Draw Poker dealing question

[William]

Hi guys,

I've been looking through RRoP, but can't find when you reshuffle the deck in draw poker.

My take would be that you deal up to the last card of the stub. Mix the last card with the discards, but not the burn cards and reshuffle the deck and continue the deal.

Reason I'm thinking you shouldn't shuffle the burns is that they help keep track of what betting/draw street you're in.

Am I correct in my assumption, or is the rule different?

[Jambine]

You will usually have 5 (or 6 max) players, so it should not be an issue.

[William]

That would be nice, but with Triple Draw you're bound to run into this situation at some point.

6x 5 cards = 30 cards

3 draws, let's say on average 3 players will draw on average 2 cards per draw = 18 cards

3 burn cards

equals a total of 51 out of the 52 cards in the deck. I only need one player to draw one more card, and I'm out of cards. What then?

[Martini]

Weird. I know I read all the stuff covering draw poker as well somewhere but can't find where anymore.

My recollection and what I have been doing in my game is to leave the burn cards and reshuffle all discards except for the discards from the current player so that it is not possible that a player can get any of his own cards back in one draw.

[William]

I've found this on the Full Tilt website:

Draw Poker - Reshuffling the deck

In draw poker games, it's possible there will be more cards needed than are available in the deck. When all of the original 52 cards from the deck have been distributed, any folded or discarded cards may be reshuffled and used for a draw.
 
The rules for reshuffling the deck in draw poker games are as follows:

• During a draw round, the remainder of the original deck is first distributed to the players in the order in which they discarded
• If there are insufficient cards remaining in the original deck during a draw round, a reshuffle is required
• For the first draw or games with only one draw: the deck is reshuffled using the folded cards first, and then the discards if necessary
• For the subsequent draw rounds: the deck is reshuffled using the folded cards and discards from previous draw rounds first, and then the discards from the current round if necessary

For example: in a 5-Card Draw game with six players dealt into the hand, each player receives five pocket cards, leaving a total of 22 cards remaining in the original deck. A round of betting ensues, and only one player folds their hand.
 
During the draw round, three players discard five cards apiece, while the other two players discard four cards apiece. This means that 23 cards are required for the draw, while only 22 cards remain in the original deck.
 
In this case, the players who were first to act during the draw round will receive the remainder of the cards from the original deck, while the player who was last to act will receive any cards remaining from the original deck plus a card from the reshuffled folded pile.
 
Please note that it is possible for you to draw a card you have previously discarded if discards are needed for the reshuffle.

This seems quite thorough which gives it a lot of creedence in my book. But that would require keeping the discards and folded hands both separate from the muck until the draws have been completed and the betting begins for that street. A practice common in Stud is to keep the last card of the stub and shuffle it with the burncards before completing the deal on 7th street. According to this description the last card is dealt before reshuffling the discards.

[Martini]

Nice find. I still cannot figure out where I read the description I remember about reshuffles but I'm pretty sure it was on this site. I even checked the previous version of RRoP but it wasn't there either. I do specifically recall the part about a player not being able to get his discards back though.

It is of course trivial for the poker server to keep the two piles separate but I can definitely see that being more problematic in a live game. Apart from the practical considerations of maintaining the two different piles I do like the idea of getting folded cards back into the game before discards.

[William]

The most likely scenario for a reshuffle is probably in the Eight Game Mix where 2-7 Triple Draw is played 8 handed. So 40 cards will already have been dealt, 1 burned, leaving only 11 cards for the first draw. Then the folded hands (if any), and then the discards.

This is quite a strain for the dealer, constantly trying to keep track of how many cards you have available for drawing.

I'll be playing an Eight Game Mix in a few months if I can get enough players .
Let's say it's 8 handed, and 2 players fold before the first draw.
That leaves 11 cards in the stub after burning, and 10 cards in the muck.

First draw:
The remaining 6 players draw a total of 17 cards. The discards are set to the side, The stub is dealt completely, leaving only the cutcard. The muck is then reshuffled, cut, and another 6 cards are dealt, leaving a stub of 4 cards.

In the following round of betting 1 more player folds.
4 cards left in the stub, and a muck pile of 22 cards (17 discards + 5 folded cards).
I'm thinking here that keeping the folded cards out of the muck to be dealt first doesn't accomplish much since at least some of the discards would have been discarded by the player who folded, and the folded hand could possibly hold cards that have been discarded by the other players.

Second draw:
The remaining 5 players draw a total of 9 cards. The 9 discards are set aside.
1 card is burned, and the remaining 3 are dealt.
The muck is reshuffled, cut and the remaining 6 cards are dealt, leaving a stub of 18 cards, and a muck pile of 9.

In the third round of betting nobody folds.

Third draw:
The 5 players draw another 9 cards.
1 card is burned, 9 are dealt, leaving a stub of 8.

Final round of betting.

This seems like a reasonable way of doing it. That way you would only need to keep the folded hands and discards separate for the first draw (2 piles), and after that you'd only need to keep the discards separate from the muck (also 2 piles).

[William]

I just remembered the WSOP Dealer Reference Guide.

Interestingly, they do it exactly as I figured in my first post (page 27):

In games with multi-way action, it is possible that the Dealer may run out of cards to complete
the final draws. If this occurs, the Dealer should:

• Deal as many cards as they can without dealing the last card on the stub.
• Combine the last card with the muck.
• Wash, Shuffle and Cut the muck to create a new deck stub.
• Deal the remaining draw cards without burning another card first.

Then again, they also deal entirely new hands differently from RRoP:
If a player wishes to draw an entirely new hand, the player will receive all cards consecutively.

RRoP instructs the dealer to deal 4 cards, and the 5th card after all other draws have been completed, or, if it's the last player to draw, after the burn.

I guess the WSOP prefer to keep it simple. I think I still like Full Tilt's and RRoP's way better though.