Jackpot Poker Rules

Jackpot Poker was contributed to pagat.com by Matt Molver. It is a variant of Five Card Draw, and it should not be confused with Jackpots, an old name for Jacks or Better.

It uses a standard 52-card deck. Twos may be played as wild cards by agreement. The best five-card high hand wins, ranked by the standard poker hand rankings.

If twos are wild, five of a kind is possible. The source does not rank it; the usual practice is that five of a kind beats a straight flush, and the group shall confirm this before play.

Each player antes, as in Five Card Draw, and is dealt five cards face down.

The rest of the deck is placed face down in the centre of the table, and players look at their cards.

A player may place one unwanted card face down on a discard pile beside the deck and take the top card of the deck in its place. Exchanges are always one card for one card.

Exchanges continue until a player is satisfied with their hand and announces "I call". This ends the exchanging.

The source does not say whether players exchange in strict rotation. To keep the game fair, the group shall agree before the deal; taking turns clockwise from the dealer's left, one card per turn, is the simplest method.

The source does not say what happens if the deck runs out. The group shall agree this before play, for example by shuffling the discard pile to form a new deck.

After the call, there is a round of betting, followed by a showdown among the players who remain. The best hand wins the pot.