When the game starts, a dealer button is used to identify the player sitting in the dealer position. Then the button rotates clockwise after every hand, also moving the position of the blinds. The small blind is always put in by the player immediately to the left of the dealer and is usually equal to half of the big blind. The big blind is equal to the minimum bet, and is put in by the player to the left of the small blind.

Five Card stud goes back a long way in the annals of poker and remains very popular even today. Stud games include many varieties such as spread limit, fixed limit, no limit, pot limit and mixtures of all the above. Do not be misled by its relative simplicity, winning strategies demand more than a surface understanding of betting, positions and card combinations. As with any form of poker, the successful players will vary their strategies and tactics and will calculate odds at each move.

The game is often referred to as deuce to seven draw but in any case, its uniqueness lies in the fact that to win, you have to have the hand with the fewest points at the end to win the pot. To this end, it shares something with the game of razz. The strategy of play is obviously going to be quite different than the usual game of poker where the object is to get the highest scoring hand. Recently the game has been appearing on popular online sites and traditional casinos and clubs and acquiring quite a few aficionados. Because of its complex nature and that it is a very interesting game to play, perhaps you should forget for a while your hold’em and limit games and add the less familiar triple draw to your menu of games.

Many a poker aficionado began their game playing career by learning the ins and outs of 5-card draw poker. They did these because of the purity of the game, its wonderful history and its rather simple rules. 5-Card draw games were involved in some of the earliest tournaments after it was brought to light in its current form by early Mississippi River card game enthusiasts. In the beginning, the game was intended for study, but the draw facet of the game increased in popularity and the game took off all over North America and Europe. The earliest recorded game in history was in the mid 19th century and it subsequently gave birth to variants like 7-card stud and Texas hold ‘em among others.