Abstract: A process of dealing and drawing cards is provided wherein a player hand including N cards is dealt to the player from a computer card deck. An opponent hand including N cards is dealt to the opponent from the deck. The player and the opponent are provided with opportunity to draw cards. A gaming system determines which cards of the initial opponent hand to hold and which to discard using a play strategy-lookup table in accordance with the present invention. The strategy look-up table is addressed using an address set including all possible hands that could be dealt in an N card poker game. Each address of the address set stores a corresponding optimal hold scenario which provides information indicating which of the particular N cards of a hand to hold and which to discard in order have the greatest probability of winning. Cards are discarded from the initial opponent hand according to the look up table.