Stud H|L poker

Just wanted to share a strategy I recently learned for playing stud h|l poker. Always focus your attention mainly on the low. If flopped three low cards play the hand. This strategy has helped my game significantly. many times hitting the low will also give you a good draw for the high. It seems like going for the high draw has more ways of getting beat.
try this strategy, it could also work for you.

Yeah I play HORSE every once and awhile and I really enjoy the Stud Hi/L. A good strategy is focusing on what cards are up before they fold, this will give you more information on whether or not you can make your hand or not. Omaha Hi/Lo, and Razz can also use this strategy.

I hear you're supposed to scoop pots in this game, but I'm probably really bad at the pokers....

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I play stud H/L the way you explained. I just see the H/L as stud hi and razz. But I have also noticed that when you try going for the Hi you end up chasing and losing, unfortunately unless your the luckiest S.O.B.

Yes, but you can often get there with a hand that started as a low. You cannot ever scoop with a high hand (unless nobody gets a low... and that's a lot more rare than it is in OHL because a fair number of people shoot for low.)

I also like going for low because if there's a 3-way pot, and the other 2 are plainly going for high, the low hand can squeeze, thus getting more money from the losing high hand.

I can confirm the former.

Playing simple razz low hands like 832 or 762 will be the death of you in stud hi/low.

Or if there's two hands going for low, you guys can chop each other's equity up, while the guy who has the high locked down has ~45% equity in a 3 way pot.

The ideas you guys have are right (sorta). But the reasons you're listing are really wrong.

If you really want to know how to play Stud-8 well, Ray Zee's book is the definitive guide. I have been playing (mostly MTT and SnGs) for about three months now and I love it! I would play more, but I discovered 8-Game on Poker Stars, and just can't resist it!

When playing on a full table you definitely need to be very selective with your starting hands, and know how to play them. Like skollpada says, don't play Razz hands (but if everyone is showing high cards only you could). You need to be trying to build a hand that will scoop, and you can only do this by playing a hand that can win both ends. This would include an Ace with two low cards, three connecting low cards that will make a straight, two low and one high to a flush, pair of Aces with a low card, low pair with low kicker.

High only hands such as good pairs and trips can be played (and should be played when the game is shorthanded i.e. four players or less), but you will have to be aggressive with them in order to eliminate/extract calls from the low draws.

I like to take the very tight/ultra aggressive approach: I will almost always start with a top class scooping hand, and if I hit good to my hand on fourth I will be betting/raising all the way to seventh, and will be firing on seventh even if I miss. I have tried a more conservative play beyond fourth, but that doesn't work for me - I think it's correct to be betting your good drawing hands, and at the limits I play at ($1- $5) it works well enough. This is possibly because at this level most of the players are more 'recreational', and out to have some fun, as opposed to wanting to play a killer game.

I agree with you. I always tend to play more for the low than the high. High hands are much more difficult to hit and therefore have more potential for big losses.