Triple-Draw Lowball: Part I

Triple-draw lowball is popular online. In bygone years, the game was available only in cardrooms, and then usually only at nosebleed limits, an elitist game inaccessible to low rollers, and inadvisable for anyone without experience. It was a Catch-22 situation, for how could one get the experience without jumping into a game with the smallest limit likely to be $25-$50? Even those games were unusual. Games were mostly in the $100-$200 range — and higher. And that’s where the elitism came in. Those who were experts at the game would not impart their strategy secrets. They wanted learners to pay the price. Rich suckers, of course, didn’t mind paying their dues. Such live ones had no better chance at triple-draw lowball than they did hold’em or seven-card stud. Good poker players can adjust to any game, and adding another to the mix just gave them that much more of an edge. Triple-draw definitely does not play like “traditional” (single-draw) lowball, and that’s one thing that trips up beginners. Those who play regular lowball badly will play triple-draw even worse. And, of course, the biggest edge that winning players have is not so much the excellence of their own play as the poor quality of their opponents’ play.

The elitism has ended. Players who were unable to learn the game because they couldn’t afford the stakes now play on that great equalizer, the Internet. Triple-draw is available online at affordable stakes. You can learn how to draw and generally what to expect in play-money games, and then graduate to real money. Games are available from 1¢-2¢ all the way up to $1,000-2,000. Many limits exist between those two: 10¢-20¢, 25¢-50¢, 50¢-$1, $1-$2, $2-$4, $3-$6, $4-$8, $5-$10, $10-$20, $15-$30, $30-$60, $50-$100, $100-$200, $200-$400, and $500-$1,000.

Before getting into beating this game, let’s define it. Triple-draw lowball seems to have started in the Southeast, probably Mississippi, and apparently within the last 10 years. Two varieties of the game seem to have been played side by side; that is, ace-to-five and deuce-to-seven. Now, only deuce-to-seven remains. The game originally was played pot-limit, not limit. And the games were big, often with blinds of $25-$50. Now, structured games (two-tiered limit, like limit hold’em) seem more common.

Each game is played with a deck of 52 cards; that is, without a joker, unlike single-draw ace-to-five lowball.

Deuce-to-seven ranks hands thusly: Straights and flushes are ranked as high hands and the ace is high only. The best hand is 7-5-4-3-2 of mixed suits; next is 7-6-4-3-2, then 7-6-5-3-2, and so on. In fact, the game is exactly opposite to high poker, with one exception. The hand 5-4-3-2-A is not a straight; it is the otherwise-good drawing hand 5-4-3-2 topped by an ace. The hand is better than any other no-pair unsuited hand topped by an ace. So, 5-4-3-2-A beats 6-4-3-2-A, and loses to K-Q-J-10-8 (even though that is not a hand that would ordinarily be played). While ace-to-five single-draw lowball was until about five years ago commonly played as a limit game (although no-limit used to be popular in California and other Western states), deuce-to-seven single-draw lowball is commonly played no-limit or pot-limit. The limit version is generally seen only in triple-draw.

The game features three draws to make a final hand. It is usually played six-handed, to minimize the need for reshuffling, although in a six-handed online game, the deck often needs frequent reshuffling anyway, particularly in the smaller games, where players tend to stick around with almost anything. In the early rounds, it is not unusual to see players take three, four, and sometimes even five cards. While drawing multiple cards is generally a mistake in single-draw lowball, in triple-draw, it is often correct. Similar to Omaha, triple-draw lowball is a game of the nuts. You frequently see a wheel (7-5-4-3-2) and other sevens on the final round. Since the game has no minimum betting requirement (like the sevens rule of ace-to-five single-draw lowball), check-raising is common on all rounds after the first.

I am not going to attempt to present a definitive strategy right off. I will show poor plays regularly made by players. Since, as I said, most of the money that you win in poker comes from capitalizing on mistakes made by your opponents, knowledge of these mistakes should make you money. These observations may not pertain to the highest-limit games, but they certainly apply to games up to about $10-$20.

The biggest mistake that I have seen players make is not knowing the rules. I frequently see beginners play the heck out of and stand pat on a hand with an ace in it, something like 8-6-3-2-A. That is a very bad hand that happens to contain a good draw. You might end up with that hand on the last round, but you certainly would never play it pat, any more than you would stand pat on a K-6 in single-draw ace-to-five lowball. Sometimes hands don’t get shown down, so you see novices laboring under the misapprehension that aces are low for several hands. Eventually, they figure it out — or just leave in confusion — but it costs them, sometimes a lot. If you’ve never played deuce-to-seven before, read the rules, play in the play-money games, start in the lowest limits, and slowly work your way up.

They also might play a low straight, perhaps 6-5-4-3-2 or even 5-4-3-2-A. I’ve never asked one of these players what he’s doing, but I suspect that he thinks he’s playing either ace-to-five lowball or some other game with rankings of 8 or better (like Omaha eight-or-better).
More next time.

Michael Wiesenberg has been a columnist for Card Player since the first issue in 1988. He has written or edited many books about poker, and has also written extensively about computers. His crossword puzzles are syndicated in newspapers and appear online and in national publications. Send observations, occultisms, and offerings to [email protected].