Mexican Stud

It’s five-card stud, except the deck is stripped, there’s a joker, and you decide when to show your hidden card

Five-card stud, with three changes. The deck has had its 8s, 9s and 10s removed and a joker added (41 cards). Hands are ranked differently because of that. And instead of being dealt cards up or down by the dealer, you choose after each round whether to turn your hidden card face up, so you always have exactly one card face down.

How rare is it? It’s a California card-room game. The WSOP rulebook has a section on it, the Bicycle Casino in the LA area publishes house rules, and Wikipedia ties it to Casino San Pablo in northern California. I found no evidence it appears in Las Vegas mixed-game rotations or WSOP events. At a standard mixed-games night, don’t expect it.

30-second cheat sheet

• 41-card deck: a normal deck minus all 8s, 9s and 10s, plus one joker.
• Five cards each, four betting rounds. One card is always face down.
• After every betting round, each player (in order) decides whether to expose their hidden card. If you do, your next card is dealt face down. If you don’t, your next card is dealt face up.
• Joker: wild when it’s face down. When it’s face up it’s a bug: only an ace, or a card to complete a straight or flush.
• Flush beats full house. Straights skip the missing ranks: 5-6-7-J-Q is a straight.
• Highest up card opens the betting (a joker showing counts as an ace) and must bet either the small or the large limit.

Full rules

The deck and the button

Remove the 8s, 9s and 10s from a normal deck, add a joker, and you have 41 cards. Antes are posted (WSOP), or a collection (Bicycle). Unlike most stud games, the dealer button rotates each hand and the deal starts to its left.

Deal and first bet

Each player gets one card face down and one face up. The player showing the highest up card, first clockwise of the button on ties, must open (a bring-in of either the smaller or larger bet at the opener’s option). A joker showing up counts as an ace for this purpose.

Choosing what to show

After each betting round, going around in betting order, each player decides whether to expose their down card. Then the dealer deals the next card: face up if you still have your hidden card, face down if you just exposed it. The result is that every player has exactly one card face down at every betting round. On the last card, anyone who’s already exposed all their hidden cards gets it face down.

Later betting rounds

The player showing the best poker hand acts first. Equal hands tie “regardless of whether one includes the Joker”, and the tied hand closest to the dealer clockwise goes first.

The joker

Face down, the joker is wild: it can be any card in that player’s best hand. Face up, it’s a “bug”: an ace, or the card needed to complete a straight or flush. A joker the dealer exposes accidentally plays as if it were face down.

Hand rankings

Best to worst: five of a kind (possible thanks to the joker), straight flush, four of a kind, flush, full house, straight, three of a kind, two pair, pair, high card. A flush beats a full house, because with the 8s-10s gone each suit has fewer cards, so flushes are harder to make than full houses.

Straights skip the removed ranks. 7 and J are neighbours, so 5-6-7-J-Q is a straight. The ace plays low for A-2-3-4-5. By that logic the full list is A-2-3-4-5, 2-3-4-5-6, 3-4-5-6-7, 4-5-6-7-J, 5-6-7-J-Q, 6-7-J-Q-K, and 7-J-Q-K-A. Only the 5-6-7-J-Q example is stated in the sources; the rest is inference. [INFERENCE for the ace-high straight.]

A natural hand and an identical hand using the joker tie.

Rooms disagree

• Ante vs collection: WSOP uses antes, the Bicycle cash game uses a collection.
• Bring-in size: WSOP, Bicycle and BARGE let the opener bet either the small or the large limit. Wikipedia’s San Pablo description says it’s “usually played with a very high ante, and the high card on the first round pays the bring-in”.
• Two ways of “rolling your own”: Wikipedia’s five-card stud article describes a version where you expose a card after receiving each new one. The WSOP and Bicycle rules, which this page uses, make you choose before the next card.
• Player count: neither WSOP nor Bicycle gives a cap. [Typically up to 7 is unverified.]

Worked examples

The hand evaluator doesn’t support a joker, a stripped deck or a flush-over-full-house ranking, so I have no verified worked examples. A few pictures in words:

• Joker face down plus 7♥ 7♦ 7♠ 7♣: five sevens, the top hand.
• A♥ K♥ Q♥ J♥ 7♥ is a flush and beats Q-Q-Q-J-J, a full house.
• 5-6-7-J-Q is a straight.

How you’ll embarrass yourself

• Expecting a normal deck. No 8s, 9s or 10s, and 7-J are adjacent.
• Believing a full house beats a flush. Not here.
• Misreading the joker. Face down it’s completely wild; face up it’s an ace or a straight/flush card.
• Exposing at the wrong time. The decision happens before the next card, in order of action.
• Forgetting the button matters. Opening action and tied-hand action both start clockwise of the button.
• Looking for suit tiebreaks. The opener is the highest card, not the lowest by suit.

Lore and reputation

Wikipedia calls Mexican stud, Mexican poker and stud loco “roll your own five-card stud, often with a stripped deck and wild cards”. The WSOP rulebook includes it among cardroom games and the Bicycle publishes its own rules, but I found no WSOP bracelet event or mixed-game rotation using it. A variant called “Shifting Sands” makes each player’s hole card rank wild for them alone (Wikipedia).