[AlanBostick]

Here is an idea that's been crystalizing in my mind recently:

Eight-or-better stud is not really a seven-card game; to first order, it is really a five-card game with two additional betting rounds.

To put it another way, the big money-making hands in stud/8 are the ones that develop locks or near-locks on fifth street, and can either freeroll the opposition or extract money from opponents who are drawing. Therefore, players should favor hands that offer possibilities of building fifth-street locks, and tend to drop out when those locks don't develop.

This is only to first order, of course. The second-order correction to this probably ought to cover situations where one catches not bad but mediocre on fourth or fifth street -- pairing rather than bricking up, for example, catching an 8 when head-up against an obvious high hand, picking up some sort of backdoor draw, etc. -- and knowing when pot size and one's opponents' likely holdings justify continuing to play a hand. And there is of course richness and complexity to the game beyond these points, too.

What do people think of this notion? Is it too obvious to need to be said? Is it dangerously misleading? Is it true but incomplete?

Would you consider it to be good advice for stud/8 newbies?