Stud poker is any of a number of pokervariants in which each player receives a mix of face-down and face-up cards dealt in multiple betting rounds. Stud games are also typically non-positional games, meaning that the player who bets first on each round may change from round to round (it is usually the player whose face-up cards make the best hand for the game being played). The cards dealt face down to each individual player are called hole cards, which gave rise to the common English expression ace in the hole for any hidden advantage.

20-40 Limit Poker Strategy Real Money

Players who primarily understand No-Limit online poker may completely miss out on the concept of how important a single big bet is in Limit poker. In a game of No-Limit, playing 200+ big blinds deep, a single big bet is relatively insignificant to the total amount of chips at risk to be gained or lost. No-Limit is a game of outplaying your. Stud Poker Strategy - Big Spread Limit Games. April 29, 2006 Ashley Adams. $3/6 and $5/10; mid-limit games of $10/20, $15/30 and $20/40, and higher limit games of $30/60 on up. If stack sizes get below 50 big blinds, you will need to switch to a mid or short stack strategy. Incidentally, I am a short and mid-stack specialist. If you are interested in getting a free full basic strategy that includes both pre-flop and post-flop, sign up for my newsletter. I will instantly email you the free comprehensive strategy. Villain (MP): $250 Blinds 20/40 + 10 Hero (BTN): $1000. Pre Flop: ($140) Hero is BTN with 6♦7♦ Villain raises to $90, Hero calls $90. Flop: ($320) 8♠ 5♥ K♣(2 players) Villain bets $150 all in, Hero 22.

History[edit]

Stud poker variants using four cards were popular as of the American Revolutionary War. Five-card stud first appeared during the American Civil War when the game was much played among soldiers on both sides, and became very popular. Later, seven-card stud became more common, both in casinos and in home games.^[1] These two games form the basis of most modern stud poker variations.

Play[edit]

The number of betting rounds in a game influences how well the game plays with different betting structures. Games with four or fewer betting rounds, such as five-card stud and Mississippi stud, play well with any structure, and are especially well suited to no limit and pot limit play. Games with more betting rounds are more suited to fixed limit or spread limit. It is common (and recommended) for later betting rounds to have higher limits than earlier ones. For example, a '$5/$10 Seven-card Stud' game in a Nevada casino allows $5 bets for the first two rounds and $10 bets for subsequent rounds. Also common is to make the final round even higher: a '$5/$10/$20' game would allow $20 bets on the last round only. Another common rule is to allow the larger bet on the second round if there is an 'open pair' (that is, at least one player's upcards make a pair). Some casinos (typically in California) use the smaller limit on the first three rounds rather than just the first two.

It is a common convention in stud poker to name the betting rounds after the number of cards each player holds when that betting round begins. So the bet that occurs when each player has three cards is called 'third card' or 'third street', while the bet that occurs when each player has five cards is 'fifth street'. The final round, regardless of the number of betting rounds, is commonly called the 'river' or simply the 'end'.

Specific variants[edit]

As mentioned above, seven-card stud is probably the most common form of the game, with most other games being variants of that, although five-card stud is also a basic pattern upon which many variations are built.

Six-card stud[edit]

Six-card stud is usually played as identical to seven-card stud, except that the last face-up round is removed (thus it is two down, three up, one down). With Flip, the last card is dealt face-down, but one of the face-down cards must be flipped face-up. Six-card stud can also be played as 1-4-1, where the first betting round occurs after only two cards are dealt (one down and one up). This latter form more closely resembles five-card stud with an extra downcard.

Razz[edit]

Razz is a variant where the lowest hand wins the pot instead of the highest. Versions differ in the rules for treating straights and flushes as high or low. London Lowball is a popular version that counts straights against the player.

High-low stud[edit]

High-low stud is played using high-low split betting, where the pot is split between the player with the highest hand and the player with the lowest hand. In the most common form, known as 'eight-or-better' or 'stud eight', an 8-high hand or lower is required to win low. If there is no qualifying low hand, high hand takes the entire pot.

Another form of high-low split stud is played under the same rules as stud eight, but there is no qualifier required for the low half of the pot. Often referred to as Q, it is much less common than stud eight, and is generally played at higher limits.

Mexican stud[edit]

Various forms of roll your ownfive-card stud, often with a stripped deck and wild cards, are called Mexican stud, Mexican poker, or stud loco. One such variant played by the Casino San Pablo in northern California has these rules: 8s, 9s, and 10s are stripped from the deck, and a single joker is added (the deck therefore contains 41 cards). The 7-spot and the J become consecutive, so that 5-6-7-J-Q is a straight. A flush beats a full house (with fewer cards of each suit, they are harder to get). The joker plays as a bug if it is face up, and fully wild if it is face down. The game is played as five-card stud choose-before roll your own. It is usually played with a very high ante, and the high card on the first round pays the bring-in.

The game of Shifting sands is Mexican stud in which each player's hole card (and all others of that rank) are wild for that player only.

Caribbean stud[edit]

Caribbean Stud Poker is a casino game that has been developed using the poker hands and general rules of 5 card stud poker. The game combines poker elements and standard table game elements in that each player dealt into the hand is playing against the dealer. Originally invented by gambling author David Sklansky using the name Casino Holdem with some slight rule variations,^{[citation needed]} the game was first introduced at the Grand Holiday Casino and eventually all the remaining hotels in Aruba in the 1980s.

Miscellaneous[edit]

• Five-card stud played high-low split with an added twist round is called Option alley or five-card option.
• The game Scandinavian stud or Sökö is five-card stud with two new hand values added: Four-card flush and four-card straight. Hand ranking is therefore: High card, one pair, four-card straight, four-card flush, two pair and then on as usual. A four-card straightflush is not a hand in itself, it's merely counts as a four-card flush.
• The term English stud is used ambiguously to refer to several games, including six-card stud played 1-4-1 with a twist (also called six-card option), London lowball, and a seven-card stud game where both sixth street and seventh street are twist rounds.
• In the game of seven-card flip, each player is dealt four cards face down, and chooses two of them to turn up. All cards are turned up simultaneously after everyone has chosen. As this point, the game proceeds as if it were standard seven-card stud starting on fourth street.
• Kentrel, or '48', is a seven-card stud variation which starts with each player being dealt four downcards. Each player must then discard one, choose one of the remaining three to turn face up (leaving two down and one up as normal), and then proceed as with eight-or-better high-low stud.
• The game of Show Hand, which is not commonly played but made famous by Hong Kong gambling films, is a twist in 5 card stud. Players with the highest face up cards decide whether to check the round or raise; or, if the player with the highest face up card or hand checks, it will proceed to the next street. However, the last round of betting after the river is dealt is unlimited. In Show hand poker the last card is dealt face down. Players now choose from 1 of the 2 face down cards to reveal to other players. This variant is usually played with a set time-limit and bet limit to prevent players from taking advantage of checks and not betting to prolong the game.
• The game of Chicago is seven-card stud in which the high hand splits the pot with the player who has the highest-ranking spade 'in the hole' (among his downcards). There is also Little Chicago (also called Southside), in which the lowest ranking spade in the hole splits the pot; players who play Little Chicago call the high spade variant Big Chicago. This also known as Chicago high by night and Chicago low by night. In Chicago by night the Deuces and One-eyed jacks are usually called as wild cards.
• The Bitch is a variant on Chicago above, played with a combination of up and down cards, usually two down, four up, and one down. The twist is that the Queen of Spades is designated as the highest ranking Spade, followed by the Ace, King, Jack, and so on. Also, if the Queen of Spades is ever dealt as an upcard to any player, all players turn in their cards, re-ante, and replay the game. This can lead to quickly increasing pots, especially if the re-ante amount is increased on each iteration. The high hand splits the pot with the high spade.
• Several different games played only in low-stakes home games are called Baseball, and generally involve many wild cards (often 3s and 9s), paying the pot for wild cards, being dealt an extra upcard upon receiving a 4, and many other ad hoc rules (for example, the appearance of the queen of spades is called a 'rainout' and ends the hand, or that either red 7 dealt face-up is a rainout, but if one player has both red 7s in the hole, that outranks everything, even a 5 of a kind). These same rules can be applied to no peek, in which case the game is called 'night baseball'. See main article: Baseball Poker.
• Cowpie poker is played as seven-card stud until after the seventh-street bet. All remaining players then split their hands into a five-card hand and a two-card hand. The five-card hand must outrank the two-card hand, and the latter must contain at least one downcard. After the split there is one more betting round and showdown. Upon showdown, the highest five-card hand and the highest two-card hand split the pot. The name of the game is a pun on Pai Gow.
• Number Nine is a variant of seven-card stud in which 9s are wild, and any two number cards that add up to 9 may make one wild card, at the player's option. Aces count as 1 for wild card purposes. The player is not obliged to make any wild cards, and can play cards that could make 9s at face value or as wild cards, at his option. Cards used to make wild cards may not figure in the resulting hand twice. The player cannot add three or more cards. Sometimes, 9s themselves are not wild, and wild cards can be made only by addition.
• Dr Pepper is a stud variant where 10's, 2's, and 4's are wild (the name comes from one of the original Dr Pepper advertisements of the 1920s: 'Drink a Bite to Eat at 10, 2, and 4 o'clock').
• Draft (or 'socialist poker') is usually a variant of seven-card stud in which the second and subsequent upcard rounds are dealt this way: for each player remaining, one upcard is dealt to the center of the table (not to any specific player). The player with the worst showing hand gets to choose which of them he will take for his next upcard, then the player with the second-worst showing hand chooses his upcard from those left, and so on, until the player who previously had the best showing hand takes the remaining card. Then betting occurs as normal. In seven-card stud, this makes for three 'draft' rounds (the first three cards are dealt normally, as is the final downcard).
• Auction is a similar variation in which each upcard round (or possibly just those after the first) begins with an 'auction' phase. Instead of dealing each player one upcard, the first card is dealt to the center and all players bid on it; the player who bids the highest amount places that amount into the pot, and then has the right to either keep the auction card as his own upcard, or designate another player who is required to take it as his. After the first card is auctioned off and placed, the remaining players are dealt a random upcard as usual, and betting proceeds as usual. This variation is commonly played as high-low split, so it is common for a player to 'purchase' a high card to force it upon an opponent seeking low, for example.
• Telesina is a stud variant which is played with a stripped 'French' deck. The play follows most five card stud games except that after the fourth betting round a 6th community card called the vela card is placed in the center of the table. The vela card may be used by all players to improve their hand after which another round of betting occurs. The standard hand ranking applies with the slight difference in that a flush beats a full house because it is easier to get a full house than a flush. This is because instead of 13 cards per suit there are only 8 having the cards from 2-6 removed.

Notes and references[edit]

Generally speaking, there are two common varieties of 7-Card Stud games: spread limit games and the fixed limit games. Spread limit games, for the most part, tend to be very low stakes — $1-3, $1-4, or $1-5 (sometimes $2-10). The fixed limit games can generally be further divided in categories based on their stakes. There are low limit games of $1/2, $3/6 and $5/10; mid-limit games of $10/20, $15/30 and $20/40, and higher limit games of $30/60 on up. There are surely strategy differences that one can apply based on the category of the game you’re in. Roy West, David Sklansky, Mason Malmuth, Ray Zee, Mike Caro, I and a few others have written extensively about these types of games.

But there are two formats of stud that have received scant attention – primarily I suspect because they’re rarely spread in public cardrooms.. They would be Pot Limit Stud and higher stakes spread limit stud – games like $5-20 or $15-100. I’m going to devote a few columns to them here.

First of all, let’s not go crazy with this notion of different strategies for different games. Poker is still poker. Stud is still stud. I wouldn’t want you to think that the world of poker strategy is so highly specialized that you need to learn a whole now methodology for playing at every level. And, in fact, not all games with the same overall structure play similarly. You might have a $10/20 games that is a rock fest and requires the application of different strategies than an identically structured $10/20 game with four loose calling stations and three maniacs in against you.

Even so, there are some general differences in pot limit and large spread limit games that are worth considering. Let me present them to you here.

Large Spread Limit

I was fortunate enough to be invited to a great home game by a friend in Worcester. Unlike so many folks these days, he prefers limit to no limit or pot limit. And he enjoys stud. So he spread a spread limit dealer’s choice game: $5-20 spread limit. The dealer anted $5. In stud the forced bet was $5.00.

His guests and friends consisted of a couple of solid players and then a host of typical home game players – but home game players with relatively deep wallets. Most people bought in for $200. At the end of the night some won and some lost in the $1000 range.

It became clear early on that there was a built in advantage to calling flop games. As the dealer, you would retain last position in the betting. We didn’t play a full round of each game, as I do in my home games. So you’d want to call a dealer advantage game when you were the dealer. Even so, four or five of the players called 7-Card Stud. Go figure.

Players in this game, for the most part, knew enough to fold helpless hands for a full bet of $20. But they wouldn’t recognize that a flush draw, played heads up from Third Street, is surely not worth a call. So if I raised to $20 with a pair of Kings, they’d habitually call with a three flush, no matter how high or how low.

It was tempting, at times, to slow play strong Premium Pairs on Third Street. At times I did. And I’d recommend the same strategy if you’re in a game with players like these. Here’s a specific example of when you shouldn’t raise the full amount with your Premium Pair.

It’s Third Street. You’re sitting on (AhTh)As. The bring in is to your left. There is $10 in the pot. Everyone folds to you. There are two players left. One with a Ks the other with a Jc. Both are relatively loose and passive – but with your tight image they tend to play more tightly against your raises than against other players at the table.

What should you do?

Conventional 7-Card Stud strategy says that it is correct, usually, to raise – to drive these players out if you can or to force them to put more money in the pot if they want to chase.

So, typically, given the option of a call or a raise on Third Street with a pair of Aces, I nearly always raise.

But in this game you have more flexibility. Use it to your advantage. Raise a small amount, hoping to get clearly dominated hands to call you. What you want is to knock out all but one player if you can. A raise by $5.00 or $10.00 is likely to do that – especially when combined with your tight and aggressive image. You can then pound away at them on Fourth Street, regardless of whether you improve.

Compare this to a similar situation. You are sitting to the left of the bring-in and you have (KhTh)Ks. Six other players are yet to act, including one with an Ace. In this situation you would go for the largest raise possible. In this instance, unlike the other instance, you have two obstacles to clear that weren’t in front of your winning path before. You have a player with an overcard showing – who might well be tempted to call a small bet in the hope of drawing an Ace on Fourth. And you have a much larger number of people who have not yet decided to act – increasing the chances that you’ll get many calls going into Fourth. This you surely don’t want, so you want to use your betting flexibility to put maximum pressure on your opponents to fold. That means betting the maximum of $20.

In general, you use your variable betting flexibility to increase pressure on your opponents with maximum bets when you are less sure where you stand, and decreased pressure with smaller bets when you are more confident that you’ll still be in the lead on Fourth Street.

Fortunately, a variable bet can also work to your advantage because your opponents will misapply proper strategy. When they are weak they will bet less. When they are strong they will bet more. In the above instances, for example, they would be more likely to raise by $20 with the Aces and less likely to raise the full amount with Kings in early position. This allows you to broaden your spectrum of playable hands – increasing your opportunities for winning.

Let’s say, for example, that you are in late position with (JhTh)Js. An early position bettor, with an Ace, raises by $5.00. One player, with a Queen, seeing the bargain raise, calls. The action is now to you, sitting with the bring-in to your immediate left and the raiser to his immediate left.

20-40 Limit Poker Strategy Games

Normally, in a structured limit game, you’d be likely to fold your lowly pair of Jacks. But in this game go ahead and call. Sure, the raiser my be slowplaying you just as you would do in his situation. Sure, the Queen may be ahead of you as well with a pair of Queens. But it’s also quite possible that the Ace has a weak hand – perhaps only Ace high, and the Queen may be sitting with relative junk as well – seduced into calling with an inferior hand because of the small raise..

But that’s not the most important reason to call. You should call even if you knew with certainty that you were against either Aces or Queens or both. That’s because of the enormous implied odds you’re getting.

Implied odds compare the current bet to the amount you may win if you hit your hand. In this case, for $5.00 you have a chance of hitting a card that could win you d to bet to stay in the hand when the amount you are likely to win well over $150-200, implied odds of 30:1 to 40:1.

What you’re hoping for is another Jack. Your odds of hitting a Jack on the next card are 20:1 (two Jacks among. Forty-two remaining unseen cards). With implied odds of 30:1 or better (depending on how many bets of $20 you can extract from your two opponents), you have a huge overlay and should call the $5.00.

In real game situations, many other factors come into play. What is the chance that you will be raised after you call? In this case none – your call will end the betting. How loose are your opponents? Are they likely to continue to call you down to the River if you raise their bet when you hit trips? Will the third best hand fold once you show aggression? You might also want to consider other ways that you could win even if you didn’t hit your perfect card on Third. What is the likelihood that the Ace will check if he doesn’t hit a card after seeing two of his opponents call? Might you be able to see Fifth Street for free, or very cheaply, if you don’t hit your hand on Fourth? If so, you can be more inclined to call the Third Street bet, since you might have two chances to hit your hand, making your drawing odds better than 20:1 and meaning that you don’t need the large implied odds for you’re your call.

All of these factors may come into play when it is a close call. But in this case, it isn’t even close. You should call the $5.00.

20-40 Limit Poker Strategy Rules

As you can see, a spread limit betting structure like $5-20 allows for more creative thinking and playing in stud than a strictly fixed limit structure.

20-40 Limit Poker Strategy Blackjack

Ed Note: Find all kinds of Stud games at Poker Stars sign up today.