Basic Strategies for Winning at Caribbean Draw Poker

Caribbean Draw is often considered to be one of the less common and more difficult forms of casino poker that you can find online. The basic idea is that it works a lot like Caribbean Stud except that you can draw two cards (with no charge) after raising, the dealer has to qualify with a pair of eights or higher, and there are slightly different payouts on the raise bet for your final hand. What we want to look at is how to play different starting hands in terms of deciding if you should raise and deciding how to play the discard.

First thing’s first: Four-card draws to straights and flushes are very strong in this game, and they should always be played. Sometimes you’re going to have situations where you have a pair and a draw, and you have to decide which hand to go with. If your pair is higher than the dealer’s up card and higher than some of the cards in the draw (meaning you don’t have many outs to higher pairs if you draw), then you should keep the pair because of its relative strength, especially if it’s of a pair of eights or better.

Generally speaking, we’re going to advocate raising with a pair or better along with all four-card draws. If you have three to a royal (three suited cards ten or higher), then you should also raise, and three to a straight flush should usually raise unless the cards are all low and there are gaps in the draw. With a single pair hand, discard the lowest two kickers you have. With two pair, discard the kicker, and with three of a kind, always discard the two kickers. Note this is different than certain pai gow poker situations where you would keep a kicker with three of a kind in certain cases.

From this point, everything else about this game is about using the information that you have in front of you to make the best decisions possible. The hands that are obvious to play aren’t really where you’re going to maximize your winrate in this game. Instead, Caribbean Draw Poker is all about getting as much value as you can out of the marginal situations. Don’t worry too much about the hands that virtually play themselves. Instead, see how much value you can get out of the hands that aren’t worth all that much.