Most people chose this as the best definition of inside-straight-draw: (poker) A straight draw w. See the dictionary meaning, pronunciation, and sentence examples. A favorite poker aphorism dating back to the days of five-card draw is the advice 'never draw to an inside straight.' The phrase is so well known it has become an idiom, used even in non-poker.
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Inside Straight Draw Odds
When my father-in-law, Jack Fischer, was editor-in-chief of Harper’s, he spent long weekends barricaded in his study while he finished a new essay for the magazine’s misnamed series, “The Easy Chair.” No job was ever less easy, he said, than good writing, a task he attacked with the moralistic stringency of George Orwell. When I joined the family, he repressed his dismay (who let this brooding, hirsute poet in?) and took occasion to offer me advice, usually couched in terse metaphors. His favorite was Never draw to an inside straight.
In poker, if you hold 5-6-8-9, you need the 7 (the “inside” card) to make a straight. But—if you plan your next move on a wild hope, on the rare chance of drawing the 7, rather than pursuing a statistically plausible strategy, you will almost always fail. Applied to writing this meant: be cautious, be modest in ambition, don’t be foolish.
Gutshot Straight - A straight, made by hitting the only ranked card possible (inside draw) which would complete a straight for that player. A straight is a medium strong hand that is only beaten by a flush, a full house, four of a kind, and a straight flush. Inside straight draw (plural inside straight draws) A straight draw where a card is missing from the middle of the straight, therefore only one rank can complete the straight. Hellmuth flopped an inside straight draw, and needed a five on the turn or river to complete the straight.
Such advice helps to forestall failure without risking great success, and for this reason I have often done my best to ignore it, although I have returned to it just as often, chastened and ready to lower expectations. But the world would be poorer if we were all ruled by restraint. If Lorrie Moore had listened to everyone who told her, “You’re good at short stories, but forget about the novel,” she would never have written her great book, A Gate at the Stairs—would never have hit that abundant jackpot—and we would all be less rich.
There is something to be said for abandonment and risk. For drawing to an inside straight.
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Poker Odds Inside Straight Draw
Inside Straight Cast
Inside Straight may refer to:
Straight Draw Knife
- A type of poker hand
- Inside Straight (album), an album by jazz saxophonist Cannonball Adderley
- Inside Straight, the first book in the 'next-generation Wild Cards triad', edited by George R. R. Martin
- 'Inside Straight', a song from the 1989 album Naked City by John Zorn
- Inside Straight (film), a 1951 film starring Mercedes McCambridge
- 'Inside Straight', a 1955 science fiction short story by Poul Anderson
- Inside Straight, a jazz quintet led by Christian McBride formed in 2009
