Triple draw is a game that has been around for ages and it is arguably the most popular of the old school poker variants. The 2-7 triple draw variant was the first lowball variant to be introduced into the mainstream of poker and ever since its introduction, the 2-7 triple draw variant has been received relatively well. Even in today’s world in which the wheel lowball variants tend to dominate in many of the modern casinos, many people still have a soft spot in their heart for the triple draw way of doing lowball. In order to help facilitate that while at the same time introducing some of you readers to a new style of poker, below you will find some of the basics of the 2-7 triple draw game.

The triple draw game is very similar to the conventional triple draw with normal poker hand rankings and that means that in a strange way, you can actually form 2-7 triple draw strategy through playing opposite the way you would in normal poker. The actual elements of 2-7 triple draw strategy are the same in terms of keeping good cards and betting behind strength, but the main difference is that the good cards are the exact opposite of what they would be within the normal game. Whereas a good card might be a King or Ace in the normal game, twos and threes are the best cards that you can have in the lowball game just as long as you don’t pair them up with each other.

With that particular difference between normal and lowball triple draw out of the way, the only real thing left to mention is that the rest of the game plays out in a manner that is quite similar to the normal triple draw game. Each player is dealt five cards face down, forming the start of their hand. After a round of betting has passed, each player is given a chance to trade in some of their cards and draw new ones are replacements. This is the first draw phase. Once the first draw phase is over, a second betting round takes place which is then followed by a second draw phase. That phase is followed by a third betting round and a third draw phase at which point the final round of betting takes place. If there are still two or more people left after the final round of betting, the showdown occurs and the lowest hand closest to 2-3-4-5-7 takes the pot.

As far as strategy is concerned, the thing to understand about triple draw is that it is all in the starting hand selection. Remember that you get three different draw phases to attain your hand, so you should be a little less discriminating about which starting hands you choose. Any hand that has two nut-low cards or three decent low cards (i.e. 9 or lower) is a good candidate and you can then go from there in order to refine your triple draw strategy.

No matter where you go online nowadays, it seems as though people are talking about poker strategy guides. A lot of people are claiming that reading a guide helped them with their game while there are others that claim that the poker game guides are completely useless. It is an interesting debate if you can follow one that doesn’t involve a large amount of flaming and intrinsically it is a debate in which the answer is very personal. Different people might get great uses out of poker game guides while at the same time their friend or relative finds that the poker strategy guides they have been consulting haven’t really helped them ahead. In order to wade through this intellectual problem without taking a position in the debate, let us attempt to discuss the relative merits of both positions that can be taken.

The first position is that poker strategy guides can help your game and on the face of it, this position is a relatively easy one to defend. All you need to do is find a particularly good online poker strategy guide, learn one specific point from it that improves your game and right away you then have proof that poker strategy guides can help you through your games. Things like poker bonus codes can also be placed in poker strategy guides to help you get extra money from online poker rooms and for that reason many people that have not really been helped by the strategic parts of the guide have still ended up finding a lot of good from the poker bonus codes included within. With this two-pronged approach to help from poker strategy guides, it is no wonder that there are so many people around that absolutely love extolling their virtues.

The second position is no less valid however and revolves around the idea of avoiding dependence. The argument made by these people is not necessarily that poker strategy guides are bad, but rather that they foster dependence. This means that whatever benefit you are likely to get from them is more than cancelled out by the fact that you are now dependent on that particular way of thinking. Poker is played best when it is played without mechanical thinking and the argument against poker strategy guides is that they sometimes encourage mechanical thinking.

Both of these points of view are valid and the best way to look at them is to consider what is best for your own situation as far as poker strategy guides are concerned. Is your situation such that a few pieces of advice from a poker strategy guide will be greatly helpful, or are you at a point where you really need to develop your independent critical thinking skills?  It is not always easy to answer that question, but within the answer to that question is also the answer to the question that forms the title of this blog post. So, in order to answer that question, you need to discover something about the stage of development at which your poker game currently is.