With 66 tournaments under 22 Events, covering a range of poker disciplines, you will be able to find your ideal poker tournament. Each event will consist of 3 individual tournaments based on different stake levels; one for low-stakes players, one for medium-stakes players, and one for the high-stakes players. Each tournament will have its own guarantee and you can play in as many as you like, with all tournaments within a given event starting simultaneously.

The first PL 5-Card Draw tournaments will be held on April 3rd, 14:30 (ET). The buyins are $11, $109 and $1,050 with respectively $25,000, $100,000 and $200,000 guaranteed. Decide what stakes you’re comfortable playing and challenge for your share of the guaranteed prize pool!

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Watch Your Opponents

Every hand you need to focus on how many cards your opponents draw so that you have an idea what they have in there hand. Checking how many cards your opponents throw away will give you insight into what they might have and assist you in determining whether you have the best hand or not.

Betting Tendencies

Watch the game closely as you play and try to pick up on any of your opponent’s betting tendencies. Most players have betting tendencies which they might not even notice and if you can pick up on them you’ll be able to make more money. Remember that your opponents will be trying to do the same thing so your strategy should also consist of making sure you don’t become predictable at the tables.

Have Patience

In order to win money consistently at five card draw you need a lot of patience and you can’t mind waiting through bad hands. A bad habit to pick up is to draw to inside straights or flushes because they don’t hit that often. If you’re going to chase an inside straight or a flush then you should ensure you’re getting good pot odds to chase the draw.

Avoid Chasing

The most solid five card draw players will rarely play any hands other then when they’re dealt a pair, open ended straight or four card flush with a high kicker. Of course you need to still bluff some pots when you don’t hit a hand, but avoid chasing and try to only play hands you have a good chance of winning.

Try To Hide Monsters

Try to hide when you hit a monster hand so that your opponents are left guessing as to what you have in your hand. For instance, if you have trips you could draw 1 instead of 2 cards and your opponents might think you have two pairs instead of trips. Tricks like these can payoff because you could draw potential opponents in the pot through disguising your hand as something weaker then it really is.

Position

Position is vital at the five card draw tables and the later you act the better off you’ll be because you’ll get to see how many cards the opponents in front of you draw. This will give you insight as to how strong your hand might be and if it’s worth playing the hand or not.

Try to use these winning strategies and tips for five card draw next time you’re sitting down at the tables and I guarantee you see much more success. The key is to not play to many hands and waste money chasing draws and such hands when you could be saving your money for when you have a real hand.

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Watch Your Opponents

Look for how many cards your opponents draw in the game this is one of the best tells as to how good your opponents hand is. It will also give you and idea of what type of hand they might have. For instance, if they draw one card then they most likely have a flush or straight draw or possibly two pairs.

Never Chase Flushes or Straights

Never chase three card flushes or inside straights when you’re playing five card draw and try to avoid chasing too many four card flushes or open ended straights. These types of hands will generally cost you money and you won’t win much unless you’re getting lucky and hitting draws.

Play Strong Hands Slow

If you have a strong hand you should play the hand slowly pre-draw and then once the draws takes place you’ll need to start betting strong in the last round. You’ll be giving your opponents a chance to outdraw you in the hand so make sure you have a good hand before slow playing.

Don’t Raise With Mediocre Hands

Don’t raise with less then a pair in any hand unless you’re trying to bluff and steal the pot. Normally it will take a medium-high pair to win a five card draw hand and rarely will you see anything better then trips or two pairs. Flushes and straights happen once in awhile, but they’re not often so you don’t need to worry about them very much when playing.

Find Out How Your Opponents Play

Find out which players are loose and which players are tight because this will help you out when making big decisions. For example, if a tight player comes out betting big after the draw chances are that player hit there draw and you should fold your hand. If a loose player does this they might just be bluffing you, and you might want to raise them to feel them out. Knowing how your opponents act and play is half the battle in winning in poker.

Occionally Keep Your Third Card

When you have a pair and are drawing you should sometimes mix up your game and keep a third card. The third card should be the highest card in your hand used for your kicker. Hopefully you hit the two pairs on the draw, but if you don’t you’ll at least have a good kicker with your pair. Your opponents also won’t put you on a pair and they’ll likely put you on a bigger hand which could mean you could try stealing the pot after the draw.

The tips and strategies above will help you improve upon your five card draw game and before you know it you’ll be beating all the weak players at the table by displaying patience and executing the tips and strategies you’ve learnt here.

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Have Patience

Most players who play five card draw are use to other poker games and therefore they don’t have much patience. In five card draw you don’t get many options to make a good hand and you need to be able to display patience to be successful. Without patience in five card draw you’ll be basically throwing your money away.

Play Tight

You need to play a tight game which relates to having patience. Set in place strict guidelines for the starting hands that you’ll play in five card draw and follow them. Many players will call small raises and bets because it’s only a small bet, but over time if you don’t win any of these pots it can add up and your bankroll will reflect this. We have a list of starting hands you should follow in five card draw and you can view that article in our strategy archive.

Switch Styles

Try to avoid setting an image for yourself at the table, to do this you need to keep switching up your playing style every so often. Don’t always fold when you have nothing and don’t always raise when you have a good hand. Try mixing things up with a couple bluffs or slow-plays and you should keep your opponents on there toes and guessing which is much better then being a predictable five card draw player.

Move Up Slow

Start small and move up as your game becomes better. If you’re a new player to five card draw then there is no reason why you should play the same stakes as you do at let’s say Holdem. If you regularly play $5/$10 at Holdem you’re not going to be able to survive at these stakes on the five card draw tables in the beginning. Start out at the $1/$2 tables and keep track of how much you’re making or losing. Once you start pulling in steady profits from the low limit five card tables then you can consider moving up to high limits. The same goes if you’re playing tournaments make sure you display bankroll management skills or else you’ll be in trouble. One of the biggest problems all poker players have is managing there bankrolls properly so that it doesn’t run out when they have a bad run.

These are some of the simple beginner mistakes that five card draw players make when there new to the game and you should make sure you try avoiding them from the very beginning. The earlier you build habits to avoid these mistakes the better off you’ll be and the less difficult it’ll be to avoid. Once you fall into one of these mistakes you’ll have a tougher time kicking the habit.

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I suggest that you play very tight poker at the no limit five card draw tables and have a very strict hand selection. Don’t bet when you’re not willing to call a raise because in a no limit game you never know when someone is going to throw in a raise. You won’t be able to afford to lay down to many hands when you’ve been putting money into the pots, so stay away from playing to many hands.

When to Raise

The only time you should really raise in a no limit five card draw game is when you’re bluffing or you’ve already made your hand and you’re not drawing to anything. When you only have a draw it’s not ideal to raise or call a bet and these hands should be folded unless you’re getting in the pot cheap and have a good draw.

Learn How Your Opponents Play

It’s more important then ever in a no limit game to learn how your opponents are playing. Most online poker rooms will allow you to take notes while playing and you should take advantage of this feature. For too many people don’t take advantage of the notes feature and it’s a shame. You should take notes so that you can look back on them and find out whether the opponent is a loose or tight player when in an important pot and you have a tough decision.

Bluf Often

When you know how your opponents play it will also help you set-up bluffs over the course of the game and in a no limit game it’s vital you bluff once in awhile. Make sure when you bluff you’re winning more then the blinds because you want your bluffs to win you some money rather then just a couple bucks. Always try to avoid bluffing aggressive players and players who are short stacked because they’re more likely to make the call.

Earn Maximum Value

There really isn’t too much to say about no limit five card draw games and there isn’t too much strategy involved. With only one draw you’ll be able to easily find out what players are betting every hand and which aren’t. This will help you line up your bluffs, as well as assist you in earning maximum value off of your good hands.

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Play Tight Aggressive

When you’re playing pot limit five card draw the best playing style is to play a tight/aggressive game. This would simply mean that you don’t play very many hands, but when you do play you play them strong. You also need to utilize the bluff on the pot limit tables though because often hands are won on a stone cold bluff after the draw. The one upside to the active bluffing in pot limit five card draw is that when you do catch a hand you’ll be able to trap your opponents and maximize your win.

Hand Selection

If you execute the tight/aggressive playing style in pot limit five card draw then you’ll need to establish your rough hand selection. I say rough because there will always be exceptions to the hand selection you set in place based on position in the hand. Generally I would recommend having a pair when you decide to play a pot, and make sure you raise to the limit pre-draw to get most of the opponents out of the hand.

Don’t Chase

Since you only get one draw in five card draw it’s very difficult as you can imagine to hit a straight or flush and I don’t recommend chasing these very often. You can try to chase a few to see if you get lucky, but the odds aren’t very good to hit your draw. A lot of the new players to five card draw will chase draws and this is why I suggest playing hands only when you have a pair because if noone hits then you’ll win the pot.

No Bluffing

When you’re bluffing in pot limit poker games depending on the limits you’re playing at you might find it hard to bluff every opponent out of the pot. Some tables will have a few really loose players typically when playing the low limit tables and often these players will call with anything after the draw since it’s a pot limit game. I don’t suggest bluffing often, but based on how the game has gone you should bluff once in awhile against tight players to steal the odd pot. Also try to determine the loose players at the table early so that you can slow play your big hands into them so that they can help grow the pot for you so that you can get maximum value from your hands.

On a final note I suggest taking notes in the game you’re playing of the playing styles of your opponents. It will make using the tips above much easier if you can look at your notes of the game to determine the loose players and the tight players. The competition is fairly soft on most online poker rooms for five card draw and with some patience and persistence you could see a nice increase in your bankroll.

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DoylesRoom introduces the Gold Chip rewards program. This unique program is designed to generously reward you for your frequent play.

How do I earn Gold Chips?

When you play at real money games or pay tournament fees, you will earn Frequent Player Points (FPP). As you accumulate FPPs, you begin to fill in your Gold Chip Meter.  Once your Gold Chip Meter is full, you will receive the Gold Chip. Once you earn a Gold Chip, it is yours to keep. Redeem it whenever you like or save it and collect more.

What can I do with my Gold Chips?

Every week you can redeem your Gold Chip for a shot at our Weekly Gold Chip Giveaways. These tournaments may change from week to week (Limit Omaha one week, NL Hold’em the next). Since your Gold Chips do not expire, you are free to use whenever you wish.

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To enter this excellent tournament, you have to buy-in for $215, or win an entry through one of the satellites. Twice daily $27,5 satellites can be found in the Events -> WCOOP -> Cash Satellites area of the Poker Stars lobby.

This is a great opportunity because a lot of inexperienced players will enter this tournament because of the prize pool. Good players will have a great chance.

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Five Card Draw with Joker

In this type of 5CD, there are two or four jokers in play, that can be used to improve your game by taking place of some cards. It’s not a complete “wild card”, however. It can only be used to:

• Represent an Ace
• Complete a Straight
• Complete a Flush
• Complete a Straight Flush

So, if your final hand has 4568+joker, you can use it as a “7″ and complete a straight, from 4 to 8. If you have 469J, all of spades, plus a Joker, the Joker will be representing an ace of spades. The jokers should not be confused with the Jacks. You can play this variation of five card poker on Carbon Poker (Read Carbon Poker review).

Five Card Draw 7-A

In this uncommon variation of 5 Card Draw, the cards 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 are removed from the deck. The games are a little more intense, since the odds for the better hands increase. When people play this variation, they often consider the Ace for a low straight. For example, if you hand is A-7-8-9-10, you have a low straight.

Short-handed tables

Short-handed tables are the ones with six players or less. In this case, you starting hand selection can loosen up a little more, because even unimproved high pairs may win the pot. In addition to this, the blinds move faster in these tables, so the action is usually more intense. Five card draw games with two players are also called “heads-up” games. Most 5CD tables on Poker Stars are short-handed (read Poker Stars review).

Classic Five Card Draw (with Antes)

Home games of five card draw used to be a little different. Instead of a big blind and small blind, there is the ante. The ante is a fixed fee that everyone has to pay at the beginning of the hand, before the dealing of the cards. The player on the left of the dealer acts first, and the game goes in a clockwise order. The draw and the betting after the draw start from the player who opened the betting on the first round. This kind of five card draw relies a little more on luck than the one with the blinds.

Doyles Room is the only online poker software to offer classic five card draw games.

Tournaments and Sit-and-Go

Tournaments of five card draw are not common online, but they are very fun and can be profitable. Most poker tournaments have a similar structure: players are divided in tables, and receive an equal amount of chips in the beginning. This is a scheduled tourney, and the blinds increase after a fixed period of time. For example, a tourney may start with 10/20 chips blinds, that increase every 15 minutes. Players that lose all of their chips are busted from the tournament. The action continues until there is only one player left. In those tournaments, the prize pool is usually distributed between the first 10-15% of the players.

Sit and Go is a slightly different type of tourney. In this case, the tournament starts as soon as a certain number of players register. Sit and goes usually have only one table, and the prize is distributed to the first three positions.

You can find tournaments and sit and goes online on Poker Stars .

Turbo / Speed Games

In this variety of five card draw, very common in online poker rooms, the action time limit is reduced. Action time limit is the time, in seconds, that you have to decide your action. In turbo/speed tables, this limit is reduced to something between 5-10 seconds. It makes the game faster, which is good.

This has a different meaning in tournaments, though. In turbo/speed tourneys, the blinds increase every 3 to 5 minutes, so you have to be a little more aggressive or you run into the risk of being “blinded out”.

I believe we covered here the most common variations of five card draw. If you want to suggest anything else, or have a question, contact us.

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Fixed Limit Five Card Draw

This is the most common kind of 5CD, in which the betting is restricted to the limits of the table. In this case, if you decide to raise, you can only add another bet to the current amount, to a limit of 3 raises. For example, in a 1 / 2 Fixed Limit game, the minimal bet is 1. If you raise, you get it to 2 chips. If another player decides to re-raise, he can add one more, to a total of 3. A following player can up that to 4 chips, which is the maximum (3 raises on the initial bet). As usual, after the draw phase, the betting limits double, starting at 2 and following as 4, 6 and 8 total.

Pot Limit Five Card Draw

This type of 5 card draw don’t limit your raises to one bet, but to the current pot size. This means that, in a 1 / 2 game, you could raise a previous 1 chip bet to anything between 2 chips and the pot size (the number of chips currently in the pot). Sometimes the pot grows to such a size that you are able to raise ALL-IN, meaning that you can raise with all your chips. These type of 5CD should be played with a little more caution, as explained below.

No Limit Five Card Draw

If you play Texas Hold’em Poker you are probably familiar with the “No Limit” version of the game. In the No Limit 5CD, the only real limit to your bet is your current amount of chips. When you are all-in, you are guaranteed until the end of the hand, even if someone raises the hand even further. These games are more wild, and should be played with caution if you are a beginner. In 5 card draw you may think you have the best possible hand, and be wrong, so take care while playing this variety.

Some tables may show the blind bets, instead of the pre-draw and post-draw bets, as shown above. In this case, a 1 / 2 table would mean 1 for the small blind and 2 for the big blind. After the draw, the minimum bet would be 4. Be sure to watch the game you are about to enter, to avoid confusion and loss of money.

Since you don’t have community cards in five card draw, we suggest that you play the fixed limit games, to avoid a lot of variation on your bankroll. The exception to this would be if you find a soft table of no limit 5CD, where you could use your skill to dominate the game and win a lot of money.

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