This article is about poker terminology relating to drawing cards or drawing hands. For the variant of poker, see draw 🛡 poker

A poker player is drawing if they have a hand that is incomplete and needs further cards to become valuable. 🛡 The hand itself is called a draw or drawing hand. For example, in seven-card stud, if four of a player's 🛡 first five cards are all spades, but the hand is otherwise weak, they are drawing to a flush. In contrast, 🛡 a made hand already has value and does not necessarily need to draw to win. A made starting hand with 🛡 no help can lose to an inferior starting hand with a favorable draw. If an opponent has a made hand 🛡 that will beat the player's draw, then the player is drawing dead; even if they make their desired hand, they 🛡 will lose. Not only draws benefit from additional cards; many made hands can be improved by catching an out – 🛡 and may have to in order to win.

Outs [ edit ]

An unseen card that would improve a drawing hand to 🛡 a likely winner is an out. Playing a drawing hand has a positive expectation if the probability of catching an 🛡 out is greater than the pot odds offered by the pot.

The probability P 1 {\displaystyle P_{1}} of catching an out 🛡 with one card to come is: