Seven Card Open Draw Rules

Seven Card Open Draw was devised by Bruce Leban and published on pagat.com. It is a form of draw poker in which the later discards are made face up, giving players information to bet on.

The game uses a standard 52-card deck with no wild cards and is limited to five players. With more players, two decks may be shuffled together.

Hands are ranked by the standard poker hand rankings. The object is to win the pot with the best five-card hand at showdown, or by making a bet that no other player calls.

Each player antes, and the dealer deals seven cards face down to each player, one at a time, clockwise from the dealer's left.

Each player may discard up to three cards face down and receives the same number of replacements from the deck. A player may keep all seven cards.

There is no betting before this draw. The first round of betting follows it.

After the first betting round, each active player discards one card face up, leaving six cards. A second round of betting follows.

Each active player then discards one more card face up, leaving five cards. A third and final round of betting follows, and then the showdown.

Discarded cards are not replaced after the initial draw.

The source does not say whether the face-up discards are made in turn or all at once, or which player bets first. The dealer shall announce these before the deal. The usual draw-poker practice is that the first active player to the dealer's left acts first on each round.

If more than one player remains after the final round, hands are shown and the best five-card hand wins the pot. Identical hands split the pot.

If all but one player folds at any point, the remaining player wins the pot without showing.

The six-card version is Six Card Open Draw. Open discarding can also be added to five-card draw, as in Five Card Open Draw (simple) and Five Card Open Draw (sequential).