Limit Texas hold ’em is a fast and exciting form of poker. The game is also surprisingly complex and requires a great deal of skill to play at the expert level. It’s no wonder, then, that hold ’em has rapidly become the most popular form of poker in cardrooms around the country.
To the uneducated eye, Texas hold ’em appears to be very similar to seven-card stud, but in fact, there are several critical differences between the two games. To begin with, the starting hand decision in hold ’em, though very important, is not the dominating factor that it is in stud. If you do not also play reasonably well on the later streets, the best you can hope for in hold ’em is to break even in the long run.
Hold ’em is also more of a positional game than seven-card stud because the order of betting does not change from round to round. In addition, a hold ’em starting hand consists of just two cards instead of three cards. This means that you have less of an idea in the beginning of how strong your hand ultimately will be after all seven cards have been dealt.
But perhaps the most important difference between the two games is that Texas hold ’em uses community cards which are dealt face up in the center of the table and are part of each active player’s hand. This makes it much more difficult to draw out on an opponent. As an example, if you start with two kings, your opponent starts with two aces, and a pair appears on board, you both have two pair. When you make two pair in seven-card stud, you frequently will beat a lone higher pair. This does not occur as often in Texas hold ’em.
