Stud Poker: Major Factors of Playing Online
A stud poker game is a game where cards are dealt one or more at a time (but not at all once) with some of the cards dealt face-up and other face-down and a betting round following each new dealing. There is a plenty load of stud poker games that are played with seven, five or even two cards, but all of them follow the main stud poker principle. Stud poker games are liked by experienced poker players, because strategy and skills play a very important role in these games.
The most classic stud poker games are seven card stud and five card stud, which are very similar games, but with different dealing sequence. In seven card stud poker cards are dealt in the following order: two face-down, four face-up and one face-down. In five card stud poker only the first card is dealt face-down and the other four face-up.
To vary stud poker games various alternative rules may be used. The game can involve wild cards. These wild cards can be determined different ways. In some games the lowest card in the hand may be wild for the owner only. In others the wild for all players is the card that is dealt face-up after a certain face-up card determined by the rules (for example, the card dealt after a Queen, like in Follow the Lady game). There are much more ways to determined wild cards. See descriptions of stud poker games at our site and find out what they are.
High/Low split is applicable to stud poker as well as to most other poker games. A game played in High/Low split format has two winners: the player with the highest hand at the table and the player with the lowest one. These players split the pot equally in the end of the game. High/Low split games may require declaration, which means that players must decide and declare whether they plan to win the Low or the High half of the pot. After this, players can not win the half they did not declare, so if a player declares High and has the lowest hand at the table, he can not win the Low half. Some games also apply qualifiers, usually for low hands only. So if a game has an eight or better qualifier, only players who have an eight-high or lower hand can challenge for the Low half of the pot.
LowBall:
Lowball is another format used to vary stud poker games. It does not change the game itself but involves a reversed hands ranking, so the player with the lowest hand wins, just like if the was played in High/Low split format and all players went low. When playing low games it is important to remember that Aces can be low if unless it is determined differently by the game or the table rules. Straights usually do not count in low games, but once again, this rule may not apply to some games and some tables.