[Murakawa]

Because most of these questions are about me and not the article I'll be brief, but I'm sure you want to know basically how I know what I know.

I've been playing draw since I was a little kid (which doesn't count) but also for as long as I have been playing online (which is a year since I've been playing seriously, several years just for fun). At first I played a couple of low stakes tables of draw, before finally moving onto some higher stakes tables, and then back to multi-tabling. I first read the Wiesenberg Article mentioned in my article about draw, then started playing draw on pokerroom, where I was an immediate winner. This was before I was playing online seriously and found the small swings in draw to accomodate my tiny bankroll. I then read the rest of Wiesenberg's articles, finally deposited more money on pokerroom, and played whenever there was a live game. I also played the daily pokerroom draw tourneys whenever I could. I found that by taking notes and following Wisenberg's suggestions I was able to crush the games, could usually put players on hands, and started to scribble out odds in my free time (college classes). I also started posting on 2+2 more often (where I had asked questions when I first started playing) and found that I knew about as much as almost anyone else on the forum when there was a draw question. I took a hiatus until stars added draw and then played on there, first at low stakes, then multi tabling 2/4 and 3/6 and playing 5/10 when there was a live game. I also recently read the Ankeny book from the 70's which is hard to find but very good. He deals with PL draw and antes but many of the concepts still ring true. It is actually kind of like the theory of poker for draw a few years earlier, but also only applies game theory to draw. Therefore the examples in the book are very helpful and do deal with common situations.

As for remembering players, I take notes rabidly, and use poker graphers to track my progress.

I scour the major poker forums looking for anything new on draw, and have a couple of informal students and mentors in draw. The misconceptions are based on problems that players that ask me or the forums for help often hold. These are also questions that I had when first playing draw. On this forum or others, there is often a draw newcomer who asks about the Wiesenberg Standards, or calling with 2 pair. Of all the people that I've ghosted and were losing players, every single one of them took 2 small pair too far. There are also many newcomers who ask if winning at draw is sustainable as a poker income, and I think that it can be. So, basically, these misconceptions come from this forum and others, and others who have asked me about draw (and others whom I have asked).

Most draw players are hold 'em players who have migrated to draw when they see the tab that says "draw", or they remember playing it as kids and decide to take a shot. Few players seem to be from the pre-hold 'em gardena, CA days of draw with a joker and antes, but some are still around. Many of these players play lowball, as far as I can tell.

I have never played live outside of a home game, and have asked all around for live draw games and they don't seem to exist.

As for the sites that offer draw, well, this also doesn't have to do with the article. Look for Wiesenberg's articles in Cardplayer.com, they are the best resource for draw. He has an entire article on that. The short list, though, is US: pokerstars, planet, microgaming (with antes) NON US: pokerroom, boss network (fortune), 24h network (PL only)

Play at stars if in US, otherwise play at boss network if you can otherwise pokerroom.

I hope this answers your questions

Mura