Just as it is in Hold'em, your task in Seven-Card Stud is to make the best possible five-card hand from the seven available. Essentially the process of working out your best hand is exactly the same in the two games. The only difference is that whereas in Hold'em you are making the best hand from your two hole cards combined with five on a community board, in Seven-Card Stud you have three hidden cards with four more on your personal board. However, this makes no difference whatsoever to the values of the hands. You still have to take your best five cards from seven.
Here is an example of how to read your hand in Seven-Card Stud:
| Down Cards | Up Cards |
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In Seven-Card Stud you are allowed to use either one, two or all three down cards to make your hand. Here we can use the Ace of spades and Four of spades from our down cards together with the Ace of clubs, Ace of hearts and Four of clubs from our up cards to make Aces full of Fours (A
-A
-A
-4-4).
So you make the best five card hand from all seven available to you.
For more information on hand rankings, please refer to the following sections:
