The rules for playing all the card stud games are almost identical with the same terminology. But there are a few differences between 5 card stud, 7 card stud and 7 card stud hi-low and these differences set these version apart. Let’s have a look at them:

1. 5 Card stud:
   I will use this version of the game to give the basic idea of the game play and the rules so that I can compare it with the other versions. The game starts with the first bet which is called the ante and this is the bet which makes up the pot. One face down card and one face up card are dealt to all the players. The face up is called the door card and the player who has the door card of the lowest value starts the first round of betting.

   The players can either bet, check, raise or fold in any of the betting rounds of the game. The round of betting is followed by the dealing of the second face up card, which is again followed by a round of betting. This continues till the players have been dealt one face down card and 4 face up cards, thus 5 cards each. The total number of cards dealt to each player is 5 and thus the game is called 5 card stud.

   The last part of the game is called the Showdown. In this part of the game, all the players have to lay their hands on the table. The hand of each player is composed of the 5 cards that have been dealt to him/her so far. The player who possesses the hand of the highest value wins the game.





2. 7 Card Stud:
   In this form of stud poker each player gets 2 private face down cards, followed by one face up card, door card. The betting rounds are very similar in the procedure with each player having the same options of betting, checking, raising or folding. As the name suggests, in this game all the players receive 7 cards each. 2 of them are private cards and 5 are face up cards.

   The seventh card to be dealt to the payers is called the river card and this card is followed by the last round of betting and then comes the showdown. The showdown is similar to the 5 card stud, with all the surviving players laying their cards on the table. The player with the strongest hand wins the pot. If two players have the same type of hand, then the values of individual cards are taken into consideration to decide the winner.





3. 7 Card stud Hi-Lo:
   This game is mostly similar to the 7 card stud. The only difference is the criteria of deciding the winner. Unlike the other two forms of the game, in this game there can be two winners. The first winner is of course the player with the strongest hand.

   The second winner, who gets to share the pot with the winner, is the one with the weakest hand. But the second winner can only get a share of the pot, if all the cards in his hand are below 8 and it is the weakest possible hand among all the other hands. The second winner gets at most, half of the pot. Since in this game, players have to think about two types of hands, so this is clearly the most complex of the card stud games.





4. Caribbean Stud Poker:
   This is the casino’s version of a 5 card stud game. It is almost identical to the normal 5 card stud, but with a few exceptions:
   1. Your hand only has to beat the dealer’s hand
   2. The dealer has to qualify for the hand by getting Ace/King or better
   3. You can win a caribbean stud progressive jackpot

   Here is a great website if you would like to know more about Caribbean stud poker.

As you can see by the rules of the games, these versions of stud games are very similar to each other. 5 card is the simplest of the lot and thus is the best one to start with.

Poker at bet365 is also running 4x $1000 Freerolls (1 Merit Point Buy-In) at the same time on 15th January at 19:30 to try out the new software, resizable tables and tile function.

Main Features

· New and enhanced table look

· Individually re sizable tables to allow players to adjust the table sizes however they wish.

· Table Tiling Function for up to four tables. When a player opens up to four tables, the Table Tiling button will fit these four tables exactly into the players PC screen.

· Players will now be able to sit in their favorite position at the table irrespective of whether the seat is available when they join the table.

Extra Features

· Razz – Razz has now been introduced to the bet365 tables. A favourite with stud players this game is a variation of 7 card stud where the primary difference is that the lowest hand wins rather than the highest.

· Faster play – Streamlined table play features to cut down waiting and speed up play.

· Improved Favorites Section – The Favourites function has been enhanced to allow you to store all your favourite cash tables and tournaments in an easily accessible area with a calendar view option.

· Improved Slider/betting options – A response to player feedback an improved Betting Slider facility so that players can easily bet a higher percentage of the pot.

· Observer Chat – Players can now ‘rail’ a table using the chat function without having to be sat at the table.

Particularly in recent years, its popularity crossed the borders of the United States and become equally popular outside as well.

Nothing can become famous until there are some important factors behind it; same is the case with the game of Texas Hold’em.

Let’s have a look at the reasons behind the unrestrained popularity of Texas Hold’em among poker players all over the world.

Easy to Learn, Easy to Play

If you are interested in playing Texas Hold’em but are worried about how to learn and how to play, stop worrying and start learning it today. You can find a lot of websites offering to teach you the pros and cons of Texas Hold’em.

If you don’t want to learn it online then purchase helpful books from your nearby bookstore and enjoy learning. Another option of learning the basics of Texas Hold’em is to watch poker game shows on your TV set; this will provide you an opportunity to see professionals playing in their professional style.

Some people think that learning Texas Hold’em is a matter of some days for them while some are of the view that it takes a long time to get perfection and have a complete grasp over this game. But actually it depends upon your concentration and experience rather than the actual time spent to learn Texas Hold’em.

Texas Hold’em is Available Online

One of the main reasons for the increasing number of Texas Hold’em players is its availability on the internet. Now you don’t need to go outside in search of good casinos or get together with all of your friends at your home to play Texas Hold’em.

What you need is to log onto poker websites and start playing right there. Because of being available online, severe weather conditions outside cannot affect the number of players in a game. Now you can enjoy playing Texas Hold’em anywhere, anytime without having to go outside or inviting people at your home.

Great Opportunity to Win Cash Prizes

Another attraction of Texas Hold’em is getting a great opportunity to win big cash prizes. Poker tournaments including World Series of poker give players an opportunity to make big cash prizes. In recent years about 9000 persons have acquired cash prizes of $10,000 each.

The final prize amount of Poker World Series comprises $12 million. So you can say that Texas Hold’em is not only a way of recreation for its players but it can also be a source of income if played with a good betting strategy and a well-focused mind.

Because of all the above mentioned reasons, Texas Hold’em has now become the first choice of poker players all over the world. Because Texas Hold’em is not only easy to learn and play within the comfort of your home; it also provides an opportunity to earn cash rewards and popularity as a professional poker player. So don’t wait and start learning Texas Hold’em today and soon you might also be one of those players who have fun and gain cash and popularity through playing Texas Hold’em.

This can differ greatly, however, if you are playing at a loose or tight table. In most cases, playing less hands than your opponents can give you a big advantage. When you call the pot loosely, you will end up folding many times after the flop or the turn as you try to chase hands. Worse yet, if you try to call other people’s raises trying to make that straight or flush, you will usually end up losing more than you can gain by completing the hand.

What is the Strength of your Starting Hand

Everyone is dealt about the same strength of hand overall in a tournament, more or less. It’s what you decide to do with your hands that ends up making or breaking you.

Good poker players play mostly strong starting cards while the losing poker players play much more often with speculative starting cards.

Being able to play your strong hands correctly is easy. If your in the right position, you wait until others have bet and either raise big to chase others out or try to trap others with a small raise or smooth call. Either way isn’t fool proof and both could end up costing you chips if you don’t have the right timing.

Here’s an example making a bad decision either way:

I’ve seen someone who had a pair of Jacks in his hand. The board came up J, J, 6. There were three other people in the hand and he was first to act. He had four jacks and could not be beaten. Instead of pretending he had nothing and try to entice someone else to bet into the pot, he made a raise and chased everyone away.

On the other hand, a person is one of the first to act at the table. He has KQ off-suit raises 3 times the big blind. If someone else calls, the first to act is most likely behind. He may also find out that a short stack has gone all in and now is in the difficult place where he needs to commit more chips against a hand that may dominate his.

Position during the Hand

Positioning is the other most important thing that will help you decide whether or not you are going to stay in the hand. If you have an early position in a particular hand, you better have a solid hand before you commit chips to the pot.

One of the worst thing you can do is to call the pot when your first to act. It shows a serious sign of weakness in your hand or that you don’t really know how to play.

The further you go around the table, the better chance of getting a feel for what hands could be out there. If you fourth to act at a nine person table and all three before you have folded, I would say that you could try to get away with a modest raise to try to get the small and big blind specials out of the mix. Conversely, if you are fourth to act and two people have raised before you, you only have two moves: fold or all in. The hand will get much too expensive to try and pull some magic from the deck.

The best position to be at on the table is the dealer button. You get to see what everyone else does before you. It’s the easiest position to figure out whether you need to raise the pot to get the smooth callers out or whether there’s too much competition to call. A favorite move by some poker players is to raise on the dealer button if the cards have been folded around to him. People generally assume that there is at least one good hand in a nine person table.

When you are the small blind, don’t immediately call every time. This gives the person next to you the idea that you will call any hand and they will try to raise you to get you to fold or get more money out of your mediocre hand.

When you are the big blind, don’t call every time; but more importantly, don’t fold everytime that someone raises your big blind. People will recognize this and will raise on your blind often so it must be protected from time to time.

If you follow these general rules and guidelines, you will find much more success playing poker. What this should have taught you is that you need to be selective about which hands to call and see the flop on. One of the biggest mistakes that players make is making a hand with their average-at-best starting cards. Often these hands do not profit much, but will cost you dearly when someone makes a bigger hand.

Many players, in the excitement of having two aces in their hands end up making mistakes. What they do is make big, unreasonable bets and the flop it before they should. This can be a very stupid thing to do, as it will make it clear to everyone that you are in the possession of a strong hand and the pot will end up being very small.

You have to remember that the most important thing in the game is the pot. You have to wait for the right time to make your moves or else you will end up winning next to nothing. You also have to remember that though 2 aces are very strong, but there is always a probability of your being beaten. This goes to say that you can just be lost in the beauty of your cards and you have to keep calculating your odds and others odds, as you would do if you had a normal hand.

Another thing to keep in mind is that you also have to use the community cards to make your hand. And these community cards may just change the picture are they are dealt. Some other player might just end up making his hand equally stronger with his community cards.

So, take a note of all the odds in your head and then take the right decision. This can either be pushing all in or waiting longer and acting normal. This is a decision to be made after doing the math on the odds.

In case you decide to go for the pre-flop, you should do your best to ensure that pot grows to its maximum size. This is only possible with a good raise. Without acting too obvious about your hand, you should try to raise the wager. The motive is to avoid having the others get a feel that they are in possession of a weaker hand. The success of your pre flop depends on you this important motive.

As I said earlier, aces are not unbeatable and thus you should keep in mind, the possibility of the presence of strong hands like straights and flushes. So, be alert and bet accordingly, keeping a watch on these suits very carefully.

If you are going in for the flop early in the game, you don’t have to think about other players’ hands, as they have not had enough time to strengthen their cards till that point. You can try making call or raise at this point, making your opponents feel that you are hurrying into a decision because you don’t have such good hand.

You can also wait till the river card is dealt. Till this point, even you get enough time to add more strength to your card. Also, by this time you will know for sure if you can really face strong hands like the straights or flush.

Find more useful poker tips here.