What is Triple Draw?
One of the seven games in Poker Flips, our iPhone card game, and the only one with no community cards in it. You get five cards, nobody else sees them, and you get three chances to throw some back and take new ones. After the third draw the hands turn over and the best one wins.
The default is 2-7 lowball, and it's the version worth learning first. Low cards win, the ace is the highest card in the deck, and making a straight or a flush ruins your hand. That combination trips up everybody who arrives from Hold'em, because the hands that look good are the ones that lose.
You can also play it for high, where the best five-card hand wins in the normal way. Same five cards, same three draws, opposite target. The dealer picks a direction before the deal and the whole round is scored that way.
Five cards each. Three times, discard as many as you like and draw replacements. Then everyone turns over. In lowball the lowest hand wins and 7-5-4-3-2 is the best there is. In high it's ordinary poker rankings.
What you need
- One standard 52-card deck, no jokers
- Two or three players, five cards each
- A dealer, rotating clockwise each hand
- A way to keep score, which the Poker Flips app handles
2-7 hand rankings: what beats what
Three rules do all the work, and the third is the one people forget:
- Low wins. Compare from the highest card down, so 8-6-4-3-2 beats 9-3-2 anything.
- The ace is always high. It's the worst card you can hold, and A-2-3-4-5 isn't a straight, because there's no low ace to start one.
- Straights and flushes count, so they wreck you. Five low cards in a row is a straight and loses to almost anything.
| Hand | Reads as | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| 7♠ 5♥ 4♦ 3♣ 2♠ | Seven-five | The nuts |
| 7♠ 6♥ 4♦ 3♣ 2♠ | Seven-six | Second best hand in the game |
| 8♥ 6♠ 5♦ 4♣ 2♥ | Eight-six | Strong |
| 6♠ 5♥ 4♦ 3♣ 2♦ | A straight | Worthless |
| 7♥ 5♥ 4♥ 3♥ 2♥ | A flush | Worthless |
| 5♠ 4♥ 3♦ 2♣ A♠ | Ace-high | Bad: the ace is the highest card there is |
Rows four and five hold cards that look excellent. The fourth is five low cards in sequence, which is a straight. The fifth is the nuts in every suit but one, which makes it a flush. Both lose to a hand full of eights.
The last row is the one that catches Hold'em players hardest. Ace-to-five lowball, the other common low game, treats the ace as the lowest card and ignores straights, which makes A-2-3-4-5 the perfect hand there. In 2-7 that same holding is close to junk.
How to play, step by step
The dealer calls low or high, then deals five each
Five cards to every player, face down, and the direction is set before anyone looks. Lowball is the default. Nobody sees another player's cards at any point before the showdown.
First draw
Discard as many cards as you want, from none to all five, and take that many back off the deck. Everyone draws at the same time, so nobody learns anything from how many you took until the cards are already gone.
Standing pat means drawing nothing. In a game where the other players can't see your cards, it's the only signal you send.
Second draw
The same again. Most hands that are going to win have taken their shape by the end of this one.
Third draw
Your last chance to change anything by choice. Whatever you're holding after this is the hand you take to the table.
The hands turn face up
Everybody opens. For the first time in the round you can see exactly what you're up against and exactly where you finished.
Mystery card, if it's switched on
One blind swap, taken after the hands are open. Discard a card and take an unseen one off the deck. It's optional and it's off by default.
This is the only game in the app where you make that call with the whole table visible. You already know whether you've won.
Showdown
Everyone turns over. In lowball the lowest hand takes the round, counting the ace as high and counting straights and flushes against you. In high it's standard poker rankings. The winner takes one point on the session ledger, which carries across every hand of the night.
Why the deck runs out, and what to do about it
Triple Draw burns cards faster than any other game in the app, because every draw can be five fresh cards per player. Count the worst case with three players:
| Stage | Cards used | Left in the deck |
|---|---|---|
| The deal | 15 | 37 |
| First draw | 15 | 22 |
| Second draw | 15 | 7 |
| Third draw | 15 | −8 |
Worst case, with all three players drawing five cards every time. A real hand rarely gets close, because by the third draw most players are changing one card or standing pat.
When the deck does run dry, shuffle the discards and keep dealing. Nothing is lost and the round plays out normally. This is also why the game stops at three players: a fourth would need up to 80 cards in a single hand, and shuffling the muck twice mid-round stops being a card game and starts being admin.
Mystery cards, and why they're strange here
The mystery card toggle gives each player one blind swap. In Triple Draw it fires after the third draw and after every hand is face up, which is the opposite of how it works everywhere else in the app: the swap is blind, but the decision isn't. You can see who's beating you and by how much before you choose.
That makes it a clean bet rather than a guess. If you're already winning the round, a swap can only cost you it. If you're beaten, it's the only card left in the game that can change anything.
In lowball the math is unusually brutal. Say you've drawn out to 7-5-4-3-2. There is no better hand, so a swap has no upside at all — every replacement is either higher than the card it replaced, pairs something, or hands you a straight or a flush. Standing on a made low is close to automatic. The swap is for the player sitting on nine-high watching somebody else's seven.
Playing Triple Draw for high
Same deal, same three draws, and the hand rankings you already know. Aces are high and good, straights and flushes are worth having, and the best hand at showdown wins.
It plays completely differently from the lowball version, because drawing to something is back on the menu. Three draws at a flush or a straight is a lot of chances, and hands that would be unplayable in five-card draw with one draw become worth carrying.
A round is scored one way or the other. There's no split pot and no declaring: the dealer sets the direction before the deal and that's what everybody is playing for.
Where Triple Draw came from
Triple Draw is a standard game and we didn't invent it. The high variant we did — 2022, and we've not seen it anywhere else. Every documented triple-draw game is lowball or hi-lo split, and the one draw game played purely for high gives you a single draw.
Worth checking for yourself: Pagat keeps a catalog of home-invented draw variants that people submit from their own kitchen tables. Its three-draw entries are all lowball or split. If you've played the high version somewhere, we'd like to hear about it.
FAQ
What is the best hand in 2-7 Triple Draw?
7-5-4-3-2, in more than one suit. It's the lowest five cards you can hold without making a straight, and mixing the suits keeps it from being a flush. The second best is 7-6-4-3-2.
Is A-2-3-4-5 a straight in 2-7?
No. The ace is always high in this game, so there's no low ace to start a straight with. That hand plays as ace-high, which makes it a poor holding rather than a great one.
Do straights and flushes count in Triple Draw?
In lowball, yes, and they count against you. Five low cards in a row is a straight and loses to almost any unpaired hand. In the high version they count in the normal way and you want them.
How many cards can you draw?
Anything from none to all five, on each of the three draws. Drawing nothing is called standing pat.
What happens if the deck runs out?
Shuffle the discards and carry on dealing from them. Three players drawing five cards on every draw would need 60 cards from a deck of 52, so it can happen.
When do mystery cards happen in Triple Draw?
After the third draw and after every hand has turned face up. You take the swap blind, but you make the decision with the whole table visible, so you already know whether you need it.
How many players can play Triple Draw?
Two or three. Four would need up to 80 cards in one hand, which means reshuffling the discards more than once per round.
Can I play Triple Draw with a real deck?
Yes. Deal five each, call low or high before the deal, and run three draws where everyone discards and replaces at the same time. The rules on this page are complete.
Play Triple Draw in Poker Flips
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