Patent ID: 7867073

Claim:
A method of operating a gaming system comprising: (a) accepting a wager from a player using an input device to start a play of a card game; (b) causing a processor to execute a plurality of instructions to determine an initial hand of a plurality of cards from a deck of cards; (c) causing a display device to display the initial hand; (d) receiving from the player a selection of which, if any, cards of the initial hand to hold to form a set of held cards; (e) causing the processor to execute the plurality of instructions to determine which cards, if any, of the initial hand are not selected to be held to form a set of discarded cards; (f) when any cards are discarded from the initial hand, causing the processor to execute the plurality of instructions to, for each discarded card, randomly select a replacement card from the deck to display with the set of held cards to form a final hand; (g) causing the display device to display the final hand; and (h) when any cards are discarded from the initial hand, causing the processor to execute the plurality of instructions to: (1) determine whether the final hand results in a winning hand of a winning rank according to a first associated paytable, (2) if said final hand results in said winning hand, evaluate any discarded cards from said discarded set of cards to determine if any of said discarded cards could replace one of the cards in the winning hand to form a modified final hand of a modified final hand rank, wherein said modified final hand rank matches the winning rank of the winning hand, and (3) if any of the discarded cards could replace one of the cards in the winning hand to form said modified final hand of said modified final rank, determine how many of said discarded cards are in said modified final hand, and based upon the determination of how many discarded cards are in the modified final hand, provide an award to the player according to a different second associated paytable.