Inside Straight Draw

An inside straight or middle straight draw (also referred to as a belly buster or gut shot) is a drawing hand (see draw) where a player has four of the five cards needed to make a straight and the missing card is one of the middle cards (.i.e. not open ended), for example 5 6 ? 8 9 . An inside straight draw is perhaps the most difficult to hit as there are fewer cards that could come to make the hand. In the example above, you need to hit a seven and only a seven. That means that you have only four cards in the deck to make your straight.

A straight draw is usually determined by the layout of the cards in the draw. Different types of straight draw are an inside or gut shot, a double gutshot or the open ended straight.

A double gut shot (or double belly buster) would be a hand like 10 - 8 - 7 - 6 - 4 where there are two cards that will make a straight - the 9 and the 5. In terms of probability of hitting this hand, there are twice as many outs compared to a (single) inside straight draw. Different draws hold different levels of potential.

When chasing a straight, it's important to remember that there's a high and low straight (the high being the one that would win). It's important not to over-commit chasing the lower end of a straight, as you could be dead in the water.