7 Card Stud Games Online

Update: Carbon Poker currently has limited to no traffic at 7 Card Stud, 7 Card Stud Hi/Lo and Razz. While we still recommend Carbon Poker for their ultra soft Texas Hold’em, Omaha and Backgammon games if you’re a Stud or Razz player we suggest the world’s largest online poker site PokerStars which has plenty of traffic at these games.

If you’re not familiar with how to play 7 Card Stud, the games are dealt and bet differently than poker games with a flop, however the concept of making the best 5 card poker hand remains the same.

A game of 7 Card Stud starts with each player anteing a small amount. For example in a $3/$6 game players would usually ante either $0.25 or $0.50 depending on the game structure. Once each player has anted the starting cards are dealt as two down to each player (these are cards seen only by the player they’re dealt to) and one up card to each player (a card all players can see). The player with the lowest up card is forced to bet either what’s called the bring-in (usually about 1/3 the size of the small bet, so $1 in a $3/$6 game) or they can chose to complete by betting the full small bet. Action then rotates clockwise around the table until the betting round is complete.

Once the initial round of betting is complete players each receive a second up card (called fourth street), and another round of betting begins this time starting with the player with the highest hand and once again going clockwise around the table. This process repeats two more times with 5th and 6th street being dealt as up cards and a betting round taking place after each. After 6th street has been bet players are dealt a final card face down and a final round of betting then takes place. When this final round of betting is complete players showdown and the best 5 card poker hand takes the pot.

In 7 Card Stud the first two rounds of betting use the smaller bet, for example in a $3/$6 game the initial betting round and fourth street are bet in $3 increments. The final 3 betting rounds (5th though 7th street) use the larger betting increment ($6 in a $3/$6),

7 Card Stud Variations

There are many different variations of 7 Card Stud games including home game variations such as baseball, follow the queen, vanunu and dozens of others. These games are not played online, although it would probably attract heaps of fish if they were, but that’s besides the point for this article. The three games of 7 Card Stud played online are 7 Card Stud, 7 Card Stud Hi/Lo and Razz.

7 Card Stud – This is straight forward poker as described above; when a hand is complete players use any combination of their three down cards and four up cards to make the best 5 card poker hand, the highest hand takes the pot.

7 Card Stud Hi/Lo – In this game its possible the pot is split with half the pot going to the player with the highest hand and half the pot going to the player with the best qualified low hand. A qualified low hand is one that meets the eight or better criteria meaning a player must have five unpaired cards all lower than a nine in order to have made a low hand. Straights and flushes are not considered when determining a low so therefore A-2-3-4-5 of any suit is the nut low hand and also can be used as a straight towards the high hand. Players can use a different combination of cards towards making their low and making their high. For example AAA2346 is a 6-4 low and trip aces high. In 7 Card Std Hi/Lo if no player has made a qualifying low hand the entire pot goes to the player with the winning high hand.

Razz – This game is the exact opposite of 7 card stud in that players are trying to make the lowest possibly poker hand. Straights and flushes are not considered nor does a hand have to be less than eight. For example KKK3456 is a K-6 low which is a poor razz hand but it still beats QQQ2245 because that hand is a pair of twos as the best 5 card low hand that it makes is 22Q45.

The online poker room with the most traffic to 7 Card Stud, 7 Card Stud Hi/Lo and Razz games is the world’s largest online poker site PokerStars.com