Horse/7-card stud

I need some help. I have been playing Horse a lot lately and love the game. I have done okay - probably breaking about even on it. What keeps me from winning are the 7-card stud hands and sometimes the 7-card hi-lo. I try to avoid playing them - but temptation gets me and I usually lose a lot of chips.

Any tips for me? I usually play low limit sng's and 50/1.00 ring games. I played my first horse MTT last night and finished in top half but well out of the money. How should I vary my strategy for the ring games and the MTT's.

I played only sng's for over a year (Limit and NL holdem) - so need to spread my wings a bit.

Well, the key to stud is choosing the right starting hands... high pairs and overcards to the board being very important. There are lots of stud strategy articles online you can read up on... try reading some of these and finding a low limit stud cash game you can practice on.

Thanks. I thought about the idea of practicing stud in a low limit game but I was afraid too many people would play too many hands and it would confuse me. How low could I start and hopefully avoid that?

One of the problems I found with some of the stud games (notably PartyPoker) is that at low limits, the level of the antes compared with the bring-in and complete bets is far too big, which means your strategy should be to play more hands because the pot is giving you better odds. So it's not as simple as hold'em because the size of the antes and bring-in compared to the big bets influences your strategy. Just try to find a game where this ratio is similar to that in your HORSE game, which should give a similar level of looseness, and preferably as low as possible while you're practicing.

Ill post herre when i sober up

Good - was hoping to hear from you on this! But sobriety would be appreciated.

For some reason I cut through the Full Tilt HORSE SnG's like a knife through butter winning something like 15 of my first 20. Not played them so much lately (like you, the S and the E are the least appealing rounds and seem to go on for ages - why not H Hold em, O Omaha, R Razz, S Stud and E Omaha Eight or better? )). The way i tended to play them was to push the action all the way, and play loads of hands - you might as well get your money's worth and a lot of the other players are like you - have one or 2 favourite rounds, and shut up shop for the ones they dont like.

On the S round, you can win a nice number of pots uncontested by completing the bet if you are late position and have a showing A or K - i'm sure a lot of opponents will know you're stealing, but if they've got trash there's nothing they can do about it. With other hands, lower your starting hand requirements a notch (as per the other rounds) - 3 cards 10 or above, a high pair, 3 of the same suit. Once your in a hand keep betting it til the end - they'll either fold, have a worse hand than you or beat you, but you'll win more than 50%. Obviously, if it's obvious you're beat then bail out, but I often won hands that went tit's up by pushing them hard until my opponent folded. One thing you shouldn't do is try and be too clever (i.e raising someone with AA showing when you've got nothing - the pots are so large compared to the bets in limit, that no-one will fold to a bluff with a good hand).

On the E round, of course ideally you want a starting hand that plays both ways (i.e could make a winning hi and a winning low), but i usually play these similarly to the S round, by focusing on good high hands. Players will often call with any 3 low cards (or even 2 low cards if low enough) and often fail to make a low at the end.
As i said, i was much more successful when attacking every round than I am at the moment, trying to play more methodical and sensible, so it may work for you too (sadly the players capping the betting with an Ace high straight in Razz seem to have fallen by the wayside ).

Thanks Rob - this part might be my problem. I think I might bale out too often - having already put in too many chips.

(ps - on a side note - whew!!! finally got us a win!!!!)

A couple of things about stud. If you are playing with 3 suited cards or 3 straight cards to start you should usually check/fold if the 4th cards doesn't hit. Why? Well if it does hit, you have 3 cards left to make one card to win, if you miss you have 3 cards left and you need 2 of them to hit to win, not very good odds and a losing proposition long term. Chasing is death in stud considering players with big pairs or 2 pairs will usually call all the way down unless you are showing a huge scary board.

When you believe you have the winning hand, bet bet bet. Make the fishies pay to chase. NO FREE CARDS EVER.

Thanks MrSnake!

7- Card stud is seen by many, as a much more complex game than Texas Holdem and requires just as much if not more study, so a small post like this is by no means a total guide, just some of my own guidelines.

We can break down the starting hands into several distinct groups.

1) Rolled up trips. IE AAA- 444 etc.
General advise is to slowplay a huge hand like this, these hands are rare and its a total disaster to just win the antes. The higher the rolled up hand the more sense it makes to slow play, if you have AAA and come out raising, your likely to get nothing but a rack of folds, because the likelyhood of someone else having an Ace is low. Slow play until 5th then play fast.

Smaller rolled up hands against agressive players will sometimes get you paid off, with someone boarding a King and raising, ill reraise with hands from 999-222 and play very fast throught the hand.

In Stud8, ill generally play all rolled up hands very fast from the outset and hope to get a donk or 3 drawing to scrap low hands.

2) Concealed big pairs. IE AA2, KK5.
The great advantage of these hands is that your opponent cannot see the strength of your hand. Ill always play fast and make my opponents pay to draw me out. Unless im against 3 or less players, the likyhood of me waiting until 5th to raise is relatively high, this is player dependant. If you make aces up or kings up youll generally have the best hand.

In Stud8, i prefer to play small pots with these hands, because with the larger amount of players playing scrap low hands can be dangerous. Small pots unless you improve your hand quickly, execptions are when i have AA2 with the A2 suited. Which gives me backdoor flush and low possibilities.

3) Medium- Small Pairs, both concealed and doored.
These hands play well in multi-way pots, you will need to improve to win, ill try and see 4/5th cheaply and hope to improve by the big betting rounds.

4) 3 Card straight-flush hands. ie J♥ 10♥ 9♥
Again very strong hands, the higher the better, as you overcards can sometimes be cosidered outs depentant on the amount of players. Sometimes ill play these hands fast, but againt multiple players ill hope to spike a 4 flush/ oesd and these hands become very playable.

Stud8---- Same as above, but the lower the better, almost always slow play.

5) 3 Suited cards. IE A♥ 5♥ 10♥
Getting into more dodgy ground here. Dump most of them if 2 or more of your outs are dead, having a few overs to other players door cards is an advantage of a few extra outs.

Stud 8- Playable if all the cards are 8 or lower, very playable.

5) 3 to a straight. IE 7♥ 8♣ 9♦
Decent cards in a multi-way pot, especially if ALL the cards are connected and none of you outs are dead, consider dropping if in the example above the 6 and 10 are out, and the pot is raised. If the cards are high and 2 of them are suited, you get backdoor and overcard outs, this hand still playes well multiway, attempt to see 5th cheaply and get out unless you have made an OESD/FD or hit you overcards.

Stud8, Fold unless all the cards are 8 or under. This game is easy

6) Highest door card, ie 2♥ 6♣ A♦
Plays well if folded to you in late position, raise every time, do the same with K high and occasionaly Q high.

Stud 8- Fold.

7) 3 Overcards to all the door cards.
If all 3 of you cards are all overcards to your opponents door cards you should raise, and keep the pressure on until 5th.

Stud8- Fold.


8) Stud8 hands. All baby suited cards are very playable, hands like A23 are much better than AKQ ovbiously. I generally try to see 5th cheaply, and if i have my low, ill raise and reraise, especially if i make some overcard outs.

This was a quick quick post top of my head stuff on starting hands, but as Rob metioned above, controlled aggression is sometimes the way forward depending on your opponents. Remember there is full books on this stuff, and id seriously recommend reading/studying some if you want a more rounded skill set.


EDIT : MISSED ONE. Ill do it later, guess which group ?

High paired doorcards?

Playing now and this one helped me out already. Got 999 - first time I ever got trips on first 3 cards. High cards were showing so I raised and played it fast. Several players stayed with me and I won a nice pot - though was worried about straights and flushes by last round.

Only thing I can think of you didn't cover besides the above mentioned is sometimes I am in a hand because of the bring in - maybe have small or medium pair and on 4th or 5th card hit 2 pairs. I am never sure whether to play it - it seems it often takes 3 of a kind or better to win - or am I only remembering my worst losses?

I have tried to sit out most stud hands since I had no clue how to play them and really should have been paying more attention to what wins.

Thanks again for you help.

I believe the "average" winning hand in stud at a full table is trip 7s. Of course this is average but knowing this should help when looking at your small 2 pair facing a raise or reraise.

tenbob- why fold the ace,2,6 hand in stud 8? Seems to me you have some pretty good low possibilities, plus the backdoor straight and the ace. I'd see the next card for one small bet. If it's a 3,4,5,7 or 8, you have agood chance at half the pot. With a 3, 4 or 5 you have a possible scoop chance. Seems worth a small bet to me. Of course, this would be much better if the ace were suited.

Don't get me wrong the rest is excellent advice and I think I know why you say fold, since you are only looking at half the pot that you might not hit anyway it's not worth it.

What you said ^^^^. I literally wrote that post of the top of my head, the hand was supposed to include a card above an 8, so Ace six nine for example.