Sunday, January 6, 2008

Stud Variants

5 Card Stud

Five-card stud is the earliest form of the card game, stud poker, originating during the American Civil War,[1] but is less commonly played today than many other more popular poker games - clear from its absence from the World Series of Poker. It is still a popular game in parts of the world, especially in Finland where a specific variant of five-card stud called Soko.

7 Card Stud

The Seven Card Stud Poker Rules differ from those other Online Poker Games of Omaha and Texas Hold'em in that there are no community cards. Each person makes the best possible five card poker hand from the seven cards available to them.

Instead of blinds there are antes in Seven Card Stud which every player must contribute before the hand begins. It starts by each player being dealt two cards face down and one face up. The person with the lowest face up card is forced to bet half the ante which is known as a 'bring in'. Following that betting continues in the traditional fashion.

Caribbean Stud Poker

This is a game played on a semi-circular table with three to five players facing the dealer using a standard 52 card deck held in a card shoe. The aim of the game is to beat the dealer with the five cards you are dealt.

The Caribbean Stud table features a Progressive Jackpot which is usually displayed on a digital board. This jackpot may be linked to other Caribbean Poker tables in the same casino or chain of casinos. Each player sits behind a layout which begins with a slot for the Progressive Jackpot followed by an Ante and then a Bet box. The slot enables players wishing to participate in the Jackpot to do so for $1, which is a wager independent of the Ante and Bet which are the Stud Poker action.

Specific Variants

As mentioned above, seven-card stud is probably the most common form of the game, with most other games being variants of that, although five-card stud is also a basic pattern upon which many variations are built. These games are described on their own page. Most of the games described below started as ad-hoc variants, but they have either become popular enough to have a common name, or else have some unique feature to merit including them here.

SIX-CARD STUD : Six-card stud is usually played as identical to seven-card stud, except that the last face-up round is removed (Thus it is two down, three up, one down). It can also be played as 1-4-1, where the first betting round occurs after only two cards are dealt (one down and one up). This latter form more closely resembles five-card stud with an extra downcard.

EIGHT-OR-BETTER HIGH-LOW STUD : Also known as "seven eight" or "stud eight", eight or better is the most common form of high-low split stud. Played as seven-card stud, but the pot is split between the player with the highest hand and the player with the lowest hand (using the ace-to-five low values).

MISSISSIPPI STUD : Mississippi stud was created to make seven-card stud play better at no limit and pot limit, and is slowly becoming popular for that reason. It is also often played with a betting structure more typical of Texas hold 'em: fixed limit with the last two rounds double the limit of the first two. The bring-in should be less than the first-round limit.

BLIND STUD : Blind stud is a variant of stud poker in which all cards are dealt face down. Any stud poker game can be played "blind" by having all cards dealt face down.

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