CoolhandThe games · Coolhand Poker
Five Card Draw
Five cards and one swap round, and the highest hand takes the pool.
18+ · Nothing to win but the hand.
- Players
- 2 to 6
- Family
- Draw
- App
- Coolhand Poker · iOS and Android, soon
How it goes
You're dealt five cards face down and get one chance to swap any of them. The highest hand takes the pool, in the ordinary order most people know: a pair beats nothing, two pair beats a pair, then three of a kind, a run of five in sequence, five of one suit, and so on up. There's a round of offers before the swap and another after it: put tokens in the pool, match what someone else put in, or pass. With one swap, most of the game is judging whether the five you were dealt are enough.
A good hand
A big pair is a real hand, and two pair or better is strong. With one swap, what you're dealt is most of what you'll end up with. The swap improves a hand; it rarely rescues one. Keep the cards that are already working, swap the rest, and be honest about a hand with nothing in it.
The usual mistake
Breaking up a pair to chase something bigger. Keep the pair and swap the other three, and you hold the hand you have plus three fresh cards to improve it. Throw half of it away for a run that may never come and you can end up with nothing, and with one swap there's no second try.
Played differently where you are?
Card games change from table to table, and we researched some of these games instead of playing them. If Five Card Draw goes differently where you play it, tell us. That's one of the things the closed beta is for.
The closed beta is by invitation. How to ask to join.