Good stud books/material?

[grapes]

I have 7CSFAP, Super System, and all the Poker Essays volumes, which all have excellent stud material. Where do I turn for more stud material? The only other (non-beginner) stud book I know of is Championship Stud, I think by Cloutier. Anyone have an opinion on that?

Why is there so little stud material? I know S&M say it is much more difficult to write stud material than hold'em for various reasons, which I agree with, but that doesn't seem like the whole story.

I spend most of my time at the tables playing stud, online, and I wonder why so many more players play hold'em, from the beginning penny limits up through $20/40.

Most people come to a cardroom (B&M or online) after playing in home games for pennies. From my own experience, a lot more casual home game players are familiar with stud than with hold'em. It would seem like this should carry over into the cardrooms, at least at the micro limits, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

I think it has something to do with the abundance of good literature available for hold'em, and the lack of it for stud (this may be a chicken and egg problem). 7CSFAP is great, but it's the only book out there, and it's not for beginners (I did hear something about one of the Card Player writers writing a beginner stud book, but I'm not sure if it's any good, or even if it exists).

If it's not the lack of literature, then why are there so few new stud players, comparatively? I would love to hear opinions and ideas about what could be done to make the game stronger.

[Al Mirpuri]

There is a book by Konstantin Othmer which is called 'Seven Card Stud' I think. However, the original edition was entitled 'Elements of Seven Card Stud'- I love the title. The newer edition has corrected some of the faults of the original but accepted opinion is you still have to sift the wheat from the chaff to benefit from reading it.

'Championship Stud' is by a coterie of authors and Mr Mason Malmuth has given it a mixed review (in GT&OT). I recall that he did not particularly rate the Seven Stud section of it (it also deals with Razz and Stud8).

There is also a book called 'Seven Card Stud:The Waiting Game' by George Percy and mentioned by many which hammers home the point that you should play tight. From your post I take it that you know that. However, it is a book that a beginner might find useful.

You are putting the cart before the horse:the abundance of hold'em games and players produced the literature not vice versa. Though there is no denying that the interaction between the players and the theorists is symbiotic. The games fuel the literature and the literature fuels the games. However, as is well known most players are not readers.

[Andy B]

Championship Stud has three authors, none of them Cloutier. Linda Johnson was one of the authors. I forget which section she was responsible for, but it wasn't the high-only stud section. I guess that according to Mason, Linda's section was pretty good but the others weren't. I haven't read the book.

Really, you have about all you should ever need there. I haven't quite gotten around to reading the Othmer book, which seems pretty good if confusing. Roy West of Card Player fame has written a book which is aimed at low limit players. I haven't read it, but a number of people whose opinions I respect recommend it highly.

Stud is a great game, my favorite casino poker game. I think that a lot of the appeal of hold'em is that it is deceptively simple. You don't have to remember all of those damned cards. It's also faster. My local room does more to promote hold'em than stud. Since all games are raked, and hold'em is the fastest game, it behooves them to spread more hold'em games. There are more hold'em tournaments than stud and Omaha/8 tournaments combined, and all of the stud tournaments are pretty small. Jackpot promotions usually center around the hold'em jackpot.

[MRBAA]

Playing in a private 5-10 game Friday with seven players we were rotating between stud hi, he and o-e. The other players definitely didn't want to play stud -- too slow, too many cards to remember. I think the speed of the board games and the simplicity of having one set of common cards, not individual complete hands is what it's about.