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Stud poker is an entire family of poker variants based on a few key elements:
1. the only cards that a player may use are dealt directly to their hand at the beginning of each round (unlike draw poker, in which cards may be replaced, and community card poker such as Hold’em, in which all players share a certain number of cards)
2. a specific mix of face-up and face-down (hole cards) are used; these may be dealt all at once, or a certain number per round
Stud poker has not been as popular in recent years as the popular Texas and Omaha Hold’em variants, but shares many aspects in common with those community card games. You can therefore find quite a few stud poker games online at the best online poker rooms.
Stud Poker (pic courtesy of PokerStars.com)
is one of the more common alternatives to Hold’em.
The use of strategy (and bluffing) depends heavily on the number of cards that can be seen, the number of total cards, and the presence of wild cards.
Many stud games begin with one face-up card and one hole card dealt to each player. Other cards are dealt each round, or “street” as they are commonly called (similar to Hold’em, including referring to the final street as the River). The total number of cards is often indicated by the name of the variant (i.e., 5-card stud or 7-card stud). The final hand will only consist of five cards no matter what variant is played. As we’ve described in our poker hand rankings section, the use of wild cards changes not simply one’s strategy but also adds to the number of valuable hands that can be made, including making a five-of-a-kind possible.
The game can change drastically depending on the betting structure, typically a choice between fixed-limit (one can only raise a certain amount), spread-limit (one can raise within a certain range), pot-limit (one can raise any amount up to the total size of the pot), and no-limit (one can raise any amount).
Full Tilt Poker is one of relatively few
online poker rooms to offer Hi/Lo 7-Card Stud
A common variation involves “hi-lo” (H/L) splits, where the pot is divided between the player with the best hand and the player with the worst. There are often specific rules about qualifying for the “low” hand — for instance, a “nine-high” hand (a garbage hand where the best card is a nine) might be considered too high to win on the low side (the main rule in stud eight or eight-or-better stud).