Seven-Card Stud – Assessing Your Hand

Oct 3rd, 2008 | By admin | Category: Stud Poker

Evaluating the value of your cards is a hard task in itself. Added to that is the fact that you can’t see your opponents’ cards which, for all you know, may be a lot better than your cards. It is therefore necessary for you to employ the proper techniques of assessing your hands in Seven-Card Stud to answer the most crucial question: should you call, raise, or fold?
Face Up Cards and Face Down Cards
Your face up cards constitute the bulk of your cards at hand. Face up cards are also important because this is the only way for you to see what cards your opponents are holding. Suffice to say that face up cards constitute the only visible way for you to compare and contrast your progress in the game, relative to your opponents.
The value of your face up cards can either make or break you. You may have very good face up cards, which is openly seen by your opponents, but your face up cards, however, may be pulled down by your face down cards. Always remember that face up cards are not everything. If you think the value of the face up cards can still compete with the highest ranking combination of face up cards, maybe that means you should continue fighting until the showdown.
Junk Hands and Not
What you should always keep a close look out for are junk hands. These are hands that will not give you an opportunity to win at all. Simply put, there are no possible combinations for cards that do not have the same suit or cannot be paired in number. This perhaps is the best time for you to fold than to further suffer the consequences and try to fight for a card combination that doesn’t even have any value.
A Close Look
The best possible to way to assess your hand in Seven-Card Stud is to assess it relative to your projections of what your opponents might have. If they have a pretty good combination of face up cards, try to project if it can get even better with their face down cards. Never underestimate your competition, as it may close in on you the moment you least expect it.
Also, make sure that you understand the values of card combinations used in Seven Card Stud. All will be useless if you don’t know the commensurate values of the card combinations.