One of the most popular non-hold'em poker games in the world is five card draw. Despite being extremely popular, there isn't much published in terms of advanced strategy for five card draw. Because of the lack of instructional material and the seemingly common, yet incorrect, viewpoint that it is a simple game, five card draw allows a poker player to get a huge edge and make a lot of money.

The foundation for advanced play in five card draw is understanding what your range is at any point in the hand and being able to balance your ranges accordingly. For a simple exercise that can drastically improve your game, think about what your range is after the draw in terms of how many strong hands, medium-strength hands and weak hands are in your range. To have a balanced range, you're going to need at least a little bit of each type of hand.

For example, suppose in a six-handed game you raise as first to act pre-draw and it folds to the small blind who calls. You stand pat and your opponent draws two. After the draw, your opponent checks to you, and you bet. Most people won't bet a straight in this spot and won't bet many flushes out of fear of being check/raised by a full house and folding out all worse hands. If your opponent is folding so much to your bet, then you should balance your range by standing pat pre-draw and bluffing post-draw more often. By looking at your post-draw ranges in this way, you can balance your play and become much more difficult to play against.