More to Poker than Hold'em Part 3: Stud Hi-Lo and Five-Card Triple-Draw Lowball

Part three of a three-part series. Now that you're familiar with Omaha, O8, Stud and Razz, we can move on to Stud Hi-Lo and Five-Card Triple-Draw Lowball.
The final two games I'll be showcasing in this article are the two games least often spread. The first game is one of the hardest games to play, while the second is rare for different reasons.
Stud Eights-or-Better
Also known as Stud EB and Stud Hi-Lo, Stud Eights-or-Better is one of my personal favorite games to play.
The Basics
The game plays the same as Stud. Everyone antes, the low card brings and you get three cards off the deal. The difference in Stud EB is the same as between Omaha and O8, where the qualifying low hand wins half the pot.
As in O8, the low is made up of the lowest five-card hand, all cards being below eight in value, with no pairs. Straights and flushes do not count against you, making the nut low A-2-3-4-5.

Freddy Deeb won the $50,000 buy-in WSOP H.O.R.S.E event in 2007.

Basic Strategy
If you remember in O8, you always wanted to be playing for the high, with a redraw to the low. Stud Hi-Lo is the opposite. You want to play for the low, with a redraw to the high. As I explained in O8, it's easy to get quartered for half the low pot by playing marked cards exclusively low.
In Stud EB, it's much easier to discern if you have the winning low than the high. You use the same technique as you would in Razz, and read the other players' board cards. Also, the low card is forced to bring in Stud. If you're dealt three to a bike, you have the chance to complete, adding money to the pot with well on the way to half the pot.
You have to correctly gauge your own hand, and pit it against your opponents' hands. Who's chasing what? Who's on the high, and who's on the low? Whom can you beat? You want to play the low, and hopefully pick up a high along the way.
The beauty of hitting the wheel is it can be good for both the high and the low if no one can beat the baby straight.
Starting Hands
Starting hands for Stud EB are the same as both Stud and Razz. A monster Stud starting hand can be good for the high, while a monster Razz starting hand is good for the low. The best are hands with the option for scooping, making A♣ 3♣ 2♣ the best possible Stud EB starting hand.
Five-Card Triple-Draw Lowball
The Basics
Five-Card Triple-Draw Lowball (TDL) is a lot like the poker we played as kids, or see on some old cowboy movies. You start by being dealt five cards, all face down. You have a betting round starting with the person to the left of the big blind.
After the first betting round you get to throw away as many cards as you'd like. After you get new cards to replace the ones you tossed, you have another betting round starting with the player to the left of the button.
You do this until you have thrown away cards three times, or everyone has folded to one player's bet. When all the betting rounds are complete the hands are turned over; the best hand takes the pot. In a game of lowball, the worst hand is the best hand.
Not to be confused with the Lo hand in games such as O8, Razz and Stud EB, TDL is a Lowball game:

• Aces are high
• Pairs, straights and flushes count against you

This makes the nut hand in TDL 2-3-4-5-7. For this reason, lowball is commonly called 2-7 Lowball. Hands are still counted from the top down, making the nut hand a 7-5. As in all other poker juice cards games, two identical hands split the pot.
Because of the large amount of cards being dealt every hand, this is most commonly a five-person max game, sometimes being spread with six.

Other than in the big game, I've only ever seen TDL spread at the Venetian.

Elementary Strategy
No other way to put it, this game is an action game. You're going to see a lot of bets, and a lot of rivers. There is a lot of luck in this game, with there being a lot of ante-luck as well. Any game where multiple people will bet and call all the way will have a larger element of luck.
The increased luck will increase the amount of gamble that other players are willing to use in their game. This can make the game very profitable to a tight player. If you have a smooth or rough eight, chances are you're going to win. Having the nut 7 low is almost a lock for the whole pot, with a chop a small portion of the time.
When you have a hand as big as this bet the farm. If you play conservatively until you're dealt monster hands, you should be able to make money in this game. If you ever find yourself wanting to throw away four or five cards, what you actually want to do is fold. You should never be tossing more than three cards.
Even tossing three cards is hoping to get lucky. If you're going to push the bet, you want to be drawing one, or two at the most. Remember, you could have 2-3-4-5-A, throwing away your ace to get a two back. With all the luck in this game, expect to see big swings at the table. Play tight and strong and it's a great game to build a bankroll with.
Conclusion
I hope this series will have inspired you to start trying other forms of poker. These are all very good games worth playing. Spending the time to learn the other games can make you some good coin in the long run. Most players these days play Hold'em exclusively. Get a few of them on a table spreading another game, and you'll clean up.
Enjoy the games, and if you have any questions about them, post a comment. I'll be sure to reply; just check back.

Kihara, Pesonen, Neuville Top Spirit of Poker Voting

Fan voting for the first-ever PokerListings.com Spirit of Poker Awards is now officially closed with Japan's Naoya Kihara, Belgium's Pierre Neuville and Finland's Lauri Pesonen leading the way.
The top three in each of our Spirit of marked cards Poker categories - This is 50+, Most Inspiring Player and Here Comes the Future - have now been set with the ultimate decision in the hands of a panel of PokerListings.com staff.
The top three vote getters in each category are:

This is 50+

• 1. Pierre Neuville
• 2. Marcel Luske
• 3. Konstantin Puchkov

Most Inspiring Player

• 1. Naoya Kihara
• 2. Max Lykov
• 3. Daniel Negreanu

Here Comes the Future

• 1. Lauri Pesonen
• 2. Luca Moschitta
• 3. Sofia Lövgren

Narrowly missing out on the final three in their respective categories were Thor Hansen, Rocco Palumbo and Ole Schemion.
The First Annual PokerListings Spirit of Poker Awards will be handed out at the upcoming Battle of Malta, set for the Portomaso Casino in Malta from Sept 26-29.
For more on the award categories and the full list of nominees, check out the Spirit of Poker Awards page here.

Real Money Poker Guide and Tips

Playing poker for real money is not something to be afraid of, not online anyway. While in a real casino you might find it hard to start playing as a beginner that doesn’t know what he’s doing, online you can start at low stakes tables, risking a few cents, in exchange for valuable experience. The best part is that nobody will know who you are, and most of the other players at the micro stakes tables are beginners themselves.
Advantages of Real Money Poker
A lot of new players decide that investing real money in the game is not a wise move when you’re just starting out, and they’re somewhat right about that. If you’re a complete beginner when it comes to poker, it’s probably a good idea to use the tables with fake casino money, to learn the rules and understand how the game is played. Real money marked cards poker is a different experience though, and you shouldn’t let yourself get used to the way the game is played at the beginner tables.

Using real money to place a bet changes the way people think and the decisions they make. While they couldn’t care less about fake casino money, they do care if it’s money that comes from their own pocket. A player is much less likely to go all in for example, if the money he uses comes from his own bank account. The players that you will encounter at a regular poker table are better than those that are just learning the rules. The game will be harder, and the percentage of people that know what they’re doing goes up. The higher the stakes at a poker table, the bigger the average caliber of the players.
Playing with real money gives you the chance to accumulate the right kind of experience, even if you do it at the micro stakes tables. Playing for little money is always a better idea than playing with fake money.
Start with the lowest stakes tables you can play, and chances are that you will learn how the game is really played much faster, and the experience you get should be more helpful. If you play at the cheapest tables available, you don’t need to spend a lot of money. Those tables are full with other beginners, so you should do OK against them fairly quickly, as long as you apply yourself and you learn some basic poker strategy.
As you learn the game and you gather experience in different situations, you will start being successful at the game and you will begin to see a small profit from it. You might be tempted to jump directly to the $1/$2 tables, from the $0.05/$0.10 tables you started with. Avoid making big jumps like that, since you’re likely to meet much more experienced players there, and your knowledge of the game might not be enough. Keep playing marked card tricks at bigger stakes tables, but do it in smaller increments, so you can keep earning more money, as your experience grows.

Playing Poker for a Living
A beginner that is just starting out with real money poker has a long road ahead of him. Making a living by playing this great game online is definitely doable though. You’ll start at the small stakes poker tables, but soon enough you will do well at the ones with average stakes, and in time you will even start playing multiple games at once.
While there is such a thing as a natural when it comes to poker and the math skills that are required, this game is also about experience. If you apply yourself, and you keep reading articles on poker strategy, and you keep practicing for real money, eventually you will see the results of your hard work. Despite what most people think, making a living by playing poker is not an easy thing, and it takes many long hours each day to get to a point where you can make a living from it.
Choosing a Poker Room to Play At
Not all poker rooms are created equal. When you’re playing for real money, you need to find the poker rooms that give you the edge over other players. Whether it’s quality software that allows you to enjoy the game more, signup bonuses that give you more money to work with, or a larger pool of beginners to play against, it pays off to do a bit of research before signing-up for a poker room.