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How to Win a Stud Tournament
Seven Card Stud variants represent more than half of the games in the Five Star HORSE classics, so if you’re going to be successful, you should be familiar with the basic game. Stud is a challenging variety of poker, but with discipline, patience, and a little bit of imagination, you’ll be winning tournaments in no time.
In Stud varieties of poker, your starting hand is more important than it is in Hold’em. This is because you’ve seen three cards rather than two, and because you’ll have to see through two betting rounds before you see a full five-card hand. So what are you looking for?
Stop! You’re thinking about your own hand, aren’t you? Well, in Stud, your own cards are only a small piece of the puzzle when evaluating the strength of your starting hand. I skimmed over this in my discussion of Razz last month, because it’s both more obvious and less important in that particular game. In Stud, your opponents’ upcards are paramount.
Let’s say that you hold (A♥A♦)K♠. That may look like an awesome hand, but it can vary in strength massively. If your opponents’ upcards are A♣ A♠ K♥ K♣ K♦ Q♥ J♥, you’re going to have to play very carefully. You cannot improve your pair or your kicker, and on later streets you’ll often have to fold to significant resistance from an opponent.
Now let’s change things, so that you’re opponents are showing 2♣ 2♥ 4♣ 4♥ 6♦ 9♣ J♥. Now, not only is your hand completely live (there are no aces or kings gone), but you can start to put your opponents on hands. If the six enters the pot (especially if he flat calls), you can assign a higher probability than usual to a flush draw, as he has the only diamond showing. Likewise, if one of the fours enters the pot, you can put him on a buried pair more often than usual, in particular one like tens or queens which is not duplicated elsewhere in the upcards. One last thing to notice is that there are no spades out, so even if you fail to improve, you might catch enough spades to match your doorcard that you can scare your opponents out of the pot with a bet.
Keeping track of all the upcards might seem difficult, but if you’re playing online, you can just write them down, or type them into notepad (I use the chat box myself). In live stud games, you’ll have to be a little cleverer!
Now that we know the effect of the upcards, what basic hand patterns should you look for? Well, obviously trips is an awesome hand, and it’s one of the few hands you would consider slowplaying on the early streets (unless your opponents are very loose, in which case you should just raise and expect to be called all the way).
A big pair, like aces or kings, also has good potential. With one of these hands, you’ll want to narrow down the field on third street by raising or reraising, hoping to isolate on one or two opponents. By doing this, you increase the likelihood that you’ll win the hand by showing down two pair, or even your unimproved big pair. These hands are tricky to play in multiway pots, as it can be hard to get away from your hand when it improves to trips or two pair.
Smaller pairs are less playable. To play a small pair like sevens at a full table, you generally want your kicker to be a suited connector (i.e. 7♠7♥8♥) or higher than your opponent’s upcard (i.e. 7♠7♥A♣ against a J). If you don’t improve these hands by fifth street (when the bets double in size), either by picking up a strong draw, trips or two pair, you should often be prepared to relinquish them to resistance from your opponent.
Other playable starting hands include three big cards (like A-K-10), and flush and straight draws. With big cards, you should look to improve by fifth street or fold. Generally, you should avoid very small flush and straight draws, particularly if the pot has been raised (small straight flush draws, however, are very playable), and you always want your draw to be very live.
Since we have already discussed the importance of your opponents’ upcards, astute readers will have realised how powerful your own doorcard is. Having a big doorcard gives you lots of great opportunities to steal the antes, which is crucial to your survival in the middle stages of a tournament. Once the stakes have been raised a little and players have started to tighten up, you should attempt steals more and more often when you’re first into the pot with the biggest upcard. If you spend the entire tournament waiting around for a very strong hand, you might find yourself anted to death.
It’s obvious, then, that you should rarely let the bring-in see fourth street cheaply. They are usually at a huge disadvantage, being forced to enter the pot with a hand which is probably the worst. Often they will fold and you’ll either create dead money or win the antes immediately.
This being a tournament, you will probably be all-in at least once throughout the event. Being all-in on third street isn’t as unpleasant as it is in Razz, but you’ll still want to avoid it if possible, conserving enough chips to allow the hand to develop slightly before committing yourself and giving your opponents a chance to fold. Nonetheless, if you find yourself particularly short-stacked, you should not be afraid to commit your chips. In general, the best hand isn’t as big a favourite on third street in Stud as it would be preflop in Hold’em (with the exception of trips of course), so if the price is right you shouldn’t be afraid to take a shot with something like a medium pair with an overcard kicker, or three big suited cards, assuming you’re drawing live.
In the late stages of the event, step up a gear. As the table gets shorter handed, certain types of hands go down in value and others go up. In particular, flush and straight draws go way down in value. The pot is smaller to start because there are fewer antes. You probably won’t get the kind of multiway action that flush and straight draws crave, and you’ll have less information from the upcards about the strength of your draw. While you might open the pot with a flush draw, you should be reluctant to call a completion with one.
Obviously if flush draws and straight draws go down in value, something must go up, and in this case, pairs and big cards are the main beneficiary. Pairs now have a better chance of holding up unimproved, and if you make a pair when holding only big cards, it may be enough to take down the pot at a showdown.
Don’t allow your starting hand to cloud your judgement too much, however. If you see the opportunity to steal the antes because the table is playing weakly or because your doorcard is particularly frightening, take it.
At the heads up stage of a stud tournament, it comes down to who can catch a few cards, read their opponent’s hand well, and play aggressively (of course, it helps to have the chiplead too). The structure and mathematics of stud suggest that you should play a lot of hands, unless you feel your opponent is particularly strong, at least until fifth street when the bets double in size. One advantage you will have if you’re forced to bring in with a low card against your opponent’s high card is that you’ll often have position for the rest of the hand, since the high card acts first. This combined with the fact that few stud hands are monster favourites on third street, should mean that you’re not scared to get involved.
On the flipside of the coin, if you have the high card it’s prudent to put the pressure on your opponent, and play the strength of your board. If your opponent is too tight, use any scary card you catch to your advantage. Think about what your opponent has, and what he thinks you have, rather than the strength of your own hand. Most pots will be won before a showdown, so if you exploit scary cards more than your opponent, you’re almost sure to win.
Stud tournaments are technical, mathematical games to begin with, and morph into a game where aggression and creativity are the most important factors. The winner of our Stud event will have all of these qualities. Will it be you?
