Seven-Card Stud

It’s like Hold’em, except nobody shares anything

You know how to make the best five-card hand out of seven cards. Stud is that, minus the board. Every player gets their own seven cards, and instead of five shared community cards there are four face-up cards in front of each player. You are playing against the hands you can see on the table, plus the ones you can’t.

There are no blinds and no dealer button. Everybody puts in a small ante, and the first bet each hand is forced onto whoever is showing the worst card. After that, who acts first changes every street depending on whose up cards look best.

30-second cheat sheet

• Everyone antes. You’re dealt two cards face down and one face up, then three more face up, then a last one face down. Seven cards, best five make your hand.
• Five betting rounds, called streets: third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh.
• Third street starts with a forced bring-in from the lowest face-up card. Aces are high for this, so 2♣ is the lowest card in the deck.
• After that, the highest showing hand speaks first on every street.
• Usually Limit: small bet on third and fourth street, big bet (double) on fifth, sixth and seventh.
• Ordinary high-hand rankings. Best five cards wins the whole pot.

Full rules

The deal

Everyone antes. Each player gets two cards face down and one card face up. That up card is your door card. Everyone can see it.

Street by street

1. Third street. The player showing the lowest door card has to post the bring-in, a forced partial bet, usually about half the small bet. Rank decides it, and ties go by suit: clubs lowest, then diamonds, hearts, spades. Ace is high, so the lowest possible door card is the 2♣. The bring-in player may instead complete and make it a full small bet. Action then goes clockwise from the bring-in player: fold, call, or raise. Small bet.
2. Fourth street. Everybody still in gets one card face up. Now the player whose up cards make the best poker hand acts first and can check or bet. A pair beats two unpaired cards; with no pairs, the highest cards win. Small bet (see “Rooms disagree” for what an open pair does).
3. Fifth street. Another card face up. Same rule: best-looking board acts first. Big bet from here on.
4. Sixth street. Another card face up. Best board acts first. Big bet.
5. Seventh street (“the river”). The last card comes face down, so you end with three cards hidden and four showing. Best up-card hand acts first. Big bet. Then showdown.

What you play

Make the best five-card hand from your seven cards, using standard high-hand rankings. The ace plays high or low for straights: A-2-3-4-5 and 10-J-Q-K-A are both straights. Suits only matter for flushes, with one exception: they break ties for the bring-in.

Showdown

The last player to bet or raise on seventh street shows first. Cards speak, so if you turn your hand up, the dealer reads it for you. If you tabled a hand that’s better than you thought, tough luck: it wins. If you turn your up cards over while facing a bet, that’s a fold.

Rooms disagree

• Open pair on fourth street. Under the WSOP’s rules, if anyone’s two up cards are a pair on fourth street, any player may bet or raise the small or big bet. Newer rules (TDA) and many card rooms have dropped this. This page follows the WSOP.
• Raise cap. WSOP: a bet and up to four raises (a completed bring-in doesn’t count as a raise). Robert’s Rules, Pagat and PokerNews say three raises. Heads-up, there’s no cap in a cash game.
• Tied best boards. WSOP and Robert’s: the tied player closest to the dealer’s left acts first. TDA tournament rules: the high card by suit starts the betting. This page uses the WSOP way.
• Odd chip. The highest card by suit among the five cards that make the winning hand (WSOP). Robert’s looks at all your cards.

Odds and ends

• Folded hands keep getting cards, until someone bets. This is so folding doesn’t change which cards the live players get.
• Out of cards. With eight players, the deck may not cover seventh street. In that case the dealer burns one card and deals one community card face up in the middle that everyone uses as their seventh card.
• Dead hands. A hand with more than seven cards is dead, and so is one with fewer than six at showdown. Don’t rearrange your up cards to hide anything: that’s improper and can get your hand ruled dead.

Worked examples

Five of seven, and the ace plays low

Best five of seven, and the ace plays low in a straight

Alice

• Two pair, Kings and Sevens

Bob

• Five-high straight✓ wins

Bob scoops the whole pot.

Alice has kings and sevens, which is good. Bob has A-2-3-4-5, a five-high straight (the “wheel”), with the ace playing low. Straight beats two pair. Bob doesn’t care about the king and nine he also holds: you play the best five of seven, and the others don’t count.

Suits never break ties

Same straight, different suits, split pot

Alice

• Five-high straight✓ wins

Bob

• Five-high straight✓ wins

Alice takes half · Bob takes half

Same five ranks, same straight, different suits. Nothing in poker ranks suits against each other, so the pot is split. A king and a nine are sitting there as kickers, but a straight uses all five of its cards, so there is nothing to compare.

The hand you can’t see

Three sevens lose to a flush you can't see on the table

Alice

• Three Sevens

Bob

• Ace-high flush✓ wins

Bob scoops the whole pot.

Alice looks scary: three sevens. Bob has five hearts, and at least one of them has to have been hidden. Four cards are face up at most, so a made flush always has a card you couldn’t see. Flush beats three of a kind.

How you’ll embarrass yourself

• Acting first because you’re “in position.” There is no position. Who goes first changes every street based on the up cards.
• Thinking the ace is low for the bring-in. It isn’t. A♠ never brings it in. 2♣ does.
• Betting the wrong size. Small bet on third and fourth street, big bet from fifth on. Betting the small amount on sixth street is how you get corrected in front of the whole table.
• Flipping your up cards over when facing a bet. That’s a fold, even if you meant to look.
• Ignoring dead cards. If you need a heart and nine of them are already showing in other people’s hands, your flush draw is much worse than it feels. Look at every up card, including those in folded hands.
• Expecting a straight or flush to show on the table. With only four up cards, a made straight or flush can’t be on display. The “best hand showing” is only ever pairs, trips or high cards. The scary straight is always partly hidden.

Lore and reputation

Before Hold’em took over, seven-card stud was one of the most-played poker games in American home games and eastern casinos, and Wikipedia says it’s “not as common in casinos today.” It’s the “S” in HORSE and the 8-game mix. Pagat calls fixed-limit with an ante and a bring-in “the normal rule in formal games hosted by American casinos.”

It also goes by “Seven-Toed Pete” and “Down the River.” Wikipedia notes that Tennessee Williams slipped it into A Streetcar Named Desire (“This game is seven-card stud”). A review of Poker 24/7 says pot-limit stud was the staple London club game in the Stewart Reuben era. The BARGE rulebook calls it “a dominant game for many decades.”