The difference I see between Hold em and stud and stud hi lo

[Mike Gallo]

Lately I have played much more stud and stud hi lo than hold em. I used to play only hold em.

I play in Atlantic City and for every one hold em game we have three stud games.We only have two cardrooms here. Most of the hold em players are regulars, where as the stud players are mostly tourists.

I hardly ever see a new face in the hold em games during the week. On the weekends we sometimes get new players.

However the stud games have many unfamiliar faces, or familiar faces who play predictable. More people are willing to play stud so, I decided to go where the money might be.

The first difference I noticed is how passive the game is compared to hold em. Usually the only player who check raises or reraises at the table is me. I check raised Saturday and I thought this older gentlemen that I check raised was going to hit me with his cain. People do not like that here.

In hold em there arent any upcards to keep track of. I was suprised how many people do not pay attention to upcards. Keeping track of upcards tires me out, and I can only play stud in 3 hour intervals.

I find myself getting the right price to chase more. In my casino an open pair can only bet 5 in the stud hi lo game. I will call that bet if I have position and it cant get raised behind me, and I have a good draw with live cards.

I find a lot of the Theory of Poker theories to work more at stud than in Hold em. In Hold em players usually play counterinuitivly.

Just some observations. I wonder how the stud games are out west.

[Andy B]

The small stud games in Minnesota are about the same as they are there, from the sound of it. Loose, passive, very profitable relative to the stakes, and not subject to quite the swings that you have in hold'em. I just have a couple of observations (I might have more later; you never know).

Check-raising is pretty rare in low-limit stud games, and I almost never do it myself. I think that my primary reason is that my opponents don't bet enough, so check-raising fails an unacceptable percentage of the time. Another reason is that it pisses people off. Now, I don't mind having people pissed off at me--lots of people are pissed off at me--but it does tend to take people out of the gambling mood, and this is bad for the game. This is much more true in low-limit stud games than it is in any hold'em game. There are even some extreme live ones that I refuse to check-raise when heads-up in a $30/60 game, because I don't want them to start paying attention. /forums/images/icons/smile.gif

I do find stud to be much more intuitive than hold'em, which is part of why it's my favorite game. Not that I don't like hold'em, but I still don't have it quite figured out.

In stud/8, you should frequently call a paired door card with a good draw even when out of position. Paired door cards just aren't as dangerous in that game as they are in high-only stud.