Draw poker is dead

I played a 7 card stud tourney at poker pages over the weekend and finished 30th out of 268. Not bad. After the tourney I started rereading Doyle Brunson's Super System. After finishing a section on 5 card draw, I decided to go on-line and play some. Where can you find 5 card draw? Googled... installed 4 or 5 card room software... only one actualy had draw poker. The one that did had about 50 people total using the software and none were playing anything but holdem. So I ended up playing "high stakes poker" at pogo.com It is 4 people with spread limit betting (kind of). Ante 1, first round betting of 1,2, or 4. Second round betting of 2,4,8. Max raise of largest bet 1 time and betting for any round capped at 2.5 times the biggest bet. Wierd... I found the play to be boring at the first table I played at. Although I was increasing my stack there was little skill require. The table had one guy that raised the max the first round and would bet max in the second round if checked to him. So I folded unless I had a good hand pre-draw. And check to him with a monster and reraised. The room I was playing in had $25 ante and the pots were in the 800-1200 range. If I could slip in a raise after everyone called the 1st bet the pots were 1500+ So it payed to wait for a good hand. In 1 hour I doubled by stack of $5000 to $11,400. I played again on sunday with mixed results. I added $1000 a few times but lost $1500 at one table. The table I lost at I lost because I started calling when I figured I was beat but wanted to see what the other guy had. Bad even if it is play money.    read more...