The importance of the up cards in seven card stud.

Marcus Bateman / Marcus Bateman / 16 September 2008 / Leave a Comment

Many players who have started out just playing hold'em or Omaha often struggle with stud games when they first play them. This is probably because stud games require a much greater attention to detail than flop games, due to the large number of cards exposed during a hand.

This is especially true when playing in full ring games, where you will frequently be in situations where you will have to remember the value and suit of upwards of ten different cards most hands.

The reason that keeping track of these up cards is so important is simple - they make a huge difference to the possible strength of your hand. If you hold three or four to a flush, but have already seen five cards of that suit be dealt out, you should frequently fold if there is a lot of raising going on and the pot is laying you the wrong odds. This is also true if you are trying to draw to two pair or three of a kind - a pair of eights is a much weaker hand if you have already seen the other two go elsewhere.

There are various techniques that can really help a newcomer to keep track of up cards. When you start out you should not aim to keep track of everything. Ease yourself into it by only looking for cards that are relevant to your hand. If you start with three diamonds, just focus on keeping track of the number of diamonds out there.

The human memory can be trained to a very high level with practice, and as your stud experience starts to rise you will quickly see that with the right attention to detail you will start to pick up on all manner of extra information. Remember that this information is not only useful to you and your hand, it also gives a huge amount of information about your opponents hands. If they are not keeping track of the up cards but you are, you will frequently be in situations where you know that their hand is actually much weaker than it appears to be - with the result that you feel happy trying to get as much money in as possible.

The greatest stud players will know the value and suit of every card dealt in a given hand, and this point alone gives them a sizeable edge of any player that has not. By slowly training yourself to keep a constant track of the up cards, you will greatly improve your stud game.