The Strategic Principles of Drawing in Caribbean Draw Poker

When it comes to casino poker games, Caribbean Draw Poker is one of the most difficult to master because it has so many different possibilities spread across multiple decisions. The first decision is when to draw, and because you can only draw up to two cards, your decision is somewhat complicated when compared to the drawing decisions in a game like video poker. What we want to do is look at how to play the draw on a number of different types of scenarios so that you can do better at this particular stage of the game.

You’re never going to break a made hand that’s a flush or higher in this game. If you have a straight, the only time you’ll break it is if you have exactly KQJT all of the same suit. Note that you will not break the hand in any other scenario where you have four cards to a royal like AQJT or even AKQJ. With three of a kind, you’re always going to keep the trips together, and you’ll never split two pair. All made hands two pair and higher are pretty easy to play.

When it gets tricky is when you get down to single-pair hands. With aces or kings, you’ll break your pair for four to a royal or four to a straight flush, and this includes “inside” draws like KKQJ9 where you would discard the offsuit king. With a pair of queens, things get a bit more hairy. You’ll break up your pair for four to a royal flush or straight flush. However, you’ll also break it when you have AKQ9 or AKQ8 to the same suit because of the value of the pairs that you can make on top of the flush draw.

A pair of jacks is kind of tricky to play. Like before, you’ll break them for four to a royal flush or straight flush. However, you can also break it if you have four to a flush if your two highest cards in the hand are J-T or above. For example, with JJT32 with a flush draw, you’ll split off the offsuit jack, but you wouldn’t with JJ932 or even JJ975. With nines or tens, you’re only going to be splitting the pair if you have four to a royal or straight flush. Lower pairs are less likely to be broken because the draws they create aren’t likely to have strong cards for big pairs.