How to play
Draw Showdown is five-card draw poker against the dealer. You and the dealer each get five cards and each can swap cards once. A single deck is shuffled before every hand.
- Place an Ante and press Deal. You get five cards face up. The dealer’s five cards stay face down.
- Draw: tap the cards you want to keep (they move up and show “Held”), then press Draw. The other cards are replaced from the deck. Keep all five to stand pat.
- Decide:
- Raise: add a bet equal to your Ante.
- Fold: give up the Ante.
- The dealer swaps cards by a fixed house rule, then shows the hand. The dealer needs a pair or better to qualify.
- Dealer doesn’t qualify: your Ante pays 1:1 and your Raise is returned.
- Dealer qualifies and you win: your Ante and your Raise both pay 1:1.
- Dealer qualifies and wins: you lose both bets.
- Tie (exactly the same hand): both bets are returned.
The dealer’s house rule: keep a straight or better; otherwise keep the cards that make a pair, two pair, three or four of a kind; otherwise keep four cards of one suit; otherwise keep four cards in a row that can be finished at either end; otherwise keep only the highest card.
Ante bonus (paid on the Ante whenever you don’t fold, whether you win or lose):
| Your final hand | Bonus |
|---|---|
| Royal flush | 50:1 |
| Straight flush | 20:1 |
| Four of a kind | 5:1 |
| Full house | 1:1 |
| Flush | 1:1 |
When you deal, you need enough credits left to cover the Raise (the same amount as the Ante).
Strategy
The Hint button works it out for you: during the draw it holds the cards the house rule would keep, and before the raise it estimates whether raising loses less than folding.
A simple rule of thumb after the draw:
- Raise with a pair of fives or better.
- Fold a pair of threes or twos and any hand without a pair. Even Ace-King high loses more by raising than by folding, because the dealer also gets to draw.
- A pair of fours is close either way and depends on the other three cards. The Hint button works it out.
In our simulation of 100,000 hands, following the hint loses about 2.5% of the Ante per hand on average (give or take about half a percent), and you raise about two hands in three.
The draw is where most hands are made: a pair you draw to often becomes two pair or three of a kind, and the dealer gets the same chance.
More poker against the dealer. Stud Showdown has no draw and shows one dealer card. Hold’em Duel uses community cards.
If you enjoy Draw Showdown, try 8-Game Mix or Endless Valley next.
