7 Card Stud Hi-Lo (8 or Better) is an intriguing poker variant where the pot is often split between two winners; the highest hand and the lowest hand. However, there is not always a Low Hand winner because of the strict rules of Low Hand Development.

This article will detail the complete Rules of 7 Card Stud Hi-Lo.

7 Card Stud Hi-Lo Rules - Objective
The object of 7 Card Stud Hi-Lo is to use the 7 cards available to you throughout the hand to develop the highest ranking poker hand, the lowest ranking poker hand, or both. Winning the low and high hands is called Scooping the pot.

7 Card Stud Hi-Lo Rules – Hand Development
The High Hand in 7 Card Stud Hi-Lo follows the standard poker hand rankings. The highest hand wins, period. However, the Low Hand must “Qualify” in order to even compete for the low hand half of the pot.

A Qualifying Low Hand must following these specific rules of hand development:

Aces are the lowest card (highest in High Hand only).
Straights/Flushes don’t count against you in the low hand.
There may be no card higher than an 8.
No pairs or better are allowed.

By these qualifying rules, the best and worst possible qualifying low hands are:

Best: A-2-3-4-5
Worst: 4-5-6-7-8

7 Card Stud Hi-Lo Rules – Betting Structure
7 Card Stud Hi-Lo is primarily played in a Fixed Limit betting structure. Instead of the standard Blind Bets used in Hold’em poker games, 7 Card Stud Hi-Lo requires forced bets called the Ante and Bring-In.

Fixed Limit: This betting structure limits players to exact bet/raise amount throughout a hand of 7 Card Stud Hi-Lo. The exact amounts depending on the stakes and the current betting round. If the stakes are $2/$4, players must place bets/raises in $2 increments (the low bet) for the first two betting rounds. In the final three betting rounds, all bets/raises increase to $4 (the high bet).

Ante: All players must place an Ante Bet before the cards are dealt. The Ante can range anywhere from 10% to 25% of the low bet.

Bring-In: After the initial deal of cards, each player has 3 cards. The first two are face-down, but the third is face-up, called the Door Card. The player with the lowest Door Card places the Bring-In, equal to 50% of the low bet. If there is a tie for lowest card, lowest tying suit places the Bring-In. Suits rank lowest to highest Club, Diamond, Heart, Spade – easily remember because they are alphabetically ordered.

7 Card Stud Hi-Lo Rules – The Deal / Sample Hand
Finally, we’ll walk you through a sample hand of 7 Card Stud Hi-Lo to depict how the Streets and betting rounds are performed. Please be aware that a hand will end immediately if all other players Fold, awarding the last remaining player the entire current pot.

The hand begins with Ante bets, then the initial deal, where each player receives 3 cards. The first 2 cards are hole Cards, dealt face-down. The last is the Door Card. The player with the lowest Door Card places the Bring-In to kick off the first round of betting.

The player left of the Bring-In may Bet the low bet, Raise the low bet, or Fold. He may not Call since the Bring-In is only half of the low bet. Betting continues around the table in this fashion. The Bring-In bettor will only need to add enough chips to his Bring-In to Call, Bet or Raise. Once all players have acted, each choosing to Call or Fold, the game continues.

4th Street: Each player is dealt a fourth card face-up. The second betting round begins. For the duration of the hand, the highest open hand showing will start each betting round.

5th Street: Each player receives a fifth card face-up. The third round of betting starts. All bet/raise amounts now increase to meet the high bet for the rest of the hand.

6th Street: Each player is dealt their sixth card face-up, followed by the fourth betting round.

7th Street: Each player receives their seventh and final card, this time face down. The fifth and final betting round follows.

The Showdown: All players who remain active in the hand will use 5 of their 7 cards to develop the highest possible hand. The strongest ranking poker hand wins half of the pot. Next comes the Low Hand. All active players who have a Qualifying Low Hand will compare their lowest 5 card hand, with the lowest winning the other half of the pot. Should no player Qualify for a low hand, the high hand winner scoops the entire pot. It is also possible for the same player to win High and Low hands.

Note: It is possible to run out of cards before the 7th Street can be dealt. At a full table of 8 players, where no one choose to fold, there won’t be enough cards. In such cases, a single card is dealt face up to the center of the table. This becomes the 7th Street for all players.

In most Seven Card Stud tournaments you play against 60% of newbie’s to the game. This is a nice thing to know in Texas HoldEm as you will get paid with your better hand, but in 7 card stud it is not preferred as people will outdraw you with an incredible starting hand. The cardinal rule in tournaments is to not get excited in the first few rounds of the Ante. There is no need to chase draws or to try and bet players of, as they will mostly not pay attention to your hand. In the beginning try to figure out how every players plays and use this to your advantage. This is even more important then in Texas HoldEm as you will be able to guesstimate the hole cards of players that have folded. This sounds impossible, but as a short rough idea of what I mean the following example. A loose cannon folds a hand with a 10 as upcard. We can already deduct he does not have a 10 under. He probably also does not have a connector down as he would change the straights and he might not even have a suited card under as he would chase those as well. With this we can already gain a few % edge on our opponents. So stay low in the beginning, but definitely pay a lot of attention.

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I was playing poker at Pokerstars tonight and I noticed a game that I’ve never seen before. It’s called “8-game poker” and its a mixed poker game.  I have played H.O.R.S.E poker before so I figured I’d give it a chance. As luck would have it I sat down at the start of the rotation and it was a game I’ve never played before. Its called 27 Triple Draw and its unlike any poker game I have ever played before. Well, thats actually not true. I grew up playing five card draw and I have played lowball poker games before and 2-7 Triple Draw is somewhat of a mix between the two. Basically its like playing five card draw only you want to get the  lowest hand possible. You also get to draw cards 3 times which takes a bit of getting used to. Aces are always high and straights and flushes count so the nut hand would be 2-3-4-5-7.

Well, once I realized that I was a little out of my league I did some super quick Googling and learned what I just wrote above. Each rotation only consists of 6 hands and despite the fact that I lost a decent amount of money in the first few hands while I was learning the game when it switched over to the next game I wanted to keep playing triple draw! I left the 8-game poker table and sat down at one of the 27 triple draw tables. I must have played for 3 hours straight, thats how addicting the game is. Despite the fact that I was a total newbie I managed to walk away ahead $75.

I may still be a rookie at 27 Triple Draw but compared to the other players I might as well have been a pro. A couple of the players at my table didn’t seem to have a clue what a good hand is. They would raise and end up drawing 3 which is totally stupid.  Hand selection is one of the most important factors when playing Triple Draw. I play on playing that game a lot in the future. The main appeal for me is the fact that I control what my hand is. In most poker games the only choices you make is bet or fold. In Triple Draw you build you hand via the 3 draws.

For anyone that wants to check it out as far as I know the only room that offers it and has a lot of traffic is Pokerstars, which accepts U.S. players. They offer all new players a $50 bonus.

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