Fifth Street is the big decision point in Seven Card Stud because that’s the critical juncture in the hand when you have to put in your first big bet. While it’s nice to have a made hand at this point, you don’t always need one to put in a raise on Fifth Street. If you have a big draw, that can be enough to warrant raising your opponent. Some players don’t think like this, and I believe that’s a costly mistake.

While most players these days specialize in No-Limit Hold’em, I know there are many people out there who grew up learning Seven-Card Stud. With the resurgence of HORSE and other mixed games, now is a great time to branch out and revisit some of the basics to help make you a better all-around player.

A few weeks ago, I offered some pointers for playing fourth steet in Limit Seven-Card Stud. For this tip, I'm going and show how you might improve your play on

seventh street

.

In an earlier article, Perry Friedman gave some guidelines as to what you should be looking for at the start of a Seven Card Stud hand. Perry concentrated on

third street

, when you make your initial decision to proceed with the hand or not. For this tip, I'd like to go further down the road and talk about Fourth Street.