Customer Reviews

Winning 7-Card Stud: Transforming Home Poker Chumps into Casino Killers

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Winning 7-Card Stud is a good book for players up to the 10-20 limit. Adams gives advice on how to play a tight and aggressive game. If his advice is followed, the player is likely to at least hold his own against the average talent at the 5-10 and 10-20 level. Chapter 2: Winning Basic Strategy gives a rundown on how to play a tight game that one should play against typical players. It describes the type of starting hands you want to play, and how to play them. It also describes each of the ensuing streets, and how one should proceed. Chapter 5: Expanding Your Repertoire explains more advanced techniques, ideas and moves a player can use once the player has the basic strategy down. Overall, this is a solid book for someone new to the game and any player that plays too loose. I recommend it as one's first 7-Card Stud book.

I am a frequent Hold 'Em (HE) player, both in the casino and online. A recurring problem for me is the wait. At the casino, I frequently have to wait over an hour to get a seat at an HE table. Online, it's not as bad, but just as irritating.

I decided one way to start passing the time was to play Stud, which always seems to have seats open. Unfortunately, Stud and HE are VERY different games, and I wasn't making the right adjustments.

This book outlines a good basic strategy that I was quickly able to implement with pretty good success. Unlike HE, Stud doesn't allow for a strict set of playable "starting hands", but this book did a good of explaining guidelines to consider when making the most critical decision: what to do on 3rd street.

This book does not, and was not intended to, get into advanced and aggressive play. That's for further reading, but this was a good starting point for me. For more experienced poker players, some of the advice might be considered weak-tight, but it's still a good foundation.

Warning - this book has a few typos in it. In particular, there is at least one diagram that in no way corresponds to the text beneath.

This book is fantastic. I went from having casual knowledge of stud poker to being extremely confident at the tables. I had read a number of Ashley Adams articles and he is not your average writer. He has an extraordinary ability to recognize the abilities of the reader and not give him or her too much to handle.

After reading the first 50 pages, I was quite disappointed at the starting hand requirements and put the book down. I started playing and had a winning session of 7 card stud. I had thought playing tight and waiting for good starting hands was boring, but tight is right. And winning is definitely not boring. I immediately finished the book and absorbed the advanced material later in the book and I am astonished at how great this book has helped me.

While the Harrington on Hold'em books are the best ever written for NL tournament poker, this book is the best you can get for your library in 7 card stud. You might eventually advance beyond the concepts of this book and need a higher level book, but I don't think the average casual player with be sitting at stakes beyond $3/6 or $5/10.

5 Stars, I highly recommend this book to everyone. Everything you need to know in one book to become a winner. You will appreciate the work Ashley Adams put into this book to help players understand the complexities of 7 card stud. He is truly one of the best at teaching poker that I have ever read.

If you're looking to learn the basics of 7-Card Stud, I can't imagine you'll find a better book (or a better value) than this one. Unlike most poker books, it's actually a pretty entertaining read and all the material is well-presented and organized.

I was already a profitable low-limit online Stud player before reading this book, but this book still helped my game quite a bit. There's some good advice in here regarding how to play in live casino games (especially if you're a newbie), game selection, identifying and playing against different types of players, etc.

As one of the reviews below mentions, this is a book for beginning and intermediate-level players and the advice is really only applicable for lower-limit games. You may also find that some of the advice on third street play in particular isn't really applicable to certain types of low-limit online games due to their betting structure.

But these are just minor nitpicks. Overall, this is an excellent book and a wonderful introduction to the game. If you're a new player, start with this book!

After the beginner has read 7 CARD STUD by Roy West he is ready for WINNING 7-CARD STUD which is the next logical step. It's well organized and in-depth in it's practical approach to introducing the novice to the finer points of 7 Stud. While Texas Hold'em is exciting and getting all the attention these days, 7 Card Stud is the thinking man's form of poker and this book will help you play it well.

It is difficult to write "how-to" texts well. There are many non-literate poker books out there. They have good information but it is hard to find the good stuff hidden among the complex sentences and fractured paragraphs. Unlike the many, Ashley Adams' Winning 7-Card Stud is both informative and well-written. It begins where every good book should begin, at the beginning. It moves its readers from the basics of card-room seven-card stud through intermediate playing levels and includes some advanced tools, like reading other player's hands and poker psychology.

This book should be read as author says. Read it first from cover-to-cover then study it one chapter at a time. There are three main sections:

Ch. 1 - Review of card-room basics
Ch. 2 - Low limit beginner's tactics
Ch. 3-6 - Intermediate techniques

Chapter 1 contains all the stuff we already know about B&M card-rooms. It also contains all the stuff we have forgotten about B&M card-rooms. It is worth re-reading and would probably help many of us if we read it once a year.

Chapter 2 should be re-read carefully; especially by folks who play other kinds of poker and want to add seven-card stud to their playing list. In addition to tight fundamentals, it includes an excellent description of the tactical playing differences between low structured limit ($3/$5) and low spread limit ($1--$5) games.

The rest of the book does a good job of presenting and reinforcing some of the more advanced techniques like slow-playing and check-raising. I especially like the way Adams presents his "odds" information. These chapters should be re-read separately and carefully. There is a lot of good information in them and it will take most of us some time absorb all of it. Like the earlier material, there are nuances discussed in the last four chapters that can benefit even sophisticated players.

There are some proof-reading mistakes (for example, the text on pages 21-22 does not match the diagram on page 21) but I could not find any technical poker errors.

I look forward to Ashley Adams' next offering. I hope he will share his thoughts about on-line seven-card stud with us then.

Read Winning 7-Card Stud once for fun, and then read it again and again for information.

I have read this book several times and if you are a poker player or aspire to be one it will pay for itself rather quickly if you follow the advice contained in it. Ashley takes you from the basement home games to the casino environment arming you with everything you need to know before even sitting down. There are many books on holdem but very few on 7 stud written in recent times. Adams presents the reader with and entertaining and informative approach to seven card stud. I have read the few books on 7 stud and can tell you this one is the best. It gives you a gameplan to become a winner. Great for beginners or advanced players. Even Holdem players would find it a useful tool for picking up a new game.

this book contains a lot of basic info, but, particularly for a poker book, is very well written. it is not only tight, but, as an apparent rarity for poker authors, atrocious grammatical errors are also largely absent.

there are a few basic concepts, well explained, that even the somewhat strong player may benefit from relearning or considering. the beginning of the book is very basic, but is still perhaps a good review for most but very experienced stud players. for beginners,the next third of so of the book may be mildly helpful, but otherwise the descriptions of casinos and how to play there, manage buy in amounts, keep one's emotions in check after a so called "bad beat" (or bad play by the reader, which should, frankly, be a lot more upsetting than this silly idea than one should be upset because someone "sucked out" chasing with poor odds) etc., will only be read by the avid player with the expectation that this section will end soon(although his idea of getting up from the table when upset may be a good one for some players). it doesn't.

but when it does, the last portion of the book is well worth it. while some intermediate and advanced stud is left out, the author does lay out, on top of the earlier basic foundation, some of the more important next step concepts, and a few advanced plays in largely clear and logical fashion, with strong examples. on some of them one may disagree with the author's conclusions, and a consideration or two may have been omitted, but basically the material seemed reasonably solid, and his reasons are usually well stated. while the author's own experiences are somewhat over prevalent, they again read well, and at times are relevant when related to the play of hands.

while it is not overly ripe with material, anybody learning stud should really buy this book, and any other player who is not overly immersed in the game, looking to improve, should benefit as well. combine that with the tight read and cogent explanations, and it is a worthwhile purchase for many stud and horse players as well as those looking to play those games or broaden their horizons into a game that is really well worth learning, even for hold 'em fanatics.

The book is incremental in its teaching approach. The basic strategy first laid out will not make you money but it will limit your losses greatly. Then later in the book Ashley Adams covers how to play more hands. If you don't play more hands the antes will eat up the money you may make. But, this approach will keep the reader from going bankrupt while they develop a feel for the game. If the reader follows the author's program they will relearn some of the overly conservative strategies later....when they are ready. Coupled with real experience it is probably the only book you need to play lower limit cash games.

The book covers some good ancillary information regarding Casino play in general.

Then again I am not big on books being necessary for good play. Any book introductory would probably do well enough to get you started. The Roy West book is supposed to be good also.

This was an excellent book to help transition me from a home-game stud player into surviving and winning at the casino. I have played Texas Hold'em for a while and often find myself sitting idly by waiting for a seat. Since I was a regular in the poker room, the floor supervisor talked me into spending my time at the stud table.

My first round I took my beating like all the beginners but my determination win lead me to this book. And I thank my determination. After this book I tripled my money.

If you have played in the casino, you can skip the first chapter. If you are new to casino play, read chapter one. It is accurate and will help ease you into this new setting. The second chapter is the meat of this book. It will no make you a world class stud player, but if you follow the simple strategies and starting hands you will be a money maker.

The remainder of the book goes into more advanced concepts and I found that in the lower limit games that most players start in, these advanced concepts-deception, bluffing, and reading-are not as useful as portrayed in this book. As you continue your development, these concepts will be more useful.