When was the last time you logged onto the Internet to enjoy a lively game of seven-card stud? If you are like the average online poker fan who devotes an inordinate amount of leisure time to the pursuit of Texas hold'em, you may have been overlooking some other venerable variants such as seven-card stud.
This is a shame, because as exciting as hold'em undeniably is, stud has whole lot to offer for as well. By switching your focus away from hold'em every now and then, forcing yourself to adapt to a slightly different set of challenges, you may find they your overall poker acumen is elevated dramatically. So let's look at some tips relating to seven-card stud, and the ways in which you can easily adapt your game from one variant to another.
The Upside
The good news is that much of the psychology that you bring to a successful hold'em game plan still applies to seven-card stud. Having said that, however, you will notice a number of substantial structural differences immediately. The presence of a face up card in addition to your two hole cards has a dramatic impact on how a hand will unfold. Obviously, your opponents immediately know something about the relative strength or weakness of your starting hand. While being somewhat exposed in this way, you obviously benefit from the same type of knowledge in regards to what they are holding. So right from the get-go, the way in which you attempt to bluff or semi-bluff will be altered by this shared knowledge.
Good Things Come in Threes
When it comes to move assessing the strength of your starting hand, you have a different set of criteria in seven-card stud than in Texas hold'em. General strategy dictates that the strongest starting hand you can be dealt in study is three of a kind. The relative strength of rank obviously factors into play once you determine that you're holding trips. Quite often, actually, in a typical game of stud, a decent starting set is enough to take the pot without any additional help from the subsequent cards. Knowing this, you can move ahead with an accelerated certain level of confidence that a strong opening hand in hold'em (short of big slick or American Airlines) can rally provide.
Close To the Vest
The question now becomes how you proceed through the subsequent streets based upon your position of strength. As a guideline, the degree to which you throw up a smoke screen with any effectiveness will be based upon how well you are able to read the other players seated across the green felt. Slow-playing with a strong opening set is generally well-advised, unless your opponent happens to be particularly seasoned and is able to sniff out that approach. In this case, go against to the collective wisdom and bet boldly from the get-go.
Ultimately, a somewhat surprising revelation that you may take away from some heated online seven-card stud playing is that by varying your field of conquest to include this variant, you end up growing into a stronger hold'em employer. One hand washes the other in the world of poker, and there's no such thing as having too broad an exposure to the game's many varieties.
