Dresden

In the history of poker, the game which has probably had the most money traded over it is probably Seven Card Stud. It blends luck and skill perfectly, and is arguably the most complex and skilled form of poker out there.

However, it differs quite substantially from many other forms of poker, and if you are just starting out on it, one of the key lessons you need to learn is that of sticking to solid hand values.

Stud is a limit game, and as such, it requires a much stricter adherence to starting hand guidelines than the big bet games. Unlike in no limit and pot limit games, where large pots can be won late on in hands with marginal holdings, in limit games you can't win enough on the later streets to pay for all the time your marginal hands miss. You simply cannot fight the maths in limit games, and although you still have substantial room to manoeuvre in Stud, in ring games for the most part you need to stick to solid starting hands - particularly if you are new to the game.

Although you should only be playing quite a limited range of hands, those that you do you should be playing extremely aggressively in Stud. The only real exception to this is rolled up trips (when you start with three of a kind), here your hand is so strong that you generally want to be encouraging action from as many players as possible, and these should usually be played quite passively until the later streets.

Most of the money in Stud comes from weak players who not only play too many hands, but play them too passively, choosing to call bets early in the hope of hitting something. Because of this, you want to be charging these players as much as possible to stick around any time you have a hand - they will call, so the simplest and shortest route to the money is simply in betting and raising any time you enter a pot.

Like all forms of poker, Stud can at first seem a world of new possibilities, with every hand throwing up some possible future combinations. Do not fall into the trap of thinking like this - the first and most key lesson you can ever learn about Stud is the key importance of solid starting hands, and you forget it at your peril.