Five-card stud

The rules of five-card stud

1. Everyone puts in an ante.
2. Each player gets one card face down, the hole card, and one face up, the door card.
3. The lowest door card makes a forced bet called the bring-in; ties go by suit, and betting goes clockwise from there.
4. A third, fourth and fifth card come face up, one at a time. After each, the player whose up cards make the best poker hand bets or checks first.
5. After the last round, the players left turn up their hole cards, and the best five-card hand wins.

With four of every player's five cards face up, you always know most of what you are up against, and every card you can see is one that cannot come to you. Suits only decide who brings in; at the showdown they never break a tie.

The odds of each hand

You keep the five cards you are dealt, so the odds are those of a five-card deal from 52 cards. A pair or better comes 49.9% of the time; one hand in two ends as high card.

Pairing your hole card

Your hole card and door card are a pair 5.9% of the time, about 1 in 17. Counting only your own cards, the hole card pairs with one of your four up cards 22.1% of the time. A hidden pair is the hand other players cannot see, and up cards already out of the deck lower those odds: if two cards of your hole card's rank show elsewhere, only one is left to find.

Five-card stud and the other stud games

Seven-card stud deals three cards to start and seven in all, of which you use five, so the hands run much stronger. Razz plays seven-card stud for the lowest hand. All three are compared on the types of poker games page, and the order of the hands is on the hand rankings.