Seven Card Stud Hi/Lo Tips and Strategy

If you’re not familiar to one how 7 Card Stud Hi/Lo is played see the ‘Games Section’ of the Full Tilt Poker website for detailed game instructions.

Seven Card Stud Hi/Lo (often referred to as ‘Eight or Better’) while simple to learn is perhaps the more difficult games of poker to master. Professional players love this game because its one where beginners tend to make the most mistakes. The most common of these mistakes is failure to understand and adjust to split poker odds and the concept of freerolling. Add the equation that Stud Hi/Lo is also a game about memorization, odds calculation and hand reading abilities and this is a very profitable game for those who specialize in it.

If you’re just venturing into playing Stud Hi/Lo the first thing you to know is this game is all about scooping pots, which means to win all of the pot as opposed to just a portion of it. In Stud Hi/Lo the winner of the high hand must split the pot with the best qualified low hand; there is always a high hand winner, but not always a low hand winner. Good players will avoid ever playing for half the pot unless they’re near sure that their hand unbeatable.

7 Card Stud Hi/Lo Starting Hands:

Suited Low Cards: In 7 Card Stud Hi/Lo your premium starting hands are three low cards of the same suit. These are even more powerful hands when they include an ace or are coordinated giving additional straight possibilities.

Low Cards with Straight Possibilities: Your second best starting hand in Stud High/Low is three low cards which are coordinated to add straight possibilities to your low hand draw.

Trips: Trips are good starting hands in 7 Card Stud Hi/Lo and should be played aggressively on early streets, however when these fail to improve after fifth street, they lose much of their value. Too many players make the mistake of continuing to play trips hard on later streets and end up only winning small pots while often losing big pots while holding them.

Low Cards: Playing only low cards that are neither suited nor coordinated can work out in multi way pots where you’re sure you are drawing at the best low and the pot odds justify doing so. In tough to beat games uncoordinated low cards especially those with an eight should be mucked and given little thought:

Big Pairs: In Stud Hi/Lo good players avoid playing big pairs aggressively. These are decent hands to play cheaply but if an opponent is showing two low cards on Fourth Street be prepared to let these hands go.

7 Card Stud Hi/Lo Betting Tips:

In 7 Card Stud you want to be holding a strong drawing hand by Fourth Street. After this street the bet sizes increase so you rarely want to be seeing 5th street in order to pick up a draw unless you have a very strong premium hand. An example of a time where the might be correct is if you hold A35 of the same suit and catch a brick on 4th street. Here you might consider calling Fourth Street only when the pot odds justify it.

In Stud Hi/Lo is rarely correct to slow play so you’ll want to be betting your strong drawing hands on early streets as well as your made hands later streets. The spot where the most money can be made when you’re sure your hand has locked up half the pot and you still have draws to scoop the pot. In Full Tilt Poker’s Stud Hi/Lo games you’ll often find total fish who will raise and reraise showing all high cards (for example when they’re holding trip aces) and never pay attention to the fact their opponent has already locked up half the pot with a made low and additionally might have some sort of high hand draw to go with it. This concept is called freerolling and you want to be aware of it not only to extract the most bets when you’re freerolling against an opponent, but also to save bets when an opponent is freerolling against you.

Good HORSE Players are usually great Stud Hi/Lo Players.

One of the best ways to master 7 Card Stud Hi/Lo is to become well versed at all the other games included in H.O.R.S.E mixed games. Each HORSE game requires and highlights different skills sets all of which are used to various extents in Seven Card Stud, this is why in HORSE Games the 7 Card Stud Hi/Lo games are generally tougher than they are at non mixed game tables.

Recommended Books on 7 Card Stud Hi/Lo

High-Low-Split Poker by Ray Zee
Seven Card Stud for Advanced Players by David Sklansky
Super Systems 2 – Doyle Brunson (Stud 8 section by Todd Brunson)

To get stated playing 7 Card Stud Online, Download Full Tilt Poker