Starter Hands For 5 Card Stud Poker

The biggest factor that determines the amount of success that a 5 card stud poker player faces starts with the very first cards that are dealt to you by the dealer.

The decision as to which hands to start the bets with and which hands to fold from the off offers a huge amount of bearing on the rest of the hand, so making the right choice matters.

To be a poker player who is successful you need to be able to know which hands are going to offer you the best opportunity to win the pot, all the best poker players in the world are selective over what they play and don’t.

Sometimes players get the wrong impression in what they should be willing to play due to watching the professionals playing on television, in a way watching tournaments like that will have a negative effect on your game due to the viewers been able to view the professionals cards.

The truth is that if you want to be a true force in poker, you have to be looking to win hands and sticking to powerful starter hands is the only way that you can make sure that over 75% of the hands you play are going to leave you in a strong position to win the pot.

Everyone will experience hands that are stronger than theirs, some even bad beats but the majority of the time, you will see your strong hand turn into the winning hand.

Another huge mistake that is made by a large number of players is that they will start with a strong hand, see that their opponents have been dealt their card up then carry on within the hand in a bid to hit the final 1 or 2 cards that could still be in the deck.

A good player should be seeing this happen and then letting the hand go by folding. This may seem like you are laying down a high strength pair but we all know that stud poker is more than a game of pairs, with most hands hitting 2 pairs or better.

The hands that should be looked for within your starter hands make up the pairs in the game but these are only held in a high regard when they offer the possibility of been made into 3 of a kind or if you are holding another pair.

So the best starting hand you could hope to see would include a pair of aces, kings, queens or jacks.

This hand offers you a great starting base in order to build your hand from this to make an even stronger hand by the end of the betting rounds.

Remember that if you aren’t getting the cards you need, folding a pair of aces is still an option as it is likely that your opponents are holding a stronger hand, especially if there are more than one players still in the pot.

Should you look into your starter hand and see that you are holding a pair of cards that you feel confident enough that is going to be the highest hand in play at the moment, its advised to start the betting out as high as you can.

This means that you are going to do one of two things, take the pot without challenge or increase the pot size now that your holding the better hand.

Following on from the starter pairs, you should be looking for hands that are going to lead to a high straight or flush, these carry great strength in the game of stud poker but they are thought to be harder to hit than a set is.