Draw poker games with a twist: Dramaha, Bodigiha, Badacey and 2-7 Triple Draw

The four games side by side

Two families: board draw and pure draw

Dramaha and Bodigiha are board-draw games. You hold five cards, see a flop, bet, then draw once, and the turn and river follow. Half the pot goes to a hand made from your five hole cards alone (a high hand in Dramaha, a Badugi in Bodigiha) and half to an Omaha hand using exactly two hole cards and three board cards. The draw is therefore a double decision: which cards improve your own five-card hand, and which keep your Omaha chances alive on the board you can see.

2-7 Triple Draw and Badacey are pure draw games with no board and three draws, played fixed-limit with the big bet after the second draw. In 2-7 Triple Draw the whole pot goes to the lowest hand under Deuce-to-Seven rules. In Badacey the pot splits between the lowest Ace-to-Five hand and the best Badugi, made from the same five cards.

Three different lows

The draw games use three different definitions of a low hand, and mixing them up is the most common error in a Dealer's Choice game.

• Deuce-to-Seven (2-7 Triple Draw): the Ace is high, and straights, flushes and pairs all count against you. The best hand is 7-5-4-3-2 without a flush. Suits never break ties.
• Ace-to-Five (Badacey's first half): the Ace is low and straights and flushes do not hurt; only pairs do. The best hand is A-2-3-4-5.
• Badugi (Bodigiha and Badacey's second half): the lowest four-card hand in which every card has a different rank and a different suit, Ace low. A-2-3-4 in four suits is best; a four-card Badugi beats any three-card hand, three beat two, two beat one.

Reading the draw

In every draw game the number of cards an opponent takes is public information and the identities are not. Standing pat (drawing zero) says a hand is already made; drawing one says it is close; drawing two or more says it is not. In the board-draw games this signal is weaker, because a player may stand pat to protect an Omaha draw rather than a made five-card hand. In the triple-draw games the pattern across three draws tells most of the story.

Which to call

• Dramaha for a table that knows Omaha and wants a draw element without learning a lowball ranking; both halves are high hands.
• Bodigiha for a table that already plays Dramaha and wants a Badugi half; the in-game ranking panel labels that half "Bodiga Low", which is the same Badugi evaluation.
• 2-7 Triple Draw for a table that enjoys lowball and fixed-limit rhythm; it is the only single-pot game of the four.
• Badacey for the most experienced table; two low rankings from one hand over three draws is the deepest decision tree in the SophiesPick library.

All four seat six, so a seven-player Dealer's Choice pool must leave them out; see Dealer's Choice poker. For how their split pots are awarded, see split-pot poker games.