Stud Hi Lo
Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo poker sites are hard to find because the game isn’t widely played around the world. Ever since Texas Hold'em stole the limelight in the 1980s, it has gotten harder and harder to find 7 Card Stud poker games. The good news is that several poker sites offer 7 Card Stud Hi-Lo games that are just a click away.
7 Card Stud Hi Lo Hand Rankings. The Hi pot uses the conventional hand rankings system in which a Royal Flush is the best possible hand. The low part of the pot uses the ace to five lowball hand rankings system in which the best possible hand is A-2-3-4-5. When playing ace to five poker straights and flushes don’t count as high hands and aces. This means that it is much easier to read the board in Seven-Card Stud Hi/Lo than in Omaha Hi/Lo! In Hi/Lo games, there is always an Eight qualifier for the low. In other words, to qualify as a low hand, you must have five different cards ranked Eight or below. Thus 8-7-6-5-4 qualifies as a low hand in Hi/Lo games, whereas 9-4-3-2-A and 4-3-3-2.
The following poker sites can be considered the best poker sites for 7 Card Stud Hi-Lo because they offer the most tables and tournaments. You won’t find a ton of 7 Card Stud Hi-Low games at these poker sites but you’ll have better luck at these sites than at any live casino.
- Location: Costa Rica
- Established: 1996
- Ref. Code:Use Links
- Traffic: 107,438 Players
- Mac Friendly: Yes
Full Tilt Poker has the greatest variety of poker games and manages to attract players of all types. Thanks to the player traffic and availability of active 7 Card Stud tables, we consider Full Tilt Poker to be the best 7 Card Stud poker site. You can usually find around 100 or so real money players at the Full Tilt 7 Card Stud Hi-Lo tables. This probably sounds pretty thin for online standards but it beats trying to find a live game with that many players.
Full Tilt also provides players with a few 7 Card Stud Hi-Lo tournaments every week. The buy-ins range in size from $5 to $200. The traffic here is pretty solid but you have to wait a little while between tournaments. One of the bigger 7 Card Stud tournaments can be found at the Full Tilt Online Poker Series. This tournament costs $109 to enter and it offers a $100,000 guaranteed prize pool. That’s an incredible prize pool for such a rarely-played game.
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- Location: Netherlands
- Established: 2004
- Mark. Code:MIK500
- Traffic: 235,929 Players
- Mac Friendly: Yes
As the biggest all around poker site in the world, PokerStars has enough players to keep 7 Card Stud Hi-Lo tables running all the time. There are actually more 7 Card Stud Hi-Lo players here than at Full Tilt but the majority of those extra players only play at micro stake levels such as $0.04/$0.08. The higher stakes games still get traffic, though. At the time of this writing, there were two different $30/$60 7 Card Stud Hi-Lo tables running.
PokerStars holds Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo tournaments most days of the week at buyins that range from free to $215. The biggest Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo tournaments occur during the World Championship of Online Poker. That tournament series includes Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo tournaments with $150,000 and $100,000 guaranteed prize pools.
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Any of the poker sites above are a great choice for Seven Card Stud H/L players. If you wish to play 7 Stud High-Low online but don't know the game yet, read on for the full rules of 7 Stud High-Low poker.
How to Play Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo
Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo (also known as Seven Card Stud 8 or Better) is a poker variant that is played just like normal 7 Card Stud except for the showdown rules. In this form of poker, each pot is split between the best high hand and the best low hand. Sometimes there will be no qualifying low hand and the player with the best high hand will just win the entire pot.
Stud Hi-lo Calculator
Low hands in Seven Card Stud are determined in the same manner as A-5 lowball. A hand must contain five unpaired cards ranked 8 or lower to qualify for the low half of the pot. In hands that are declared low, Aces are considered 1 and straights/flushes are ignored.
The Antes
Each hand in 7 Card Stud Hi-Lo begins with an ante. Each player must pay a small bet into the pot equal to some predetermined amount. In most cases, the ante is set to be equal to 10% the size of the lower betting limit.
Third Street
The dealer begins Third Street by giving each player two cards face down and one card face up. The player with the lowest card showing must pay the bring-in, which is a forced bet of half the lower betting limit. The player who pays the bring-in begins the betting action by either leaving the cost of entry as it is (half a small bet) or by raising it up to a full small bet. The action continues clockwise around the table.
Stud Hi Low Strategy
Fourth Street
Next, each player receives one exposed card. The player who has the highest poker hand showing at this point starts the action. The first player to act may either check or bet. All players lose the option to check after a bet has been made. At that point, the only options are to call the bet, raise or fold.
Fifth Street
Each player is dealt one exposed card. The player with the highest hand showing begins another round of betting. Starting now, the upper betting limit is used for all bets and raises.
Sixth Street
Each player is dealt one exposed card. This is followed by another round of betting.
Seventh Street
Stud Hi Lo Hand Rankings
Each player receives one card face down. This is followed by one more round of betting. The remaining players in the hand may now show their cards. The player with the best high hand wins half the pot and the player with the best low hand wins half the pot. If nobody qualifies with a low hand, the entire pot is given to the player with the high hand.
The same player may qualify for both the high and low half of the pot, using different cards for each hand if necessary. Players may also win both halves of the pot with hands like A-2-3-4-5 and low flushes with five cards 8 or lower.