My new old love

Last night, I played two different poker flavors - deuce and 7 card stud. Both were of the limit variety. The deuce table had small stakes - the blinds were only $10/$20. That was just as well, since I rediscovered the high variance in deuce. I've decided deuce just has too high a luck component for my liking. It's not as bad as Omaha, but then nothing is :-) I felt right at home playing 7 card stud. There are many crossover skills between 7 card stud and hold'em; for one thing, the values of the hands are the same. What I mean by that is that when you think you have a good hand in 7 card stud, based on your hold'em experience, you actually do have a good hand. When you think you have a good hand in Omaha, what you usually have is shit :-)

I looked it up in the archives, and it's been nearly four years since I played 7 card stud. I was actually doing pretty well, stats-wise, but essentially gave it up for hold'em. 7 card stud is my new old love! It's an older game than hold'em, and based on both my observations and gut feeling, has an even higher skill component. The higher the skill component of the game, the closer to poker nirvana I get. On the spur of the moment, I've decided to set myself a new goal: I aim for my cash game 7 card stud balance to hit the play million plateau within the next calendar year.

During current 2-7 Triple Draw session you were dealt 69 hands
 Pots won if drawing - 8 of 34 (23%)
 Pots won at showdown - 4 of 14 (28%)
 Pots won without showdown - 4

delta: $-897
cash game 2-7 triple draw balance: $15,285
balance: $10,068,733

During current Stud session you were dealt 79 hands and:
- saw fourth street 64 times (81%)
- saw fifth street 46 times (58%)
- saw sixth street 32 times (40%)
- reached showdown 18 times (22%)
 Pots won at showdown - 8 of 18 (44%)
 Pots won without showdown - 6

delta: $21,807
cash game 7 card stud balance: $4,806
balance: $10,090,540