Stud Poker is the oldest of all current poker games and dates back nearly 200 years to the American West, played by miners, farmers and river boaters. In fact, 10 years ago, stud, or some version of it, was still the game of choice for home and casino gaming.
In the early 70’s, things started to change when Benny Binion created the annual World Series of Poker event and declared that the main event game would be Texas Hold’em. When Internet amateur Chris Moneymaker won that tournament in 2003, he sealed hold’em as the game to play and is now more synonymous with the word poker than any other game.
Therefore, in terms of overall popularity, stud poker pales in comparison to Texas Hold’em and, to a lesser extent, Omaha as well. There are several reasons why this disparity exists, starting with the number of rounds. In 7 card stud, there are 5 betting and hold’em rounds qq online, there are only 4 rounds. This makes the difference in two critical ways, as players want to see as many hands as possible to raise hands per hour and therefore the winning rate per hour, and casinos want to trade as many hands per hour as possible. in order to maximize rake. The same goes for live casinos and online poker rooms.
Mainly because of its drawing game nature, stud is usually played in a limit format and, as you probably know, most people prefer no limit hold’em. No-limit pots also tend to increase and that means again a higher rake compared to limit games. Then again, this is a financial impediment to playing stud games in casinos.
Online poker has really fueled the rapid growth of poker over the last decade, so in reality what happens online plays a big factor in what happens in live games. Stud also falls short in this respect, because he doesn’t waste time on TV, because there are so few tournaments and games being recorded because the general public won’t be able to understand stud on TV as easy as hold’em.
There is one other thing that prevents stud from having explosive growth, especially online, and this is because you really can’t effectively play online with various table stud games. The reason for this is because the game is really based on live cards and draws and if you are not paying attention to which cards were shown and folded in the hand you are playing, you will be at a relentless and persistent disadvantage. Even playing 2 stud tables will become a challenge, especially if you are playing two hands at the same time. Consider that most hold’em rounders play four or more tables at a time to make the most of their hourly rate. So you can see that these players would avoid stud tables for simple financial reasons, even if 7 card stud competition is considerably weaker.
There are a few things to stud about, and one of them is that there are still stud events at the World Series of Poker, and Stud and Razz’s growing popularity – which is another version of stud, are part of the structure of the HORSE game and it’s a tournament. The highly publicized WSOP title that many professionals would like to gain due to the wide range of skills involved and the prestige that goes with it. In addition, there is now poker calculator software that tracks all known cards in online games and adjusts your odds and odds against even the doubled cards. After all, there is potential multi-tabling to stud around the corner as more software producers enter the market.