Understanding 7-Card Stud with Barry Greenstein
Longtime poker pro Barry Greenstein was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in 2011, and for good reason.
A player of high-stakes cash games for decades, Greenstein has additionally amassed over $8 million in tournament earnings since the early 1990s, including collecting cashes since 1992 at the World Series of Poker where he's won three bracelets.
Greenstein was back at the WSOP again this summer where he earned five more cashes in no-limit hold'em, 2-7 NL single draw, mixed NLH-PLO, mixed PLO/PLO8/Big O, and the eight-game mix.
As that line-up of games might suggest, Greenstein has long been a proponent of playing more than just no-limit hold'em, noting in his book Ace on the River: An Advanced Poker Guide and elsewhere how it is important to learn different variants and become a more well-rounded, complete poker player.
PokerNews caught up with Greenstein at the WSOP where he shared some thoughts about one of his favorite non-NLH variants — seven-card stud.
As Greenstein notes, seven-card stud was once the favored game by many poker players, in particular those who learned the game prior to the rise of Texas hold'em. Even after the advent of hold'em, many east coast players continued to focus on seven-card stud well into the latter decades of the 20th century just prior to the poker "boom" in the 2000s.
From there, Greenstein spells out some of the key differences between hold'em and stud, the first having to do with the fact that while players cannot see either of their opponents' hole cards in hold'em, seven-card stud features "up cards" that give players a partial idea what their opponents have.
He then talks about starting hand selection and some of his own considerations when it comes to how he approaches stud hands from street to street, as well as other key differences between stud and hold'em that affect strategy. Take a look:
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