My Stud Mistakes

[BeerMoney]

No one in their recommendations has mentioned the size of the ante. If you are playing $.5/$1, the ante is huge in comparison to the size of the bets. This should have some influence on starting decisions.

[studjunkie]

It has helped me as much as anything to have learned to commit the amounts of dead cards to memory. It's naturally often better to know exactly how dead or live your hand is in addition to opponent hands.

I don't have a photographic memory but it's good enough that with a lot of practice I became able to pull it off.

Because of this, I can often get away with playing hands many would toss as a rule. Straight draws do indeed suck in general but if they're live enough and your opponents hands aren't very likely to top them if you catch then they're worth it.

Often people who aren't keeping as precise track of the deck will suspect me of being fishy when I manage to show down with hands they'd never take that far so it has the added bonus of drawing more action from them later on.

I'll often play low pairs too, especially in low and microlimit games if they're completely alive and if opponents aren't showing face door cards or clearly representing fire in the hole. As long as there is a good chance of improving and my opponents aren't looking too much stronger I'm generally in.

I'm not trying to come off like superman. Like nearly everyone, I have my flaws, too. The main thing I need to improve upon is making adjustments so I continue to work toward that end. I also need to work on more consistently bothering to more precisely keep track of my pot odds and making better implied odds estimations. I often settle for approximating these too roughly and I know it costs me money.