How to Play Deuce-to-Seven Triple Draw

How to Play

A four-betting-round, three-draw lowball poker variant where the worst standard poker hand wins, aces always play high, and straights or flushes count fully against the holder, making 7-5-4-3-2 the unbeatable hand.

Deuce-to-Seven Triple Draw, usually shortened to 2-7 Triple Draw, is a lowball poker variant in which the WORST-ranking standard poker hand wins the pot instead of the best. Aces always play high, and straights and flushes count fully against the holder, so the unbeatable hand is 7-5-4-3-2 of at least two different suits, nicknamed a 'number one' or simply 'a 75'. Each deal runs across four betting rounds separated by three draws: after the initial 5-card deal and a round of betting, every surviving player may discard any number of cards, up to all five, and receive replacements from the stub, three separate times, with a betting round after each draw. That triple-draw structure rewards patient, disciplined card reading far more than most poker games, since a made pair, straight, or flush that looked safe on an earlier street can wreck a hand on a later one, and the number of cards each opponent draws across three rounds leaks an enormous amount of information. 2-7 Triple Draw is a fixture of high-stakes mixed cash games and a recurring World Series of Poker bracelet event, and its closer cousin 2-7 Single Draw, played with only one draw and usually no-limit betting, has become one of the signature games of modern televised high-stakes poker.

Players

2 to 6 players is standard, each playing for themselves. Six is the practical maximum because three draw rounds can consume far more than 52 cards if every player discards heavily; when the stub runs short the dealer shuffles the discard pile (excluding cards still in play) to keep dealing. Deal rotates clockwise after every hand, and a small blind and big blind (or, in older home games, a per-player ante) seed the pot before cards are dealt.

Card Deck

One standard 52-card French-suited deck, no jokers and no wild cards. Ranks run A K Q J 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2, exactly as in high poker, with one crucial twist: the Ace always plays HIGH, never low, so A-2-3-4-5 is not a valid low hand here the way it is in Ace-to-Five lowball. Straights and flushes are not ignored the way they are in Razz; a five-card straight or flush still counts as that hand type and almost always loses. is the best possible holding, since it skips the 6 (avoiding a straight) and mixes suits (avoiding a flush).

Objective

Hold the lowest-ranking five-card poker hand at showdown after up to three draws, or win the pot outright by being the last player left after everyone else folds. Unlike Ace-to-Five games, a made straight or flush is a liability rather than a bonus, and even a single pair usually ends a hand's chances, so the objective is really to build five unpaired, unconnected, unsuited low cards topping out at a 7 or lower.

Setup and Deal

1. Move the dealer button one seat clockwise from the previous hand. The two players to the button's left post the small blind and big blind (fixed-limit tables typically size the small bet at the big blind and the big bet at double that).
2. The dealer shuffles a 52-card deck and deals five cards face down to each player, one at a time clockwise, starting with the small blind.
3. A card exposed during the deal causes a misdeal; the same dealer reshuffles and redeals.
4. The first of four betting rounds, the pre-draw round, begins with the player to the left of the big blind.

Gameplay

1. Pre-draw betting: Action starts left of the big blind. Each player folds, calls, or raises at the small-bet size in fixed-limit games (any size up to the pot or the stack in pot-limit or no-limit games).
2. First draw: Starting with the small blind (or the first active player left of the button), each remaining player discards 0 to 5 cards face down and the dealer deals an equal number of replacements from the top of the deck. A player who discards nothing 'stands pat'.
3. Second betting round: Betting proceeds at the small-bet size in fixed-limit structures, starting with the first active player left of the button.
4. Second draw: Identical to the first draw; players may again discard 0 to 5 cards.
5. Third betting round: Bets and raises jump to the big-bet size (double the small bet) in fixed-limit games from this round onward.
6. Third draw: The final opportunity to discard and replace cards.
7. Fourth (final) betting round: Also at the big-bet size, this is the last chance to bet before showdown.
8. Showdown: Any players still in the hand reveal their five cards. The lowest-ranking hand wins the pot; ties split it evenly.

Hand Rankings (Lowest Wins)

• The number one (best possible hand): 7-5-4-3-2 of mixed suits, commonly called 'a 75'. No lower hand exists once aces are removed from low consideration and straights and flushes are barred from helping.
• Naming convention: players name a made hand by its two highest cards, so 7-6-4-3-2 is 'a 76', 8-6-4-3-2 is 'an 86', and so on; the lower the name, the stronger the hand.
• Hands are compared card by card from the highest card down. A 76 beats an 86; between two 76-type hands, compare the next card down, then the next, until one is lower.
• A pair of any rank loses to any unpaired five-card hand, no matter how high the unpaired hand's top card is. A hand as weak as king-high with no pair still beats a hand containing so much as a pair of deuces.
• A straight or flush counts fully against the holder. 7-6-5-4-3 of mixed suits is a straight, not a valid 'number one'; it can only be compared as a made straight, which almost never wins.
• Worst possible hand: any hand containing a pair of aces (since aces are always high) or a made straight flush, both of which are as bad as a hand can get in this format.

Betting Structures

• Fixed-Limit: The traditional and most common structure, including at the World Series of Poker. Bets and raises are capped at the small-bet size for the first two rounds and the big-bet size (double) for the last two, with a fixed cap of typically one bet and three raises per round (uncapped heads-up).
• No-Limit: Players may bet or raise any amount up to their entire stack at any point; far more common in the closely related Single Draw format than in Triple Draw, but no-limit Triple Draw does appear in high-stakes cash games.
• Pot-Limit: Raises are capped at the current size of the pot; a middle ground between fixed-limit and no-limit seen occasionally in mixed cash games.

Winning

A player wins a hand immediately if every opponent folds during any of the four betting rounds. Otherwise, the lowest-ranking five-card hand at showdown takes the pot, with ties splitting it evenly among the tied hands. In cash games each hand settles independently and players may leave or rejoin between hands; in tournaments, play continues with escalating blinds until one player holds every chip.

Common Variations

• 2-7 Single Draw: Only one draw round instead of three, almost always played no-limit; the fast, high-variance sibling that has become a favorite of televised high-stakes cash games.
• Kansas City Lowball: An older name for the same aces-high, straights-and-flushes-count ranking system used here, sometimes applied to a five-card-stud-style single-draw predecessor.
• Badeucey: A split-pot hybrid that awards half the pot to the best Badugi hand and half to the best 2-7 lowball hand from the same cards, popular in modern high-stakes mixed games.
• Ace-to-Five Lowball: The rival lowball ranking system, where aces play low and straights and flushes are ignored, making 5-4-3-2-A ('the wheel') the best hand instead of 7-5-4-3-2.
• Mixed-game rotations: 2-7 Triple Draw is one of the games in the '8-Game' and '10-Game' rotations played in high-stakes cardrooms, alongside Hold'em, Omaha Hi-Lo, Razz, Seven-Card Stud, and Badugi.

Tips and Strategy

• Enter pots only with a one-draw hand to a 9 or better. A strong starting five cards has at most one card that needs replacing and no pair; drawing two or more cards from the very first round is usually a losing proposition against experienced opponents.
• Watch the number of cards every opponent draws across all three rounds, not just the first. A player who stands pat on the second or third draw is almost always representing a made 9-low or better; a player still drawing one card on the third draw likely missed and is now pot-committed or bluffing.
• Break pairs immediately, never straights or flushes you have not yet made. Since a pair loses to any unpaired hand, keeping a kicker over a pair is rarely correct; the only cards worth holding are unpaired, unconnected low cards.
• Respect the big-bet jump after the second draw. Because bets double from the third betting round onward, marginal one-card draws become much more expensive to chase; tighten your continuing range once the big bets begin.
• Pat hands (standing on all three draws) are a powerful bluffing and value tool. Since opponents cannot see your discards, standing pat with a mediocre made hand can extract value from worse hands or fold out better ones who assume you have the nuts.
• Count how many of your needed low cards are already dead. With three draw rounds and multiple opponents also discarding low cards, tracking visible discards (where house rules expose them) or simply the raw number of low-card draws at the table tells you how live your redraw really is.

Glossary

• Number one / a 75: The best possible hand, 7-5-4-3-2 of mixed suits.
• Smooth: A low hand whose secondary cards are also small, for example a smooth 8 like 8-4-3-2-A-equivalent low structure (8-5-4-3-2).
• Rough: A low hand with high secondary cards, for example a rough 9 like 9-8-7-6-2.
• Pat hand: A hand the player chooses not to draw to at all in a given round.
• Snow / snowing: Standing pat with a bad hand to represent a strong one and bluff opponents into folding.
• Small bet / big bet: The two fixed wager sizes in a limit game; the big bet, usually double the small bet, applies from the third betting round onward.
• Stub: The remaining undealt portion of the deck used to supply replacement cards during the draws.
• Kansas City Lowball: A historical name for the aces-high, straights-and-flushes-count ranking system used in Deuce-to-Seven games.