C9 Writes About 7 Card Stud: Antes & Bring Ins

I'm a chemist, in case you couldn't tell by the super nerdy name. Why does this matter, you ask? Well, as a chemist, I do reactions that take time to... react. And during that time, I get pretty bored. So I've decided to fill that boredom by writing about 7 card stud hi, which is my favorite poker game.

So today I'm doing a PCC Oxidation. Sure, its bad for the environment, but I don't care. :P So I've got about an hour to tell you guys about Antes & the bring in in stud.

C9, you are obviously bored out of your skull, because nothing could be more boring than writing about antes!

Not quite so. Antes & bring ins in Stud are much more interesting than blinds in other forms of poker because... they change! And change on a regular basis. And this drasticly affects how loose or tight you need to be playing.

For example, lets say you're playing in the $1-$2 game on Pokerstars, where the ante is $0.10, the bring in is $0.50, and the lowest bet you can make is 1$. What are your pot odds for calling/raising/ect.

At a full 8 player table, the hand starts with $1.30 in the middle of the table. So anyone calling the $0.50 bring in is getting immediate pot odds of 2.6:1. And if any of you play limit hold'em, you'll notice that in limit hold'em, a limper gets 1.5:1 odds on his limp. So in stud, you should rightly be playing more hands!

However, if you think that's loose, the $1-$2 game on Pokerstars is, in fact, the tightest Stud structure on the internet. The loosest game is the Ultimate Bet $0.25-$0.50 game.

In that game, the forced betting structure is like so:

Ante: $0.1
Bring In: $0.15
Forced Bet Potsize: $0.95
Odds on calling: 6.3:1 (omfg!)

6.3:1 is pretty ridiculous, and your hand has to be absolutely terrible to be a 6.3:1 underdog.

So obviously, play in the Stars $1-$2 game is going to be a hell of a lot tighter than in the $0.25-$0.50 game on Ultimate Bet.

How does this matter for hand selection? Well here's an example:

Suppose I'm the Bring in, and I'm dealt:



And a tight player with a in the door raises, so he most likely has a pair of kings. Lets assume I'm going to check/call to the river in defense of the money I've been forced to put in the pot. My pair of 4's with a straight flush kicker is a 1:1.51 underdog to the kings.

In the $1-$2 game on PokerStars, that would mean I'd have to call $7.50 in bets to win $9.3. So I'm getting pot odds of 1.24:1 to defend my bring in. And I would be incorrect to call all the way to the river.

However, in the $0.25-$0.50 game on Ultimate bet, I'd have to call $1.85 to win $2.95. So I'm now getting pot odds of 1.59:1 to chase down the ante stealer, and I'd be correct to chase to the river.

Another thing to keep in mind that if you're playing stud shorthanded, there are less antes in the pot, so there is less incentive to steal them. So unlike short handed hold'em, where you have to loosen up your starting hand requirements because the blinds hit your more often, you have to adjust less when playing shorthanded stud.

So the take home message is this: When you're playing stud, in a tournament or cash game, realize how big the ante & bring in are! They make a drastic impact on the way you should play.

Well, my oxidation is done. Time to go run this black tar crap through some Celite.

interesting, you should consider writing an overall stud strategy post, since you seem to know what you're talking about and I'm clueless every time we hit that game in HORSE. That Ultimatebet structure is crazy though lol.

Yeah, its a fairly complicated game.

I'll probably just write a series of these things. Like I said, I'll get an hour of downtime in the lab here & there, and instead of mindlessly wandering around the internet, I'll probably just start writing stuff here.

It would be great to mix it up with some Stud H/L as well.