7 Card Stud - Ken Warren (Review)

PoWdA Fri Apr 04, 2008 10:46 am

Ken Warrens Book 7 Card Stud is a good read. Simple to read but at the same time, some pretty simple strategy. Nothing groundbreaking but for a beginner this book does an allright job of "showing you the ropes." Ken includes sections on 7 Card Stud, 7 Card Stud Hi/Lo Split, Razz and also has a very large section devoted to home games and all sorts of 7 Card Stud variations. He also gives some advice on hosting home games.

The first three quarters of the book are devoted to the three big versions of Stud. 7 Card high, Razz (7 Card low), and Stud Hi/lo 8 or better. His advice is simple but effective. Like I said before, nothing terribly intricate or new but a beginner at stud would get a lot from this book. I do think at times his Razz advice, although not bad, is often times missing a huge key element of the game in that he doesn't seem to illustrate opponents up cards as much as he should. You cannot play Stud in a vaccum, your opponents up cards dictate your actions and at times he kinda teaches you how to play your cards and not so much what our opponents up cards mean to us. He doesn't completly rule out opponnents up cards but in Razz there could have definetly been some more info in this area.

The second half of this book covers variations of Stud from Baseball to Black Mariah to a version called "Tommy Two Tone" where the player with the most cards that add up to "8576309" gets half the pot and many more. He also includes sections on hosting a home game and pretty much any advice related to the crazy variations you might find in a home game. If you like to run all sorts of crazy stud variations at your game buy this book as he also includes basic rules for many many variations.

One thing I should mention is that the book is deceptivley short. The chapters are over pretty quick and seem to kinda "skim the suface" of the games. I finished the book in about a week and a half of reading for only about 30 minutes a day, not a long read by any means, but a simple read unlike many poker books that can be agonizing to read.

I reccomend this book for the begining stud player. I also suggest this one for every Razz player as there simply is not much out there on Razz and I personally like to have everything on Razz I can get my hands on. This book is also a good one if you like to host home games with all sorts of crazy variations as he provides rules, tips, and even strategy for a lot of those oddball home games. I liked it but the hardcore Stud player might find his advice a little elementary at times.