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Five Card Draw Hand Selection
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Best Hands In 5 Card Draw Poker
One of the most important parts of your five card draw strategy lies in appropriate hand selection. Whether you are playing poker in a brick and mortar poker room or in an online gaming room, you must be concerned with the hands that you play and know in advance what type of hand is generally a “winner”. Knowing the right hands to play and when to play them makes hand selection one of the most important principles to your five card draw strategy. Let’s look at some tips that the most successful (and profitable) five card draw poker enthusiasts offer in terms of selecting the best hand to play with and when it is best to go with your gut feeling. Below are some other five card draw strategy articles available on this site.
Never call a bet if you do not have a pair or better. This is true for even the small blind. Position around the five card draw table is important. For example, if you get deal a hand with the strongest card being a small pair, most of the time you should just simply fold in early position. The same hand to a player in late position might be advised to call, assuming no one raises the hand. A pair of threes rarely wins the pot in five card draw, so use caution.
Quick Fact - Aced Poker (Read Review) offers several five card poker variations including 5 card draw. The traffic is much lower than what you will find at Pokerstars (Read Review) but you there are usually a few active real money tables ranging from micro to medium stakes. I typically see pot limit 5 card draw games going though so if you tend to lean towards fixed limit play Pokerstars is the better options. Aced Poker offers a 100% match up to $500 on all first deposits. Players from the U.S. are accepted at Aced.
Going into a pot, you should always have a face pair (jacks or better). A high pair is a very good starting hand in five card draw poker (unless another player or players that are betting before you are betting aggressively). When you are in the big blind’s position or you are one of the last people to play (late position) you can always enter the pot with a weak hand (even tens or smaller) and watch the action. If many of your opponents fold, use nonverbal cues to determine the strength of the remaining player’s hands and whether or not you can stay in. Remember, you may always improve your hand during the draw.
If you get a hand that is likely not a winner, then you should always fold. Many players make the mistake of holding onto cards just because they are “good cards” by themselves; however, a king and a queen without some help are just a king and a queen. If there are four or more total players at the five card draw table, there is a slim to none chance that you will draw to a straight or draw to a flush; therefore, try to build something else out of your hand or just get out before it costs you to stay in.
Always stay in the game if you hair more than one pair. However, if you have three of a kind (trips) and the pot is getting high, costing more to stay in the game, you should consider folding unless your trips are high. It is often best practice to ere on the side of caution, but sometimes its best practice to take a chance. Long shots, however, usually only pay off in horse racing! Use your own judgment from your poker experiences to determine the types of hands that traditionally take the pot and those that are a big disappointment. No five card draw hand selection strategy can out-perform tried-and-true expertise and gut feeling.
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