Slow playing suited babies

Poker Variants / Marcus Bateman / 14 March 2011 / Leave a Comment

The dream hand to look down at in poker variant seven card stud hi/lo, three suited babies refers to any hand that has three low, suited cards in it. These are by far the most profitable hands in the game, and playing them well is key to long term success any time you sit down to a game or rotation of hi/lo stud.

Much like rolled up trips in regular seven card stud, these hands are so powerful that you very rarely want to be raising hard early with them - they are so powerful that you want to encourage action from as many people as possible on the first couple of streets. They play so well in multi-way pots that the usual concerns of forcing people to pay for their draws and trying to thin the field go out of the window, and they are hands that early on you nearly always want to play as passively as possible.

However, once you have gone a street or two (unless your hand has really started to deteriorate), you need to start jamming the pot as hard as possible. The basic principle behind these hands is to try and get people to catch enough on the early streets to stick around, and then force them to pay as many big bets as possible once they have enough to draw at or call with. As you cannot win a stack in one bet in any limit game, at some point you have to just start raising as hard as possible, and it is critical that you do not get carried away with your trap and start pushing hard as soon as it looks like you have some takers.

It is rare in limit games that you ever want to try and play in an overly tricky manner, but hands of this type of strength are certainly in the category where you often should. Stud is a game with a much larger range of possible holdings than a game like hold'em, and the starting hands that occupy they very highest echelons of strength are nearly always so good that they require special treatment. Suited babies work so well in so many directions that you pretty much open shop for anyone who wants to play, and it is crucial that you maximise action whenever you look down at these hands, as they provide some of the biggest earners in the game.

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