Saturday, May 24, 2008

Why limit Stud?

Last week at lunch poker Ryan was pondering as to why 7cs was played limit, presumably as opposed to NL or even PL. I immediately piped in that there were too many streets to which Ryan replied that there was only one more. After some quick math I determined that he was indeed correct.

After pondering it over some more I think that it really would be a different game, or rather not really much of a game, if it were NL. I think that hands would rarely get to 7th street and that would take away a lot of the game. In Razz for instance anyone with A23 or even three primes would be hammering that pot before they bricked. In 7cs it would be a shove fest when anyone had a big pair or rolled up. I think part of the appeal of 7cs is the delicate balance between early made low strength hands racing against draws to more powerful hands with the River being the finish line. And 7cs/8 would not even exist since low draws would never get to their fifth card even if they were catching perfect up to that point. I suppose a monster draw could try it but they would probably be put all in before they get there and will just need to hope to coast into a hand after the money gets in. Even going pot limit would shut out any drawing hands if two or more big pairs starting re-potting each other on 3rd.

Yeah, I think 7cs has to be Fixed Limit.

2 comments:

Ryan said...

For the record, it was Nick (or someone else) wondering about no-limit stud, I just pointed out that there is only one additional betting round.

Something about NL 7CS feels wrong to me, but I don't know if a lot of the reasons you cite are why. Seems to me you could say the same thing for NLHE in many cases..."big pocket pairs are just going to be a shove fest."

"In Razz, anyone with A23 or even three primes would be hammering that pot before they bricked." In NLHE, anyone with a made hand hammers the pot before someone catches up.

I'm not sure. On the one hand, it feels wrong, but on the other hand, I can't come up with a specific reason that fully explains why.

Sushi Cowboy said...

Correction: Nick then, not Ryan. Sorry, you know how bad my memory is.

I guess there would always be the balance between hammering the pot and maximizing profit so that would be a mitigating factor for some games. But 7cs/8 would be a totally different game and I guess that is the game I think of most when you talk about Stud.

It would be an interesting experiment to try. I'll throw it out to the forum to see what they have to say.