Stud Poker

Stud poker enjoyed a long reign as the most popular form of poker before the arrival of Texas Holdem in the seventies. It’s still widely played however and Stud poker should provide a fresh challenge. The game has much to recommend it – its great fun and has the potential to be very rewarding. Keep in mind though that there are some fundamental differences with stud poker, as you’ll see.

The game starts with every player posting an ‘ante’ after which the cards are dealt. In 7 Card Stud poker each player gets three cards, two face down ‘hole’ cards and a third face up ‘door’ card. Unlike more popular form of the game there are no community cards.

The player with the lowest scoring door card starts the first round of betting with a ‘bring-in’ bet before the rest of the players, starting left of whoever made the bring-in bet, can fold, call or raise. This stage is often referred to as ‘Third Street’ because the third card has been dealt. The following rounds are called Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Street as further cards are dealt.

From the Fourth Street until the Sixth Street the player with the highest scoring up cards starts the betting. The betting proceeds with more face up cards being dealt until the Seventh Street when a final face down card is dealt. The last round of betting begins with whoever started the previous round.

Being a good Stud poker player relies far more on having a good memory than most other popular poker games. It’s important that players are able to memorize which cards have gone and thus have a better idea of what cards are still in the game that might help them. Successful Stud poker players will be skilled readers of the game. The appeal of 7 Card Stud is that it probably relies less on luck than other types of poker and should therefore more consistently reward good players.

River Belle also offers 5 Card Stud, a variant of Stud poker that, perhaps unsurprisingly, concludes after five streets rather than seven.