Before the poker boom of the 2000s, seven-card stud was the biggest poker game in casinos all around the U.S. Today, the dominant poker variant is Texas Hold’em, but stud poker remains a force to be reckoned with. The variant features prominently at the World Series of Poker (WSOP), and seven-card poker appeals to online poker players who enjoy a true test of skill with no community cards to rely on. Above all, it offers players a completely different and refreshing take on poker. Read on for a closer look at the origins of the game and how to play.

How the Game Began

Poker spread across the U.S. in the 1800s, carried on the riverboats that went up from New Orleans along the Mississippi and then out West with the miners, cowboys, and soldiers of the old frontier. Draw poker was the first of the poker classifications, but at some point, it switched over to stud poker. The story goes that a game was underway in a saloon somewhere in Ohio. One player had a good hand but was down to his last cent, so he put his cards down on the table and went outside to fetch his horse as collateral — the original poker stud.

After tying the horse’s reins to the back of his chair, the player realized that the other players had probably taken a look at his cards. After all, he’d left them on the table. In the interest of fairness, the man suggested that the other players all turn three of their cards face up, discard two, and draw two more cards face down. This innovation was a hit, and stud poker caught on as a result. Eventually, two more cards were added, and the game transitioned from five-card stud to the seven-card variant of today.

Seven-Card Stud Rules

Compared to Texas Hold’em, seven-card stud (or “down the river”) is a different beast entirely, forcing you to think in different ways. Here’s a breakdown.

Antes and the Bring-In

Stud poker is typically played with a fixed limit structure that has two possible bet sizings, the “small bet” and the “big bet.” Instead of two players posting blinds, as in Hold’em and Omaha, each player in a stud game posts an ante (a fraction of the big bet, usually 5 percent).

Each player is then dealt three cards, two downcards and one upcard, known as the “door card.” The player with the lowest door card has to post the bring-in, a forced bet worth five times the ante. This player can also choose to post the entire small bet, which is called “completing the bet.“ In a $10/$20 stud game, for instance, the ante would be $1, the bring-in would be $5, and it would cost $10 to complete the bet.

Raising and Betting

Once the bring-in has been posted, the action continues in a clockwise direction around the table as players raise, call, or fold. Every player has the right to either raise the bet, call, or fold their cards. There are four more betting rounds after the first round, with each player receiving another card (face up on fourth, fifth, and sixth streets, face down on seventh) until they eventually have three down cards and four upcards.

Raising and betting occurs in small bet increments during the first two rounds ($10 in a $10/$20 game) and in big bet increments during the later three rounds ($20 in a $10/$20 game).

The player with the strongest upcards is first to act from fourth street onwards. For example, a player with a pair showing will act before players who don’t have pairs. (The same poker hand rankings apply as in Texas Hold’em).

At showdown, the player with the strongest five-card hand wins the pot. If two or more players have equal hand strengths, they split the pot.

Seven-Card Stud Variations

Variety is the spice of life, and that goes double for poker. Seven-card stud has multiple variations to keep things interesting at the poker table.

• Seven-Card Stud High-Low (also known as Stud/8 and Stud Split): The players with the highest and lowest hands split the pot if the low hand is topped by at least an 8.
• Razz: The lowest hand wins in this lowball variant.
• Mississippi: The betting round between fourth and fifth streets is dropped, so there are only four betting rounds. The fifth card is dealt face up.
• Roll Your Own: Four rounds of two cards each are dealt face down, and each player “rolls” a card to face upward, followed by a betting round.
• Queens and After: All queens are wild. The card type dealt face up after the queen is also wild.
• Baseball: 3s and 9s are wild. A 4 dealt face up gets an extra card.
• Acey-Deucey: Aces and twos are wild.
• One-Eyed Jacks or Suicide King: The jack of spades, jack of hearts, or king of hearts can be specified as wild.

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