Stud (Seven-Card Stud)

Stud (Seven-Card Stud): the no-community-cards poker family

What stud is and how the rules work

Seven-Card Stud is the classic no-community-cards poker variant. Each player is dealt seven cards over five betting rounds (three face down for only that player to see, four face up for everyone at the table to see), and at showdown the best five-card hand from those seven wins. There is no shared board. The first three cards arrive together on third street: two down, one up. Single cards then arrive on fourth, fifth, and sixth street, each face up. Seventh street, sometimes called the river, is the final card and is dealt face down. Action opens with antes paid before the deal and a forced bring-in from the player showing the lowest face-up card on third street; from fourth street onward, the highest exposed hand acts first. Most cardrooms deal stud as fixed-limit, with bets doubling from the small bet (third and fourth street) to the big bet (fifth, sixth, and seventh street).

The stud family at a glance

Most players who say “stud” mean seven-card stud high. The family is wider than that, and the differences matter at the table.

Stud high is the parent. Stud hi-lo adds a low-hand split with the standard eight-or-better qualifier; if no player makes a five-unpaired-cards-eight-or-below hand, the high hand wins the entire pot. Razz strips the high side away entirely; the best low wins, and the wheel (5-4-3-2-A) is the nuts. Five-card stud is the older, sparser cousin and is rare today outside specific home games.

When the no-community-cards rule changes your decisions

Seven-card stud uses the same hand rankings as Hold’em (royal flush, straight flush, quads, full house, flush, straight, trips, two pair, pair, high card), and the ranks are still ace-high. The information shape is what changes, and it changes everything about how you read hands.

• You build your hand from your own seven cards. No shared board, no community cards to lean on. If you need a heart for a flush, you need to draw it yourself; nobody else’s heart helps you.
• Four of every player’s cards are face up. You can see your opponents’ four exposed cards by seventh street. Their three down cards are hidden, but every up card on the table is information you should track. Hand reading in stud is largely the discipline of watching what other players show.
• Antes and the bring-in replace blinds. Every player pays an ante before any cards are dealt; on third street, the lowest face-up card brings it in with a forced bet. The opening action is positional in a card-driven sense, not a seat-driven sense; your “position” depends on your door card, not on a button.
• The action driver flips after third street. From fourth street onward, the highest exposed five-card-hand-so-far acts first. A pair on the board changes who opens. So does showing big cards versus small cards, even when nobody has paired.
• Live cards drive draw decisions. A flush draw with two of your suit already dead in opponents’ hole cards (visible as their door and up cards) is much weaker than the same draw with all of your suit live. Stud players count outs against what’s been folded or shown, not just against the deck.

Hold’em trains you to read your two cards and add the board. Stud trains you to read seven cards and watch four cards in front of every opponent at the same time.

Example: building a hand in seven-card stud

Eight-handed $5/$10 fixed-limit stud, $1 ante from each player. You are dealt (J♣ J♦) 4♥: two jacks in the hole, a four showing. The lowest door card at the table is a 2♠ and that player brings it in for $2. Action moves around to you.

Third street. Your hand is concealed strength. Split pairs are visible to the table; buried pairs like yours are not. You raise to the small bet of $5 to get value and to thin the field. Two players call: one shows a Q♠ door card, the other a 9♥. Three players see fourth street.

Fourth street. You catch the J♥. Your board now reads 4♥ J♥, but in your hand you have three jacks already (J♣ J♦ J♥), with a four kicker. The Q♠ player catches a 7♣; their board reads Q♠ 7♣. The 9♥ player catches a 9♦, pairing the door for an obvious open pair. Highest exposed hand acts first now, and that is the 9♥ 9♦ player. They check. You bet the small bet of $5 (in fixed-limit stud, an open pair on fourth street opens up a big-bet option, but you size small to keep the field). The Q♠ folds; the 9-9 player calls.

Fifth street. You catch a 4♣, pairing your kicker for an unspoken full house: jacks full of fours. Your board reads 4♥ J♥ 4♣. The 9-9 player catches a 7♥. Bets double now; the big bet is $10. Your opponent checks. You bet $10 for value. They call.

Sixth street. You catch the 7♠. Your board reads 4♥ J♥ 4♣ 7♠. Your opponent catches a Q♦ and now shows 9♥ 9♦ 7♥ Q♦. They check; you bet $10; they call.

Seventh street (face down). You receive a brick: the 2♣. Your final hand is J♣ J♦ J♥ 4♥ 4♣ 7♠ 2♣ in some order, and your best five-card hand is J-J-J-4-4, jacks full of fours. Your opponent checks. You bet $10. They call and turn over the 9♣ in the hole, making 9-9-9-7-7, nines full of sevens. You scoop the pot.

The lesson the example carries: in stud, the hand you can see across the table is not the hand you are playing against. Your opponent’s four exposed cards on seventh street were 9♥ 9♦ 7♥ Q♦. They never showed a third nine and yet they had one in the hole the whole hand, because in stud the down cards stay down. The face-up cards on the table tell you what is possible; the bets and the player tell you what is probable.

Common stud mistakes

1. Ignoring opponents’ up cards. The face-up cards on the table are public information, and refusing to track them throws away the variant’s biggest edge. If two of your suit are already dead in other players’ boards by fifth street, your flush draw is much weaker than the math of “9 outs out of 47 unseen cards” suggests.
2. Overplaying small split pairs. A small pair where one card of the pair is your door card (split) is far weaker than a small pair where both are buried. The table can see you have at least a pair, the side card matters enormously, and the hand rarely improves to something that wins a contested pot.
3. Betting drawing hands too aggressively. Repeatedly betting incomplete straight or flush draws (“come hands”) for deceptive purposes in stud is a common leak. You give up free-card opportunities and observant opponents start raising you off the draw.
4. Forgetting that fixed-limit caps your value extraction. Fixed-limit stud means a single small bet on third and fourth street and a single big bet from fifth onward, with a typical three- or four-raise cap per round. Slow-playing a monster on the early streets often costs you the bets you would have collected later when boards get scary.
5. Bringing Hold’em starting-hand intuition. A hand that looks playable in Hold’em (say, K-Q offsuit) is a different shape in stud. In stud, the question is “are my cards live, what is my third card, and what is my door card showing the table?” High suited connectors with a strong door card are often correct opens; the same cards with a small door and dead suits are folds.

Where stud sits in the variant family

Seven-card stud is the older parent of the stud family and the home format for the WSOP’s mixed-game rotations. Stud high-low eight-or-better adds the split-pot dimension that the Omaha family also uses; the eight-or-better low qualifier and the wheel as the nut low are the same idea applied to stud’s seven-card structure. Razz inverts the goal entirely (lowest hand wins, and aces play low for straights) but keeps the deal pattern, the bring-in, and the antes. Five-card stud is mostly historical at this point; you are far more likely to see it dealt as part of a dealer’s-choice rotation than as a scheduled cash or tournament.

The shift from NLHE to stud is less about new betting moves and more about a new information surface. Hold’em hides hands until showdown; stud reveals four of seven cards along the way. Players who already track ranges in Hold’em pick the variant up faster than they expect, because the same hand-reading instincts apply; they just have new evidence (the up cards) to read with.

Stud checklist

• Count your starting hand: three cards on third street, two down and one up.
• Antes plus the bring-in from the lowest door card open the action; the high exposed hand opens from fourth street on.
• Build your final hand from any five of your seven dealt cards; there is no shared board to lean on.
• Track every up card in front of every opponent. It is the variant’s biggest edge over Hold’em.
• Most stud is dealt fixed-limit with a small bet on third and fourth street and a big bet from fifth onward.