Seven Card Stud
HOW TO PLAY THE GAME
This game is played the same as regular Seven-Card Stud except for a few changes:
1. During the first betting interval (Third Street), it is the player with the highest face-up card that bets first and not the lowest.
2. The pot is split in two between the highest- and lowest-ranking hands. A player can use any combination of five cards from their hand to make both the highest- and lowest-ranking hand and win the entire pot. Skilled poker players aim to do this every hand if at all possible. For a hand to qualify as a winning low hand, the cards must be eight or lower (also called ‘8 or better’) without any pairs. If there isn’t a low hand, the player with the highest hand wins the whole pot.
If there is an odd chip in the pot and it can not be split in half, the extra chip is given to the winning high hand. If two players are tied for both high and low, and there is an extra chip, it is given to the player with the highest card by suit out of all of their seven cards. If the tie is between two players for the high, the player with the highest card by suit gets the extra chip, and if the tie was for the low, it goes to the lowest-ranking card by suit.
From lowest to highest, the suit ranking is: clubs, diamonds, hearts and spades.
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SEVEN-CARD STUD HIGH-LOW RULES
These rules apply in addition to general poker rules, so be sure to read that section as well.
1. Except where otherwise noted, all of the rules for Seven-Card Stud apply to Seven-Card Stud High-Low Split.
2. For a hand to qualify as low, 8-or-better applies, unless there is a posting stating differently. If no player has a qualifying low hand, the high hand wins the entire pot.
3. A player can use any combination of five cards to make their low and high hands; the same card can be used to make both.
4. To start the action, the player with the low card by suit places a forced bet. Aces are high when determining who bets first during the first round.
5. Aces are high or low (except as mentioned in rule #4).
6. The ranking of a low hand is not influenced by straights and flushes.
7. The betting structure in fixed-limit games is as follows:
- lower limit on the 1st and 2nd betting rounds (Third and Fourth Streets)
- higher limit on the 3rd and 4th betting rounds (Sixth and Seventh Streets/the River)
The limit is not affected by an open pair on the 2nd betting round (Fourth Street).
8. The cards decide to split the pot and not by consensus among the players.
9. If there is an odd chip in the pot and it can not be split in half, the extra chip is given to the winning high hand. If two players are tied for both high and low, and there is an extra chip after splitting the pot, it is given to the player with the highest card by suit out of all of their seven cards.
10. If the tie is between two players for the high, the player with the highest card by suit gets the extra chip, and if the tie was for the low, it goes to the lowest-ranking card by suit. If the tie is between two low players, the extra chip goes to the player with the lowest-ranking hand by suit.
