more wild cards are in play, the more you should expect to see quads and straight flushes, and the more you should shoot for those hands yourself. For example, if there are four wild cards in play and you have two pair, you should almost always discard the lower pair and draw three to quads.
Variants
Lowball: The lowest hand wins the pot, instead of the highest hand. We’ll look at various forms of lowball in the coming chapters.
Jacks or Better: To enter the pot, a player must have a pair of Jacks or something stronger. If it’s discovered that a player did not have Jacks or Better when they opened, they automatically forfeit the pot to their opponent. If nobody opens, everybody antes again and receives new cards (accordingly, this variant is played without blinds).
Spit in the Ocean: Each player is dealt four cards. A community card is dealt in the middle of the table, which acts as everybody’s fifth card. The community card and all other cards of the same rank are wild.
Dealing Tips
There are a number of dealing nuances unique to draw games. Follow these tips to add the professional touch to your game.
Before you deal any replacement cards to anybody, all players should lay their discards in front of them, starting with the player to the left of the button. It should be clear how many cards are being drawn by each player. Don’t deal any replacements until all players have discarded.
Burn (discard) the top card before the draw.
Now collect the first player’s discards, and deal their replacements. Repeat for each player in turn.
If you’re playing with 6 or more players, you may run out of cards. If you do, you should reshuffle only the muck and discards you have already collected - never include the current player’s discards in the reshuffle. There should be no chance whatsoever of a player discarding a card and receiving the same exact card back on the draw.
No player should ever receive five consecutive cards from the deck. If a player draws five, you should deal them four cards, then deal to the remaining players before giving them their fifth card.
How to Play Lowball Draw
Lowball is the name for any variation of poker where the lowest hand wins (as opposed to the highest hand in traditional ‘high’ poker). There are many forms of lowball, but in this chapter, we’ll focus on the draw versions of the game, and we’ll return to the topic in later chapters to discuss other variants.
There are two main types of lowball poker, and they differ depending on whether straights or flushes count, and whether an ace plays as high or low. They are:
Deuce to Seven (aka. Kansas City Lowball): Aces are a high card, and straights and flushes count against your hand. The Deuce to Seven rankings are the exact inverse of the traditional high poker rankings. The best hand is a seven-five low, 7♣5♦4♥3♠2♠, remembering that the hand must have at least one offsuit card.
Ace to Five (aka. California Lowball): Aces are a low card, and straights and flushes are ignored. The best hand is a five low, 5♦4♥3♠2♠A♣.
In all types of lowball, hands are ranked by the highest card, followed by the next highest, and so on. For example, 9♣8♦7♥4♥2♣ is a nine low, and beats 10♦5♥4♠3♦2♠, which is a ten low. It’s a very common beginner mistake to read hands from the lowest card up – make sure you don’t make that mistake.
Deuce to Seven and Ace to Five are by far the most common forms of Lowball Draw, but it’s rare to find Ace to Five lowball in a major tournament these days. In this article we’ll discuss the Deuce to Seven variant, and then tell you how to adjust to Ace to Five if you come across it.
Lowball Draw plays just like five card draw. Each player is dealt five cards. There is a round of betting, followed by a draw, then a second round of betting, and a showdown. On the draw, each player can exchange as many cards as they wish for new ones, or ‘stand pat’ and keep all of their cards.
In the World Series of Poker, 2-7 Lowball is played No Limit, seven-handed, with two blinds and a large ante (approximately 50% of the small blind). This structure encourages more action and gamble in a game which might otherwise be a little slow due to its small number of betting rounds.
Before The Draw
Deuce to Seven Draw is pure poker. There is no game where the abilities to use position effectively and to read your opponent are more important.
Having position in any draw game is incredibly powerful, as not only do you have knowledge of your opponent’s betting actions before you have to act, you also get to see how many cards they draw before you make the same decision. This can be a huge help when you are deciding whether to stand pat with a hand like J♠9♣8♦7♥4♥ (a jack low). A jack low is a slight favourite over any one card draw and a significant favourite over a two card draw. If you’re in position, and your lone opponent draws two, it’s a no brainer to stand pat (most of the time) with a jack. However, if you’re out of position, you’ll usually end up breaking the hand or playing it very defensively because you won’t know whether your opponent plans to draw or stand pat.
Typically, in early position you should play much tighter than you would on the button. Entering the pot with anything less than strong pat ten or a one-card draw to a seven or good eight seems pretty questionable if you are under the gun. Ideally, if you enter the pot with a ten, it should be a two-way hand – a pat hand that you can break and draw to an even stronger hand if you get reraised and feel that you are beat (for example, 10♠5♣4♦3♥2♥).
When I say ‘one-card draw’, I mean a hand like 7♣4♥3♠2♠ (which is, in fact, the best possible one card draw). I’m not referring to hands like 6♣5♣4♣3♣, which is a very weak draw because of the chances that you’ll make a flush or a straight. In general, you should avoid this kind of draw.
Because the antes are typically very large in Deuce to Seven, you’ll almost always want to enter the pot for a raise, and in fact the game is traditionally played with a ‘raise or fold’ rule if you’re the first one in. As your position improves, you can start to work in weaker hands to your raising range, including that troublesome pat jack that we discussed earlier, and one card draws to good nines. The tighter your opponents in the blinds, the more hands you can raise with.
You should rarely enter the pot with a two-card draw, although if the antes are very large relative to the stacks, you may attempt to steal with such a hand. A two-card draw is much stronger if it includes some of the cards your opponents will need (for example, if you hold 7♣4♣2♦2♥2♠ there is only one deuce remaining for your opponents to catch).
You need a stronger hand to call a raise than you do to raise yourself from the same position. For example, you would never flat call a raise, planning to draw two. Similarly, you would not call an early position raise from a tight opponent holding a rough ten.
Playing from the blinds can be difficult. Good players will raise with a wide range of hands from late position, so you need to be prepared to defend relatively frequently, but you are giving up a lot by being out of position after the draw. If you have a pat hand (even a relatively weak one), you almost always reraise in an attempt to win the pot immediately, rather than give away your hand on the draw and then face a difficult decision on the next betting round. Indeed, flat calling from the blinds, then standing pat on the draw, is a tell-tale sign of a weak deuce to seven player.
Drawing
Drawing in Deuce to Seven is usually obvious, but there are a few important tips to pass on.
First, don’t break a pat hand if by doing so you will only improve your hand slightly. For example, don’t break a jack low to draw to a ten low, and don’t break a ten low to draw to a nine low. Improving your hand slightly will not typically win you the pot much more often, and by breaking you sacrifice a lot of equity that you could have gained in snapping off bluffs or weaker pat hands.
As mentioned previously, a jack low is a favourite over any one card draw. A queen low is a favourite over any two card draw. If you or your opponent is all-in before the draw, then you can stand pat with a jack when your opponent draws. However, if there are plenty of chips left to bet, you could break the hand, and draw to something very strong. This could give you a better chance of winning a large pot after the draw.
After The Draw
After the draw, you will want your use your rough pat hands, such as jacks and weak tens, mainly as bluff-catchers. If you’re in early position, you can check to the drawing hand and hope that they will bet as a bluff when they have paired up (by doing this, you also avoid being raised when you’re beat). However, if your opponent is the curious type and will often put you on the bluff, you can bet for value with some of the weaker pat hands.
My only other tip is that you should not get too carried away with a rough nine, such as 9♠7♦6♦5♥4♠. That kind of hand looks very strong and can often be bet for value, but it’s not something to go to war with. When your entire stack goes into the middle, a rough nine will usually be beat.
Adjusting to Ace to Five
The key adjustment to make when playing ace to five is that because straights and flushes don’t count, and because the game is often played with the joker (as a wild card), it is much easier to make the hand that you’re drawing to, and much easier to make a strong hand in general. Here’s a comparison of the ranks of a few equivalent hands:
In Ace to Five, you need a ten low to be a favourite over a one-card draw.
Dealing Tips
Lowball Draw is dealt just like standard Five Card Draw, with just a couple of exceptions.
All players should discard before you deal anyone any new cards.
If you misdeal a card to a player so that it lands face up, the player must keep the card if it is a wheel card (a 7, 5, 4, 3 or 2 in 2-7 Lowball), and must receive a new card if it is anything else.
You should burn the top card before the draw.
If you run out of cards, remember that you should reshuffle only the muck and other players’ discards. No player should be able to draw the same card that they just discarded.
No player should ever receive five consecutive cards from the deck.
How to Play Triple Draw
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 the World Series of Poker, the game is played limit, with two blinds and no antes (for many reasons, triple draw usually makes for a poor 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 7♦4♣3♥2♠. A very strong draw includes a deuce, but not a six and not four cards of a suit – some examples are 5♦4♣3♥2♠, 7♦5♣4♥2♠, 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 is a good candidate 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.