Drawmaha 49

Drawmaha, except the draw half is a pip count: highest total wins

Take Drawmaha: five hole cards, a flop, one draw, a turn, a river, and a pot split in two. The Omaha half stays the same: Omaha high, exactly two hole cards plus exactly three from the board.

The change is the draw half. There are no poker hands on it at all. You just add up the points on your five final cards, and the highest total wins:

• Ace = 1
• Two through ten = face value (a ten is worth 10)
• Jack, Queen, King = 0

The most you can hold is T-T-T-T-9 = 49, which is where the name comes from. Pairs, straights and flushes are irrelevant. Suits don’t matter. It’s like building a hand in a counting game, except the counting is done by your own brain at 1 a.m. on four hours of sleep.

30-second cheat sheet

• Five hole cards, betting, three-card flop, betting.
• One draw (1 to 3 cards at the WSOP, or stand pat), then turn, betting, river, betting.
• Half the pot: best Omaha high hand, exactly 2 hole cards + exactly 3 board cards.
• Half the pot: highest point total of your five final hole cards. Board ignored.
• Ace = 1. 2 to 10 = face value. J, Q, K = 0.
• Ties on the points split that half. No card-count tiebreak is documented.
• The kings, queens and jacks you’d love in Omaha are worth nothing in the points half. Tens and nines are your cards.
• Limit or pot-limit. Seven players max at the WSOP.

Full rules

The deal and first round

Button and blinds. Everybody gets five cards face down. Betting begins left of the big blind.

The flop

The dealer burns a card and deals three face-up cards. Betting round, starting left of the button.

The draw

Starting left of the button, each player announces how many cards to replace, and it can’t be changed after. The WSOP says 1 to 3, or stand pat. The dealer burns, places the turn, deals the replacements and there’s a betting round.

Only your final five cards count. Discard a ten to chase an Omaha hand and it’s gone from the points total too.

The turn, river, and showdown

Turn, betting, river, final betting. In limit, BARGE’s rules use the small bet for the first two rounds and the big bet for the last two.

Omaha half. Exactly two hole cards plus exactly three board cards, best high hand wins half the pot.

49 half. Add up the points on all five of your hole cards. Highest total wins the other half. One player can scoop; ties split the half. The WSOP gives the odd chip to the first tied player clockwise from the button.

Rooms disagree

• Face-card value. BARGE warns that “some online sources” say face cards are worth 1. BARGE, the WSOP, Haney and Card Player Lifestyle all use 0. This page uses 0.
• Draw cap. This page uses the WSOP’s 1 to 3 or stand pat. BARGE says 0 to 3. A popular home variant called “Draw2maha 49” caps the draw at 2.
• Limit or pot-limit. The WSOP allows any. BARGE writes it up as a limit game. A forum poster says it “plays much better fixed limit” because big-bet play leads to nut-peddling.
• Turn before or after the draw cards. WSOP deals the turn first; some rooms draw first.
• Spelling. Dramaha 49 (BARGE, Card Player) or Drawmaha 49 (WSOP, Resorts World).

Worked examples

Counting the points half

Three players keep their five cards:

• Ana: T♠ T♦ 9♣ 8♥ 3♠ → 10 + 10 + 9 + 8 + 3 = 40.
• Ben: K♣ J♦ T♥ 9♦ 7♣ → 0 + 0 + 10 + 9 + 7 = 26. The king and jack are worth nothing.
• Cat: A♥ 9♠ 9♥ 7♦ 6♠ → 1 + 9 + 9 + 7 + 6 = 32. The ace is 1, not 11.

Ana wins the 49 half with 40.

The Omaha half on the same hands

Run the Omaha half on a board of K♠ K♥ Q♦ 4♦ 2♣. Ben’s K♣ J♦ plus the board’s K♠ K♥ Q♦ is three kings. Ana’s best is two pair, kings and tens. Cat’s is kings and nines. Ben takes the Omaha half. That’s a typical result: the cards that make a good 49 hand are not the cards that make a good Omaha hand, so a scoop is hard. It’s also why Ben, with the lowest points total, still wins half the pot.

How big do totals get?

Kevin Haney in Card Player works out that the average card is worth about 4.2 points over the whole deck (220 points across 52 cards). So about 21 is a typical dealt total, 33 is “way above average,” and a Poker Chip Forum poster says winning totals are commonly in the mid-30s or better. A total below 49 can still be unbeatable: Haney’s example is 10-10-10-9-8 = 47, because it uses up so many high cards that no opponent can total more than 45.

How you’ll embarrass yourself

• Valuing high cards. Kings, queens and jacks are worth zero. You want tens and nines.
• Counting the ace as 11 or 14. It’s 1.
• Playing hands because they’re good Omaha hands. A Poker Chip Forum analysis says the cards that make a good 49 hand (tens and nines) aren’t the ones that make the strongest Omaha hands (aces and faces), so scoops are harder than in Drawmaha Zero. That’s a poster’s view, but the arithmetic is easy to check.
• Not keeping score. Add up your own total and the total you’re drawing to before you decide how many cards to throw. Haney says a typical dealt hand totals only about 21.
• Assuming only 49 is unbeatable. Blockers matter: holding 10-10-10-9-8 (47) means no opponent can total more than 45, so that hand can’t lose the points half.
• Drawing three cards. Forum guidance treats a three-card draw as a likely fold.

Lore and reputation

49 is named in the WSOP’s Drawmaha rule text, in BARGE’s rulebook, and in the Coach’s $8-$16 mix at Resorts World (Card Player, January 2023).

Kevin Haney rates it only 5 out of 10 in Card Player: people don’t like counting points, and there aren’t enough middling cards to go around. There are only four tens and four nines, which he says “curbs the action.” The Poker Chip Forum is split. Some posters call it “one of the best games ever,” while others think big-bet versions are nitty. Treat all of that as opinion.