Limit Seven-Card Stud is not a community card game as are Texas Hold'em and Omaha poker games. In any Seven-Card Stud poker game you have five betting rounds, whereas in Texas Hold'em and Omaha poker games, you have only four betting rounds. Each player is dealt two cards face-down and one card face-up. This is also a much slower game than the previously mentioned games, and many casinos and poker rooms offer it with antes, with the low door card bringing in the action, rather than the use of the blinds. However, many lower limit online and offline Seven-Card Stud games do not require antes, and the player with the lowest face-up card — their door card, also known as Third Street — will be forced to bet one or two dollars whether she likes her cards or not.

After the fourth card is dealt face-up on Fourth Street, the first person to act is the one with the highest showing hand on the board, and then the action continues clockwise from that player around the table.

During each round of betting the person who starts the action can change depending on each new face-up card that is dealt. (The hand with the highest face-up cards will always be the first to act after the cards are dealt for that round of betting.)

The objective of any poker game is to make the best five-card hand out of a total of seven dealt cards. Your door card is where most of your major decisions, good or bad, are made. This is because if you do not know what starting cards are playable, and you don't know what your opponents' door cards are telling you, you can find yourself beat without realizing how this could have happened. So your objective is to play three starting cards that will, hopefully, improve your hand on Fourth Street, Fifth Street, Sixth Street, and Seventh Street, this last known as the river in stud poker games.

The one most important decision you will have to make when playing Seven-Card Stud poker is whether you should play your three starting cards once you have seen all the door cards that have been dealt around the table.

Figure 9.1 A Seven-Card Stud game on the river (PokerRoom.com)