A-5 Triple Draw

It’s 2-7 triple draw, except the ace is your best card and nothing else hurts you

Everything about the structure is the same as 2-7 triple draw: five cards, three draws, four betting rounds, lowest hand wins the whole pot. The only thing that changes is what “lowest” means, and it’s much friendlier.

In ace-to-five lowball:

• The ace is low, the best card you can hold.
• Straights and flushes are ignored. They don’t hurt you at all.
• Pairs are the only thing that hurts. Any hand with no pair beats any hand with a pair.

So the best hand is A-2-3-4-5, called the wheel (or bicycle), in any suits, even all hearts. If you’ve played Razz, it’s the same ranking, but with exactly five cards and three draws instead of seven cards dealt out one at a time.

30-second cheat sheet

• Five cards each, face down. Button, small blind, big blind.
• Pre-draw betting, then three draws (0 to 5 cards each) each followed by betting. Four betting rounds total.
• Limit: small bet before the first draw and after the first, big bet (double) after the second and third draws.
• Lowest five-card hand wins the whole pot. No qualifier, and any hand can win.
• Aces low. Straights and flushes don’t count. Pairs are bad.
• Best hand: 5-4-3-2-A. Then 6-4-3-2-A, 6-5-3-2-A, 6-5-4-2-A, 6-5-4-3-A, 6-5-4-3-2, 7-4-3-2-A…
• Six players max at the WSOP.

Full rules

Deal and structure

It runs the same as 2-7 triple draw. Everyone gets five cards face down. The first betting round starts left of the big blind. After it, starting with the first active player left of the button, each player discards zero to five cards and takes replacements. Then betting starts left of the button. Repeat for three draws.

In limit the first two rounds use the small bet and the last two use the big bet, double the size.

The WSOP rules for locking in your draw count, burning a card before every draw even if everyone stands pat, and reshuffling discards when the deck runs low are the same as in 2-7 triple draw. Max six players.

Showdown

Lowest five-card hand wins everything. You compare from the highest card down:

• No-pair beats pair. Always. K-J-8-6-4 beats A-A-2-3-4.
• Among no-pair hands, the one with the lower top card wins. 7-5-4-3-2 beats 7-6-3-2-A because the second card is a five against a six.
• Among paired hands, a lower pair is better. A pair of aces beats a pair of deuces.
• Suits don’t matter, ever. Straights and flushes are not penalized.
• No qualifier. If everyone has junk, the least junky junk wins.
• Ties split. In tournaments the odd chip goes to the first seat left of the button.

The wheel is 5-4-3-2-A. After it, the best hands are 6-4-3-2-A, 6-5-3-2-A, 6-5-4-2-A, 6-5-4-3-A, 6-5-4-3-2, then 7-4-3-2-A.

Rooms disagree

A-5 comes from California lowball, and some of its old house rules have drifted. This page follows the WSOP tournament rules and WSOP live-action rules.

• Check-raise: WSOP live-action rules permit it. Robert’s Rules say check-raise is not allowed in limit ace-to-five unless players are told otherwise. Robert’s wrote those rules mainly for single-draw California lowball, and none of the sources say how rooms apply the rule to triple draw.
• Sevens rule: Robert’s assumes the “sevens rule” in limit ace-to-five, where a checked hand of seven-high or better forfeits post-draw winnings. The WSOP live-action rules don’t list a sevens rule, and no source I read documents it for triple draw. This page doesn’t use it.
• Joker: Robert’s assumes a joker is in play unless posted otherwise. The WSOP says jokers aren’t used unless specifically posted. The mixed-game A-5 triple draw you’ll see in a Dealer’s Choice is a plain 52-card game.
• Exposed card on the deal: Robert’s says an exposed seven or lower must be kept and a higher card replaced. The WSOP replaces every exposed card.

Worked examples

The wheel

The wheel beats a smooth six

Ann

• 5-4-3-2-A low✓ wins

Bo

• 6-4-3-2-A low

Ann scoops the whole pot.

Ann has A-2-3-4-5, the best hand there is. Bo has 6-4-3-2-A, a lovely six-low, and it loses. Five-high beats six-high.

A suited straight is fine

A suited straight is a perfectly good low

Cy

• 6-5-4-3-2 low✓ wins

Di

• 7-5-4-3-A low

Cy scoops the whole pot.

Cy’s 2-3-4-5-6 all in spades is a straight flush in a high game. In ace-to-five it’s just a six-low, and six-low beats Di’s seven-low (7-5-4-3-A).

Compare from the top

Compare from the top, not the bottom

Eli

• 7-5-4-3-2 low✓ wins

Fay

• 7-6-3-2-A low

Eli scoops the whole pot.

Both players have a seven as their highest card. The next card decides it. Eli’s second card is a five, Fay’s is a six, so Eli’s 7-5-4-3-2 wins. Fay’s ace doesn’t help her: you never skip ahead to the low cards while the high cards differ.

No pair beats a pair

Any no-pair hand beats any pair

Gus

• K-J-8-6-4 low✓ wins

Hal

• Pair of Aces (paired low)

Gus scoops the whole pot.

Hal has A-A-2-3-4, which looks very smooth. It’s still a pair. Gus has K-J-8-6-4, which looks terrible, but it has no pair, so it wins.

How you’ll embarrass yourself

• Carrying 2-7 habits over. An ace is your best card here, and a 6-5-4-3-2 “straight” is a great low.
• Breaking a flush because it’s a flush. It doesn’t hurt you.
• Mistaking it for Razz hand-reading. The ranking is the same, but here you hold exactly five cards and you must use all of them.
• Getting the doubling point wrong. The big bet starts after the second draw.
• Starting post-draw action left of the big blind. It starts left of the button.

Lore and reputation

Ace-to-five lowball is the older half of the family. The single-draw version was a WSOP fixture from 1971 (Johnny Moss won it) until 2004 (Norm Ketchum), per PokerNews’ history of defunct bracelet events. That same table lists $1,500 Limit Triple Draw events in 2002 (John Juanda) and 2003 (Men Nguyen) under ace-to-five, though the ranking isn’t explicitly stated there, so treat those as probably A-5 triple draw rather than certain.

PokerNews says ace-to-five returned to the WSOP in 2014 through the Dealer’s Choice event, after a nine-year absence. It’s still on the WSOP Dealer’s Choice triple-draw list. Pagat calls A-5 triple draw “also sometimes played”, with 2-7 triple draw the more popular of the two. Its roots are in California lowball.