Starting Hands in 7 Card Poker Games

Posted by Dave on February 1st, 2010 filed in Poker Tips

So there are a lot of relatively new poker players out there that have gotten the hang of Texas Hold’em and everything it has to offer. They are familiar with all the ins and outs of the action that they should expect to see.

But when it comes to the other major poker games, most of these players would have a very hard time knowing which starting hands are good enough to play and when to fold or raise in any seven card poker game. The most common game you will see is 7 card stud.

The basic premise of this game is simple enough. Each player can receive up to 7 cards total. Each player will be dealt two cards down and one card up. The player with the highest card up gets to start the betting. From that point, one card gets flipped up at a time and betting takes place after each round.

The goal is still to make the best 5 card poker hand and the hand rankings are the exact same as Texas Hold’em.

Starting Hands in 7 Card Stud

Most of the players in this game don’t survive till the last round of the game because with most of the cards being face up, it is not difficult for player to realize that he is in a weak position. A very important thing to know in this game is the way to choose the right starting hands. If you know that, you can surely make much more well informed decisions and have a much better chance of profiting overall.

As in most forms of poker, a pair of aces is a wonderful set of hands to have in the hand. However, a pair of aces is definitely not unbeatable and there are combinations with which your opponent may just topple your hopes of winning the pot. If you have more than 2 aces, you are in a lovely position and should be aggressive with the betting for sure.

If you don’t have a pair in your hand, you should call to try to making pairs unless you have several high cards or can possible make a straight. Even straights are a great option and can make for a winning hand. But while playing for the straights you have to remember that you winning chances will only materialize if you have 5 cards making up the straight. If you only have 3 or 4 cards making it up, then you should be careful in making the bets.

In both of the above cases, we see that if we don’t have strong cards, we should be careful with our betting. The more aggressively we bet, the harder we lose. However, people say that it is not right to fold either, because in that case you are eliminating your winning chances with your own hands.

The right thing to do, you think that your hand is no good and is not going to be any good at any point in the game is to fold. Be sensible. Sensible designs can make you a lot more money in the long term.

In case you are playing 7 card stud hi-low, then you still have a chance to get a share of the pot, even if you don’t have the best hand. But to really have a share of the pot what you should is the worst hand. So, it’s either got to be the highest hand or the lowest. In such a case, a pair of 2’s is very good. All the 5 cards of you hand should be below 8. So, if you are not matching those criteria in the earlier part of the game, you can opt to wait longer to get the right combination.

But don’t opt to wait in case you just ‘feel’ that the right cards are going to be dealt to you. Take all the events in the game into consideration before you make the decision to survive further in the game. Try to keep a track of the cards that have been dealt and those, which must still be in the deck. If you do that, decision making will be easier and better. And better decision making will make your odds better.

Best Starting Hands and Odds of Getting Them

A lot of the above is opinionated and will help you get a feel for things, but this section here is about cold hard facts.

You should know what the odds you have of getting a certain 3 card starting hand and how powerful that hand is.

The best two starting hands that you will have a chance to receive is a three of a kind or mini straight flush. Either of these starting hands gives you a dominating position over any other player almost all of the time. You have a 0.21% chance of getting a three card straight flush and a 0.24% chance of getting 3 of a kind.

The second two highest hands to receive is three cards to a straight or a flush. You have a 3.26% chance of getting a three consecutive cards to a straight and a 4.96% chance of getting three cards to the flush. If you get three non-consecutive cards to a straight, don’t hang around long unless you hit something significant.

This means you have a total of 8.67% of receiving any of the hands above. If you do, you have about a 10 to 1 starting advantage over the other players most of the time.

Pairs come next in line. You have a 1.3% chance of receiving any pair in particular in the first three cards dealt. That comes to an overall chance of 16.94% overall of getting a pair in your first three cards. You should assume that someone has a pair in any seven card stud hand played with more than 5 people.

This leaves you with a 74.39% chance of getting nothing of real value in your hand. From here there is only one way to separate hands worth staying in and hands worth folding. If you have two cards 10 or over, you should think about sticking around for a little bit at least, as long as it isn’t too much to call. Otherwise, you should really think about folding your cards because it is likely that someone else has a much better hand than you.