January, 2021 - These two games are both some of the more involved poker variations that are available today. In each game play begins with each player being dealt two cards face down and one card face up. In the following rounds, players will receive three more face up cards and then one final card face down. In Seven Card stud, players are simply trying to make their best five card poker hand like a flush or a straight. In Seven Card stud Hi Lo players are trying to make both their best five card poker hand and the best five card low poker hand. A low hand is constructed from five cards each of separate rank and they must be eight or lower.
One thing you must consider when trying to decide which game to play is that both games require a lot of concentration. You need to be able to watch the other cards coming out on the board and be able to recognize what your opponents might be after. You also have to use this information to decide what hands might or might not be reasonable to chase after. The most important thing to do is first make sure you understand and can play Seven Card stud reasonably well. If you try to jump right into Seven Card stud Hi Lo you might find yourself in over your head.
The good news regarding Seven Card stud Hi Lo is that if you can develop some proficiency it’s a great game to make money from. The reason for this is because at most online card rooms there are often a lot of bad players trying out the game. You can give away a lot of money at Seven Card stud Hi Lo if you don’t know what you’re doing. Many times players severely over value hands and chase all the way to the end, which end up costing them a ton of chips. Smart can capitalize on this with well timed moves.
Let’s look at some of the other key differences between the two games so you have a better idea of which one you would like to start learning to play:
While both games are the same in terms of how many cards are dealt and how the betting works, you might find that Hi Lo can be a little volatile in terms of betting. While regular Seven Card stud can get a little crazy too, the lower limit games are usually not too bad in terms of wild betting. With Hi Lo however, there are usually always multiple players who think they have the best of either the high or low hand and they will usually chase it.
If you are going to try out either game at the tournament level there are a few things you should definitely know. With regular Seven Card stud the transition to tournament play is fairly easy. While there are always things you will need to change up, for the most part the best strategy will be to stick with the fundamentals of good ring game play. With Hi Lo however it’s a very different story. Towards the middle to late rounds of the tournament you will need to make a massive strategic change towards playing mainly high hands. You won’t be encountering as many multi way pots and the value of low hands decreases while high hands start to win more pots.
The important thing to remember with either game is that there is a high degree of concentration and memorization involved. While they are both structurally the same, players might find it easier to first study regular Seven Card stud before trying to tackle the low hand in Hi Lo.
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