7 Card Stud Rules

Even though it may not be the very popular game of Texas Hold’ Em, Seven Card Stud has a good online community of players waiting to play and is a good change up from the same old Texas game. While players still make hands from seven different cards, they no longer share a community pot of cards with other players. Each player has their own individual seven cards to make a hand from. The first two of these and last card are face-down and only shown to you. The rest are face-up and visible to all other players.

The Game:
Here is how a general hand of this type of poker plays out.

• All players put in a number of chips of theirs into the pot as an ante. They each then receive three cards only they can use.
• The three cards, like normal Stud, contains two face-down cards and one shown to the table. The one face-up is called the door.
• The player with the lowest door card starts out the first betting round.
• Each player receives another face-up card.
• Another round of betting.
• Each player receives another face-up card.
• Another round of betting occurs, only this time the betting limits are raised like in most poker games.
• Each player receives another face-up card.
• Another round of betting occurs.
• Players receive the seventh, and final card, face-down so that only they can see what it is.
• The final round of betting ends the hand

After betting ends, the player with the best five card hand will take the pot and win all the money. The hand rankings follow normal poker rules.

The Betting Rounds
In every poker game a player usually has four options on what he can do during a betting round. They are listed below.

Fold – Not every poker hand has a good chance of winning the pot in the end. If you don’t feel you can win with your hand then folding is the option that allows you to get rid of your cards without wasting more chips.
Check – Checking is the term that describes the process in which a player can choose to see the next cards without betting. All players must check for this to work.
Call – Calling is when you place the exact amount raised before you to see more cards or end the game.
Raise – When you have a good hand or want to bluff, you will raise and put chips into your pot that other players can call if they would like to.

A typical betting round will not end until every player has called/checked to the next sequence of the hand or folded. If all players but one fold, the player left wins the hand by default.

Betting Note:
Because there is no clear dealer with blinds, the player with the highest face-up card will always start the betting in Seven Card games. The betting then goes in a clockwise order around the table. It is possible for every player at a table to start the betting in one round of a single hand.