Playing in Loose Games
When you are playing at a smaller limit, the card game sometimes will be looser than what you generally see.
If you are lucky enough to be in this situation, seven card stud eight-or-better becomes a great game.
Since there are only a relatively small number of good multiway starting hands, this means that a lot of your opponents will be playing small pairs, second-best high hands, and weak non-connected low cards.
In this case, all the good hands go up in value, and you should make a lot of money by just playing quality starting hands in a straightforward manner.
Hands that have two-way possibilities, such as small flush cards and small straight cards, go up in value.
But high hands usually drop in value, because more lows will be made ( since there are more people in the pots ), plus it will be very hard to rate your hand and know how to play it correctly.
When you are playing in games like this, you should tighten up rather than loosen up.
In many other forms of poker, you can play some slightly weaker hands when the games are loose, but doing this in seven card stud eight-or-better is a major error.
You won’t be able to ante-stealing, so you should discard just about all of your small pairs, and you also should throw away most of hour medium and high pairs.
This limits you to the very strongest high hands, to low hands that are connected for straights and flushes, and to low hands that are connected for straights and flushes, and to low hands that have an ace.
When playing in this manner, your average starting hand will tend to be much bigger than normal.
This means that you will be betting and raising just to get more money into the pot.
Also, your opponents will be turning up unexpected cards, which will make many players hard to read.
Although you should be able to at least determine whether they are going high or low, it will be much more difficult to put them on specific ideas hands.
Consequently, you should tend to play straightforward, and when you think you have the best hand, get your money in the pot. Either bet or raise, but don’t attempt any tricky plays.
However, when your hand is weak, try to play for as little as possible.
And if you bust out on fourth street, be willing to see fifth street more often than you normally would, since the pot odds for staying in frequently will be larger.
In addition, you should make bigger hands and have more potential for multiway scoops.
Introduction / Playing in Tight Games / Playing in Loose Games / Playing Short-handed / Big Games Versus Small Games / Running the Game / Afterthought
