Although community card games are far-and-away the most popular poker games today, more and more players are trying their hand at some of the other variants in order to become more rounded and versatile players. Learning new games is a great way to invigorate your game and get you thinking about poker in a new way. While it is true that a good poker player should be able to turn their hand to any form of the game, there are a number of adjustments to be made and new techniques to learn if one wants to become an accomplished stud player.

The basic structure of 7 card stud based poker games is as follows:
The games are usually played with a fixed limit betting structure. Each player who is dealt into the hand pays an ante, which is usually in the region of one tenth of the small bet, so at a $5/$10 table, everyone would pay $1.

Third Street

Three cards are dealt to each player (two faced down and one faced up)and the player with the lowest face-up card (highest in Razz) or ‘door card’ is forced to pay the ‘bring-in’, which is normally about a third of the small bet. In a $5/$10 game it would be $2. If more than one player has the same rank of up card, the person who pays the bring-in is decided by the ranking of the suits where spades is the strongest, followed by hearts, diamonds and clubs. Action then moves clockwise from the bring-in and each player may fold, call the bring-in, or ‘complete’ to the size of the small bet. From there, each subsequent player can call fold or raise, but there is a maximum of one best and three raises per betting round.

Fourth Street

When the first betting round is complete, all players still in the hand receive another face-up card and there is another round of betting which starts with the player with the best poker hand showing (worst hand in Razz) and continues clockwise around the table. This format continues for all subsequent rounds. This is a small bet round, so in our $5/$10 example, the betting increment is $5 and it can only be raised to four times this amount, as is standard for limit games.

Fifth Streets

The players still in the hand receive another up-card and there is another round of betting. From this street on, the betting limit is increased to the big bet amount.

Sixth Street

The same applies as was the case on 5th street.

Seventh Street

To conclude the action, each player receives a final card, faced down, and there is a final betting round. At the end of this round if there is more than one player remaining in the hand there is a showdown. The winner is the player who can make the best five card poker hand from the seven cards they have been dealt In the case of Stud Hi-Low, half the pot is awarded to the player with the lowest poker hand (straights and flushes don’t count against this, Aces play low) and in Razz poker, the entire pot goes to the player worst hand.

The key skills you need to develop in order to become a good stud player are evaluating the pot odds you are being offered on a street-by-street basis and evaluating these odds againt the range of possible hands for your opponent based on his play, his up-cards and the cards you know have been folded by other players.