Drawmaha Zero

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

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

The other half goes to the lowest point total on your five final cards:

• Ace = 1
• Two through ten = face value (a ten is worth 10, not zero)
• Jack, Queen, King = 0

It’s Drawmaha 49 turned upside down. In 49 you want tens and nines. Here you want kings, queens and jacks, which are the same cards you want at the Omaha end of the pot anyway. Best possible hand: any five face cards, total 0. Worst: T-T-T-T-9, total 49 (the nuts in 49).

30-second cheat sheet

• Five hole cards, betting, three-card flop, betting.
• One draw (BARGE: 0 to 3 cards; house rules vary), then turn, betting, river, betting.
• Half the pot: best Omaha high hand, exactly 2 hole cards + exactly 3 board cards.
• Half the pot: lowest point total of your five final hole cards. Board ignored.
• Ace = 1. 2 to 10 = face value. J, Q, K = 0. Tens are 10, not 0.
• No poker hand rankings in the points half. Suits don’t matter. Equal totals split the half.
• Aces and faces are 16 cards you want, and they’re also the good Omaha cards, so scoops happen more often than in 49.
• Limit or pot-limit.

Full rules

The deal and first round

Button and blinds. Everybody gets five cards face down. Betting begins left of the big blind, with the small bet in limit.

The flop

The dealer burns a card and deals three face-up cards. Betting round, small bet in limit.

The draw

Each player, starting left of the button, announces how many cards to replace. BARGE allows 0 to 3. Casino rules for the rest of the Drawmaha family (the WSOP’s 1 to 3 or stand pat) are the closest official guide, but the WSOP rule text doesn’t name Zero, so this is a mixed-game-menu game and the table sets the details. Then the turn and the draw cards go out (order depends on the room), and there’s a betting round.

Only your final five cards count. A king you throw away for a better draw is gone from both halves.

The turn, river, and showdown

Turn, betting at the big bet in limit, river, final betting round.

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

Zero half. Add up the points on all five hole cards. Lowest total wins the other half. Equal totals split it. One player can scoop. For the odd chip, assume the Drawmaha convention (first tied player clockwise from the button); the WSOP rule doesn’t name Zero, so treat that as an inference and check with the dealer.

Rooms disagree

• Not in the WSOP rules. The WSOP lists only High, 2-7, A-5, Badugi, Badugi High and 49 for Drawmaha. Zero comes from BARGE’s rulebook, Card Player writer Kevin Haney, and Card Player Lifestyle’s Mixed Game Festival sheet, so this page follows BARGE and Haney.
• Draw cap. BARGE says 0 to 3. A Poker Chip Forum poster says “draw 3, 4 or 5 depending on the table,” and the “Draw2maha” home convention caps it at 2.
• Name. “Drawmaha Zero (0)” at Resorts World and Card Player Lifestyle, “Dramaha Zero” for Haney, “Drawmaha 0” on forums.
• Do not run it next to 49. Poker Chip Forum posters report that 49 and Zero look so alike that one player played 49 in his head while the table played Zero. Don’t put them back-to-back in a rotation.

Worked examples

Counting the points half

Three players, final five cards each:

• Dee: K♣ Q♦ J♠ A♥ 5♠ → 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 5 = 6.
• Eli: A♦ K♠ 2♣ 3♦ and a 9♣. That’s 1 + 0 + 2 + 3 + 9 = 15, so he throws the 9♣ and draws one card. He picks up the Q♠: A♦ K♠ 2♣ 3♦ Q♠ → 1 + 0 + 2 + 3 + 0 = 6. (The starting hand is Kevin Haney’s example.)
• Fay: T♥ T♠ Q♥ J♥ 4♦ → 10 + 10 + 0 + 0 + 4 = 24. She has a pair of tens, which means nothing here.

Dee and Eli tie at 6, so they split the Zero half: a quarter of the pot each. Fay is out of the points half. Whoever has the best Omaha hand gets the other half. Aces and faces make good Omaha cards, so Dee and Eli both have a shot at it.

Why the draw matters

Eli’s 9♣ cost him 9 points, so he replaced it. On this half every card is judged only by what it adds to the total, never by poker rank, and (for the Omaha half) by what it does with the board.

How you’ll embarrass yourself

• Counting tens as zero. Tens are 10 points. Both Haney articles call this the common mistake.
• Using 49 instincts. In Zero you want the kings, queens, jacks (12 cards) plus aces (4). That’s 16 good cards, against only four tens in 49.
• Treating the ace as just a points card. It’s 1 point (very good) and also the best Omaha card, so it’s doubly valuable.
• Assuming scoops are rare. Haney and a forum poster argue the same cards (aces and faces) make both strong Omaha hands and low point totals, so scooping is easier than in 49.
• Keeping a nine to “improve” a pair. Poker hands don’t count in the points half; a 9 costs you 9 points.

Lore and reputation

Kevin Haney rates Dramaha Zero 8 out of 10 in Card Player, the best of the three point games (49 gets 5, 21 gets 6), because 16 premium cards create multiway action and big pots. That’s his opinion, not a measurement.

It was on the Coach’s $8-$16 mix at Resorts World (Card Player, January 2023) and is on the Mixed Game Festival rule sheet. Forum posters report playing it at a Dallas card room and in a forum meetup rotation, and they’re split on it: one says it “sucks,” another enjoys both Zero and 49.

Home-game cousins: Drawmaha 21, which BARGE ran in the EMBARGO 2026 Drawmaha mix, “Dramaha Red/Black” (five cards of one color) and “Dugi 2.0” (a three-way split), both home-game only per Haney. A forum poster also mentions a “Drawmaha 6”.