How to learn poker from “video-poker”?
Holdem and Omaha and even seven-card stud are unfamiliar to most pit players. But everyone knows draw poker. Would low buy-in draw tournaments bring many new players into poker?
Answer 1:
Recreational players frequently play draw. Offering this in casinos could tempt them into public poker play and they could then be taught the more popular games.
Answer 2:
Yes, I think it would. I have met no men and very few women who don’t know the rules to 5-card draw. Non-serious players, on the other hand, generally had never heard of Hold’em before Rounders. Playing a familiar game cuts the intimidation factor in half, and brings all of the wannabe Kenny Rogers’ in from Blackjack.
Answer 3:
The casino is filled with players who haven’t played real poker; but many of them play “video poker”, which is loosely modeled on draw poker. If you wanted non-poker players in the poker game, draw poker has advantages. “Carribean Stud” is essentially a very structured game of heads-up straight poker. I read somewhere that David Sklansky invented a somewhat more complex version in the early 80s. But when casinos learned that a perfect strategy would nullify the house edge, they weren’t interested, although the average hold was similar to the present game, which was “invented” and patented after Sklansky had given up on his game. The slowness of draw could be overcome somewhat by the same techniques used in table games, including Carribean Stud: alternating two decks in a shuffling machine.
