Seven-Card Stud Strategy

To become a good seven-card stud poker player, you’ll need to be able to recognize when to stay and when to fold after your first three cards are dealt to you. Below is a list of hands you should continue playing if you receive them on the opening deal:

1. Any three of a kind.
2. Any high pair (tens, jacks, queens, kings, or aces).
3. Any three cards to a straight flush.
4. Any three high cards to a flush.
5. Three cards in a sequence.
6. Any pair in the hole (that is, both cards in the pair are face down).

You must be patient to be a good poker player. You may go through long spells where you don’t get dealt any of the above three-card hands, so you’re better off folding as soon as possible, rather than betting and then hoping you’ll draw a card to help you out. Since you can’t count on luck to be with you all the time and since it’s unwise to bet on every hand, you must learn to maximize your profits when you get dealt a good hand. You do this by learning to read the other players. Reading a player is learning how they bet, what hands they stay in on, and whether they can read you correctly.

From this reading comes the skill of poker playing. It’ll take you a while to become proficient at reading players. A good method to use is to fold on the first ten or so hands, regardless of what you are dealt. This will give you time to concentrate and get a read on each player before you start gambling with your money. Because poker strategy is based on psychology and experience as much as on any formula, you need to play a lot to become a good player. There are also many books on this subject. If you become intrigued by this game, you should find and read some of these books. But the most important lessons to be learned come through experience: at poker, à good psychologist will generally beat a good mathematician.