Seven Card Stud Reading Hands Strategy and Types of Poker Players

As you have already noticed during your Seven Card Stud games there are several types of players you're up against – the loose player, the tight player, the aggressive player, the passive player and any imaginable combination of these types. Recognizing players types and adjusting your reading hands strategy according to them is important.

If you recognize a player as a "the loose player type" during a Seven Card Stud game you can adjust your reading strategy as following: you would put less importance on his [starting requirements] and more on his bets. You can expect a loose player type to care much of his initial cards, so there's no use trying to add it when to analyze him by reading hands strategy.

By putting more weight on a loose player's bets during 4th Street and 5th Street you can read his hands better: if he raises his bets more than usual then he's onto something good, perhaps a Trip or a Flush. Loose player types don't usually bluff, but there aren't "strict rules" for reading hands strategy, it is important to "stay tuned" to each individual player. Always adjust your Seven Card Stud reading hands strategy to each player you play against.

When you compete against an aggressive player type then you do the opposite – you know that your opponent bets heavily when he has a good hand. By combining this knowledge, memorizing the cards you can get a rather good view on your opponent hand. For example, you play against an aggressive player – at Fourth Street he has a K and a 3, you see that he raise your bets – he probably has a Flush or a split pair of 3's and Kings and he wants to hit a Full House on 7th Street. You see how easy it is to adjust your hand reading strategy to players types?

Daniel Jenkins, Editorial Staff. 2006–01–23