The Wisdom (or Foolishness) of Saving Bets on the End

Andy finally decides three Sevens can't win. He saves the last bet by folding. He would have saved a lot more if he hadn't let his optimism get the better of him during the early rounds, where each time his hand was fair, but just not quite fair enough. Just as we saw in the hold'em hypothetical hand, this "late clarity" of thinking is probably wrong. If Andy was going to fold at the end, he should have folded after Greg's initial re-raise.

Once Andy called that bet, he was pretty much committed to see the hand through to the end. When he finally folded, the pot contained €249. He was risking €8 to win €249, odds of better than 30-1.

Andy invested a lot of money in this pot while he had a bad hand. He finally made a pretty good one. Although it turned out that he was indeed beaten, it wasn't impossible for his three Sevens to have won. Having run the first 1,450 meters of this 1,500-meter race, Andy probably should have stayed in for the last few steps. With the pot offering odds of better than 30-1, he doesn't have to be right very often for this final €8 to be a good investment.

Bob turns over his full house, and Greg curses his bad luck. The best hand at the start has turned into the best hand at the finish-something that happens much more frequently than most poker players realize. The participants who played in an overly optimistic style lost a lot more than the players who realized their hands were inadequate, and who folded, knowing another hand would be dealt in a minute or two.

While this hypothetical hand isn't typical-it's unusual to see three strong hands like a full house, a straight, and three of a kind all at the same time-it certainly isn't impossible, or even highly improbable. I've taken a bit of dramatic license to demonstrate how overly optimistic thinking can prove expensive. It can also be expensive to forget which cards have been folded, or who was the aggressor early in the hand.

That the final card is dealt face down demonstrates one more very significant difference between hold'em and stud. In hold'em, it's fairly easy to figure out what kind of hands your opponent might have, because only two of his cards are face down. But in stud, with three cards face down, a player can have a visible board that looks very weak (like Bob's), and yet he can have a powerhouse hand, even four of a kind.

If you play strong cards at the start, pay attention both to the cards in the other players' hands and the way they bet them, and don't let optimism get the best of you, you'll be well on your way to playing a very solid game of seven stud.

If that sounds like a lot, you're right. That's why poker, in the long run, is a game of skill, not luck. But take heart. Especially at the lower limits, most of your opponents won't be performing all these important tasks very well either. Focus on making good decisions, be honest with yourself about how well or poorly you played, and try to keep improving, and the players who beat you today may find you too tough to handle a few months from now.