7 Card Stud Strategy

7 Card Stud Hands to Start With

The first thing to know about making a strong bluff in Stud is the odds of players actually having strong hands. Here are some charts of calculations from the MCU. All the following odds calculations are from the brain and pen of Mike Caro.

The Probability of Being Dealt Seven-Stud Starting Hands

(First three cards)

The odds against a player having rolled up anything (meaning trips off the deal) are 424-1. One thing I’d like to point out is that this table can be deceiving to math newbies. You have the exact same odds of being dealt rolled-up fours as you do rolled-up aces. The odds are only 5,524-1 on being dealt any one specific rank.

For the purpose of this article the only worthwhile numbers in this table are the final five. Get a very firm handle on these numbers, as it’s important to know how weak the average Stud starting hand typically is.

How to Read a Seven Card Stud Board

Reading a Stud board is a very different skill than reading the board in a game such as Hold’em. Hold’em is a complex game due mostly to the simplicity of its design. With a five-card community board, the total combination of possible hands, excluding your two cards, is small and obvious.

Here’s a quick example of what I’m talking about:

Hold’em: what beats you?

Board: K 4 A 6 9  

Your hand: A K

Obviously, the only thing you lose to here is a set. At any point during this hand, flop, turn or river, the story was the same. You had the nuts, second only to a set (which you had a huge redraw against on the turn).

Stud: what beats you?

Hand 1: (X) (X) 8 10 9 K

Hand 2: (X) (X) J J A 7 (X)

Your Hand: A Q A 8 10 Q 2  

You have a strong hand – aces-up. So are you good? What can beat you? Player one shows three to a straight; should you be afraid? Note the cards he needs to complete a straight:

• sevens and jacks are most important
• sixes and queens are needed to complete

Accounted-for cards include two jacks, two queens and one seven. Not to mention all the folded show cards, but being new to the game, you don’t remember what any of those are. Player two is showing a pair of jacks. The only way this player can beat you is to have trips. A jack in the hole or on the river beats you. Again, knowing if any jacks were folded would be very helpful here.

As you can see, reading a board in Stud is a much more intensive, demanding feat than in Hold’em. There’s more going on, with each player having their own board. The chances of a misread or of missing what should be a strong read are greatly increased.

Show Cards in Seven Card Draw Are Key

People live in fear of the Ace. Hold’em players have come to learn that the majority of players are known to play any ace they’re dealt under any circumstances. When a Hold’em-trained player sees an ace as a show card, they almost automatically assume the player is sitting on a pair of aces.

The fear of aces will make players fold anything but a strong draw. A player holding kings will often believe that they have to catch a third king or a second pair to win the hand. Bricks on their board or strong hands (or ones that look strong to you) can almost certainly win you the hand with some aggression.

The same way the flop in Hold’em can make or break any two cards, the show cards in Stud are always more important than the strength of your true hand. Play off the only information your opponents get to see. If you give them a reason to believe they’re beat, more often than not they’re going to act on it.

If you want to start playing Stud online for free, low or even high stakes, many of the top online poker rooms offer Stud as an option.

How to Bluff in 7 Stud Poker

Perhaps more than in any other poker variation, bluffing is the keystone of successful Stud play. To bluff effectively you need to understand how to read the boards. And above all, avoid the dark-tunnel bluff – a bluff made without reason.

To make a true bluff, you have to understand the current state of mind of your opponents and their table images, the texture of the board, the betting patterns and the odds (both implied and pot). Is your opponent a math player on a draw? Are they on steaming-mad gorilla tilt? Are they trapping you? 

What all of this information means to you is that Stud is far more suited to a strong small-ball game than Hold’em. With hands failing to improve past one pair far more often than not in the first four or five streets, players are usually left holding no more than rags and weak draws.

When you do get called, often you’re up against a strong draw or combo draw, allowing you to win if they miss. Aggression in the opportune moments is crucial to long-term profit at the game.

The key with Stud bluffing is to truly play the other players, and the other players’ hands. You’re looking to play off plausibility. If your show cards make it very probable that your hand has theirs beat, it’s hard for them to call.

Here are a couple of examples.

Fourth Street

Their Hand:  (X) (X) J 7      

Your Hand:  6 2 A K

In this situation your opponent is, more often than not, sitting on a pair of jacks or less. Assuming you completed off the deal, or raised, after your opponent obviously bricked fourth street, it’s almost a sure thing that they’ll fold to a bet here. Even though you literally have nothing, the fact that you’re betting show cards makes it seem probable that you’re sitting on a pair of aces at the least.

Sixth Street

Their Hand:  (X) (X) 10 K K A     

Your Hand: 6 3 10 J Q 2

In this situation you have nothing but a combo draw. Your opponent is showing a pair of kings. There is a very strong chance this player is on a strong two pair, or even trips. You don’t believe they have a house (through your knowledge of odds, the cards you’ve seen folded and your reads in the hand), which means this is the perfect place for a semi-bluff.

Your opponent has no choice but to give you credit for a flush now, or a straight at the least. Almost all players will fold a two pair here, not wanting to draw to four or fewer odds against a made hand. If you do get called, you have a large number of outs to actually hit the hand.

How to Play Limit Seven-Card Stud

1. Be very selective with your starting hands:
   Nothing is more important than choosing the correct starting hand for a certain situation.
2. Play the players:
   Assess the opposition quickly: who plays inferior hands, who folds at aggression, who bets with draws, who calls bets with weak hands and long-shot draws, who can be bluffed, who bluffs, etc.
3. Pump it or dump it:
   Fold or raise. You should avoid calling unless you have a good reason (like trapping an opponent).
4. Remember the up cards:
   Be sure to look at all of your opponents’ up cards and remember them. It is very important to know if the hands are “live” (none or few of the key cards are gone) or not. The only way to get good at this is to practice. The more hands you play, the stronger you will get. Sign up to an online poker room, such as Poker Stars, to play as many free hands of Stud as you like.
5. Raise with your strong draws:
   Betting on the come is even more valuable in Stud than in Hold’em, depending on which parts of your draw are “up” and which are in the hole, or “down”. If you’re on sixth street with a four-flush (meaning you have four cards to a suit, only needing one more to make a flush), and three of your suited cards are down, betting on the come is less likely to get a fold than if you have three suited up cards.

Example: You open-raise to two big bets with J 10 showing J on your board, and your opponent is showing just 5 6 . When you pick up another heart on fifth street, you continue betting. Your opponent sees a threatening suited board and may often fold unless their hand has significant equity.

Stud Hi-Lo Strategy: All About Stealing

What are the basic starting hand selections when it comes to Stud hi lo? And what are some Stud hi lo strategy tips that can help improve your game? Stuart Ritter gave us some tips – and most are related to stealing pots. Especially when the action is folded around to you. The later your position in the hand, the more actively you want to steal.

If it folds around to you just before the bring-in, for example, then you can steal 100% of the time and it’s going to be really difficult for anyone to defend. So the later you get to act in the hand the more stealing you should be doing. If you have the highest up-card, in the latest positions, you want to steal all of the time. If you have a Jack showing and everyone’s up-card is lower then you should be stealing even if you have a terrible hand.

The Biggest Stud Hi Strategy Mistakes

Every time you call a bet it’s a relatively small amount of chips, but the mistake you make in Stud is rolling mistakes, street after street. 

1. Playing poor hands on third street.
   You make a half of something on the fourth and it’s cheap so you call, then call again on fifth. Now they get close to showdown and so they might as well continue to the river. All these small mistakes suddenly snowball into a big amount of chips. Just be patient and you’ll be rewarded.
2. Not knowing when to bet or raise when semi-bluffing.
   Say you have four to a flush — on fourth or fifth street it’s a semi bluff but you’re also betting for value because your equity is so good. If you have a really strong draw you could even raise it for value, especially if you have the draw to the nuts in a multi-way pot. Each time you get one of your opponents to put another bet in you are doing really well.
   Also, consider the state of your board versus theirs. If you have (Tx9x)KxQx, against a really weak board that reads (xxxx)6x2x, then you’re definitely barreling in that spot, especially if the king and queen are showing. The stronger your board, and the weaker theirs is, the more eager you should be to barrel off in those spots.
3. Not bailing out of a hand in time.
   If you have a flush draw and you’re calling to draw to that flush, then you should generally stick it out until the river. But if your opponent pairs their door card and could have a house or trips, and is betting aggressively, then you might want to bail out.
   Another time to bail out is when your suit becomes dead there are only two or three outs left in the deck and you don’t have the odds to call. This means the dead cards become really important. If you have (8x9x)TxJx and you’ve seen that four of those sevens or queens have gone, you won’t have the odds to draw to those hands. So watch the dead cards and play accordingly – this is new to NLHE players as there are no dead cards in NLHE.

Know Your Dead Cards

When you have all the third street cards out, arrange them in order and say to yourself, for example, “two, four, four, five, nine, Jack, Jack, Queen.” You will also want to commit any significant presence or lack of one of the suits to memory. For example “no spades, four clubs”

Once you know the dead cards it’s vitally important that you obey them. A marginal decision of whether to play, say (Ax9x)9, against a mid position raise from a Jack up is changed completely according to how many aces, nines and Jacks are dead.

A hand like (Ac7h)7c is stronger than (7c6c)7h without knowledge of the dead cards. But if in the first hand a seven, ace and four clubs are dead this would become a fair bit weaker than the second if no sevens, sixes, and only one club was dead, and the straight possibilities were live.

In the best stud games your perceived board will change according to what is dead. If you catch (Ax7x)7xQxJx, but two of each picture were dead on third, a good player will not give you credit if you were to barrel with your hand.

On the other hand, if you caught (Jx7x)7xJx and it were the case Jack, your hand is now even stronger because of the lack of credit you will receive.

When to go All-in?

Be aware of the point when the effective stacks have got so low that both of you are committed to the hand. If you only have two big bets left then almost definitely you and your opponent are committed to the hand and so it will be a mistake to barrel off. 

Let’s say you are slightly deeper and you have four or five big bets left. When you are stealing, or maybe betting on fourth street against a weak board, you have tremendous leverage. You’re making a statement that once you make this bet there are three or four big bets to come. It’s tremendous leverage.

You can make some great semi bluffs on fifth street in the knowledge that it will cost them three big bets to go all the way with you. You’re saying to them, “You either fold now, or you are going to have to call three big bets.”

Example: You complete a steal on third street with A K , showing K . Your opponent calls with 8 up. On fourth street you catch Q while your opponent picks up 3 . They see your board as threatening broadway cards, so a bet from you puts them under intense pressure to continue. Even if your hand isn’t strong yet, your semi-bluff can force folds.

Late-Street Decision Making in 7 Card Stud

Professionals in 7 Card Stud often find the biggest edges on fifth, sixth, and seventh streets. These later streets can create large pots, and well-timed aggression can turn marginal spots into profitable ones. Many experienced Stud players analyze opponent tendencies and board textures extensively, looking for thin value or bluff opportunities that exploit the smaller margins of improvement on these streets.

A balanced approach to late-street play often involves mixing strong made hands with occasional bluffs or semi-bluffs when your board appears threatening. At higher levels of competition, a typical strategy might incorporate components of GTO (Game Theory Optimal) thinking, but purely unexploitable play is rare in Stud due to the nature of individualized boards and a smaller player pool in many games. Skilled players focus on reading opponents’ upcards meticulously and adjusting betting lines as new cards appear.

More Poker Strategy Articles:

• Beginners Guide to Simple Prop Bets
• Ace-King Part 1: The Best Drawing Hand
• Ace-Queen Part 1: The Worst Best Hand