rules
Seven cards, and nothing in the middle.
Seven card stud is the game poker was before Hold'em took over. Nobody shares anything: you get seven cards of your own, four of them face up for everyone to see, and you build your best five from those. No flop, no button, and one more betting round than the games most people learn first.
three habits to unlearn
There is no board, so there is nothing that can improve everybody at once. A card that helps one player helps nobody else, and the hand that wins a stud pot is usually smaller than the hand that wins a Hold'em pot of the same size.
There is no button, so position is not fixed for the hand. The player showing the best hand acts first on every street after the third, which means the order can change from one card to the next. Being last is still worth having, but you cannot count on it the way a Hold'em table lets you count on the button.
And there is memory. Every up card that is folded away was a real card out of the deck, and whether your flush draw is live depends on how many of your suit are lying in other people's discards. Nobody writes this down for you.
five streets, five betting rounds
| Street | Cards | Betting | What matters |
|---|---|---|---|
| Third street | Two down, one up | Small bet, opened by the bring in | The lowest card showing has to open. Everyone else answers it or folds. |
| Fourth street | One more up | Small bet | The best hand showing acts first, and does so on every street from here on. |
| Fifth street | One more up | Big bet | The bet size doubles. This is where most of the money in a stud pot goes in. |
| Sixth street | One more up | Big bet | Four of everyone's seven cards are now face up, which is most of the information. |
| Seventh street | One down | Big bet | The last card is dealt face down, so the final round is the only blind one. |
Stud is normally dealt fixed limit, with a small bet on third and fourth street and a big bet on the last three. In a 2 and 4 game that means bets of 2 early and 4 late, capped at one bet and three raises per round. The way a round opens and closes is the same as everywhere else, and it is set out on the page about betting rounds.
who opens, and why it is the worst card
The lowest card showing pays to start.
There are no blinds in stud. Everyone antes, and then the player whose up card is the lowest has to make a small forced bet called the bring in. Show the and the round is yours to open whether you like your hand or not. When two players show the same rank, the suit decides, in the order clubs, diamonds, hearts, spades, with clubs the lowest.
That is the opposite of the blinds, which rotate so that everyone pays equally. Here the cost falls on whoever was dealt the worst looking card, which is exactly the player least likely to want the pot. From fourth street onwards the order flips: the best hand showing acts first, so a visible pair costs you the right to see what everyone else does.
what three cards are worth
| Your first three cards | How often | |
|---|---|---|
| Three of a kind, rolled up | 0.24% | About once in 425 hands |
| A pair | 16.9% | Roughly one hand in six |
| Three cards of one suit | 5.2% | You need four more, twice as far as in Hold'em |
Counted over all 22,100 combinations of three cards from a 52 card deck. Rolled up trips is the hand everybody hopes for and almost nobody gets, and the reason it plays so well is that it is hidden: two of your three cards are face down, so the table sees one card and no pair. The ranking those hands are measured against does not change here, and it is the standard order from royal flush down to high card.
the family it belongs to
Seven card stud has a mirror image in razz, which is the same game played for the lowest hand, and a middle version called stud hi lo, or eight or better, where the pot is split between the best high hand and the best low hand of eight or lower. All three are dealt identically. Only the question at the end is different.
A table of eight taking every card would need 56 cards from a deck of 52. When it happens, the last card is dealt as a single community card face up, which everyone uses as their seventh. It is rare enough that many players never see it, and it is worth knowing anyway, because the alternative is an argument. If a word on this page is new, it is probably in the poker glossary.
next
Stud is a variation, not a different game.
The ranking, the betting and the table stakes rule are all the ones you already know. The rules hub has what holds in every variant, and what each of them changes on top of it.
stud questions
How do you play seven card stud?
Everyone antes, then each player is dealt two cards face down and one face up. Four more cards follow one at a time, three of them face up and the last one face down, with a betting round after every card. At the end you make your best five card hand out of your own seven. There are no community cards and there is no button.
How many betting rounds does seven card stud have?
Five, one on each street from third to seventh. Hold'em and Omaha have four. That extra round is one reason stud pots build the way they do, even though it is normally dealt fixed limit.
What is the bring in?
The forced opening bet on third street, made by the player showing the lowest card. It is a fraction of the small bet. If two players show the same rank, the suit decides, with clubs lowest, then diamonds, then hearts, then spades. From fourth street on, the highest hand showing acts first instead.
How many players can play seven card stud?
Eight is the usual maximum. Eight players taking all seven cards would need 56 from a deck of 52, so the rule for a table that runs out is to deal a single community card face up that everyone uses as their seventh. In practice it hardly ever comes up, because rarely does the whole table stay in that long.
Do the hand rankings change in seven card stud?
No. The order is the standard one for a 52 card deck, from royal flush down to high card, and ties are broken the same way. Only razz turns the ranking upside down, and only short deck reorders it.
Why is seven card stud harder than Hold'em?
Because you have to remember. Up to four cards per opponent are shown and then taken away again, and whether your draw is live depends on how many of your cards have already been dealt to other people. In Hold'em everyone reads the same five cards off the table for as long as the hand lasts.
Back to all poker rules.