Today, I am going to go through a few of my choice tips for low-stakes Limit Seven Card Stud. If you are just picking up the game, these should be a good starting point as you develop your own style and strategy.
Remember Face Up Cards
I can’t stress this point enough. The ability to remember all or most of the cards that have been dealt face up is arguably a Seven Card Stud player’s most important skill. In Texas Hold’em, you don’t have to remember any cards; your hole cards are always available for a quick peek and the community cards are always sitting there in front of you. In Stud, your opponents’ upturned cards disappear into the muck every time someone folds.
Remembering the face up cards will give you a huge advantage over most players at low-stakes tables, as many just worry about their own cards. Think about it. At a full table, there are ten cards revealed to you after the initial deal, your three and the seven up cards of your opponents. That’s almost 20% of the deck right there and there are still three more streets of face up cards. You could easily end up seeing another ten opponents’ cards depending on how loose the table is, plus your own cards. There are times where you could have knowledge of close to half of the deck.
The more cards you remember, the more accurate your count of outs will be. I’m not only talking about your own hand, either. Yes, it is important to remember how many of your outs are gone so you can determine whether or not to stay in the hand, but it is also important to know how many outs your adversaries have. If you feel your opponent is trying to make a club flush and you know that seven clubs have already been exposed, then you know that his chances of hitting the flush are not that good.
Keep in mind that players will likely be folding quickly after the initial deal, so be on your toes right from the start of the hand.
Pressure, Pressure, Pressure
Seven Card Stud is a drawing game. Rarely does a pair dealt on the initial deal win the hand unimproved should it reach showdown. As such, players love to draw cheaply. Make them pay. If you are going to bet, raise it up. Don’t attack for no reason – you still want your bets and raises to be wise ones – but even when you aren’t sure if you have the best hand, a well-placed bet can easily scare an opponent off, particularly if your up cards are intimidating. In later streets, there are obviously fewer and fewer chances for your opponents to hit the cards they need, so they could start getting antsy. Take advantage of their uncertainty by turning up the heat. Make them want to fold or at least extract more chips from them while they chase.
Play the Button
There is no predetermined positional advantage before each hand, as the order of play is determined by the up cards, not by passing the button around the table. That said, someone still acts first every round and someone still acts last. On third street, which will be your first opportunity to bet (everyone will have two hole cards and one door card), the player on the button is in an interesting position.
In Hold’em, if the action folds to the player on the button, he will often automatically raise because he has position on the blinds in future betting rounds and, with only two players left to act, there is a good chance that they will both fold. In Stud, if you’re on the button, you already know something about the holdings of the player to your left, the player who had to pay the bring-in. You know that the bring-in player has the worst visible hand out of everyone at the table.
Because of this, if the action folds to you on the button, raise every time. While there is a chance that the bring-in could have a buried pair, split pair, rolled up trips, a three card flush, a three card straight, or even overcards to your three cards, none of those are likely. If he doesn’t have something strong hidden, he will know that he is already starting from a position of weakness and will have to hit cards to make a worthwhile hand. Thus, there is a good chance that he will fold to your raise. Again, there is no guarantee that he will fold and there is no guarantee that he won’t have a better hand than you, but sitting on the button when everyone folds to you is a prime spot for a raise every single time.
Don’t Bother Bluffing
In low-stakes games, you’re going to have two primary kinds of players: (1) those who play in a very straightforward manner and (2) calling stations who will play any draw. Bluffing is relatively useless on both of them. The straightforward players will fold poor hands early on and ride strong hands. When they are in a hand in later streets, they likely have something good and won’t give in to a bluff. Calling stations are like any calling station: they don’t care about your cards. They just call down every street and hope for the best. Don’t bother with tricky plays against them.
The one big exception in low-stakes games is bluffing with four suited cards showing. Flushes are easy for players to see, so your opponents will automatically start thinking that you might have made your flush when they see four suited cards face up. If you can open the betting or put in a raise when you hit that fourth flush card on sixth street, everyone will just assume you have it and let go of their hands.