Quick answer: Stud poker is a family of poker games where each player receives a mix of face-down and face-up cards, and the betting order shifts every round based on who’s showing the best hand — not on dealer position, as in Hold’em or Omaha. Seven-card stud is the most widely played variant; five-card stud is its simpler, less common predecessor.
What Makes Stud Poker Different
Stud poker’s defining feature is its mix of face-up and face-down cards, which changes two things you’d take for granted in Texas Hold’em or Omaha: first, you can see part of every opponent’s hand throughout the whole game, not just at showdown. Second, the player who acts first changes every betting round — it’s whoever is showing the strongest up-cards, not a fixed position relative to the dealer.
Five-Card Stud: The Original, Now Mostly Retired
Five-card stud was once the dominant form of stud poker before Seven-card stud overtook it. The structure is simple: each player receives one card face-down and one face-up, followed by a betting round. Players then receive one more face-up card at a time, with a betting round after each, until everyone holds one face-down card and four face-up cards.
That structure is also exactly why it fell out of favor: with only one hidden card per player, opponents’ hands are largely visible for most of the game, which makes for a much less strategically rich game than Seven-card stud or the flop-based games that eventually overtook both.
Seven-Card Stud: The Standard Version
Seven-card stud follows the same face-down/face-up dealing pattern as five-card stud, but goes further: each player receives one face-down and one face-up card to start, then additional face-up cards one at a time with a betting round after each, until each player holds one face-down card and five face-up cards. A final seventh card is then dealt face-down, followed by the last betting round.
At showdown, each player builds the best possible five-card hand using any combination of their seven cards — unlike Hold’em, where you’re limited to combining exactly your two hole cards with the shared board.
Where Stud Fits Today
Seven-card stud was, for decades, the standard game in home games and casinos across the US, especially on the East Coast, before Texas Hold’em’s rise in popularity overtook it. It’s still spread at many poker rooms today, though typically in smaller numbers of tables than Hold’em or Omaha. If you’re comparing hand strength concepts across variants, our guide to playing strong starting hands like pocket Kings is a useful companion, even though the specific strategy differs game to game.
Stud Poker FAQ
Is Seven-card stud harder to learn than Texas Hold’em?
The rules aren’t more complex, but tracking each opponent’s visible up-cards across multiple streets requires more memory and attention than reading a single shared board, which is why many players find it has a steeper practical learning curve.
Why did stud poker lose popularity to Texas Hold’em?
Hold’em’s shared community-card structure makes it easier to learn, faster to play, and better suited to large tournament fields — all factors that contributed to its rise, particularly after televised poker boosted Hold’em’s visibility in the 2000s.