Stud Poker Variations: Blind Stud
When first hearing about Blind Stud, one may wonder what a horse with a visual impairment would have to do with poker... In actuality, Blind Stud is a variant of poker where all the cards are handed to the players in a face down manner. Of course, when playing any variant of stud poker, the option to play “blind” is always there, so no need to challenge yourself by attempting to play in the dark (we kid, of course).
Although any poker game can be played “blind”, the most common form of Blind Stud essentially involves seven cards dealt face down after the ante. Then, the player to the dealer’s left turns a card over, and bets on the card. The next player turns over a card, and keeps turning them over until the first player’s hand/card is beaten – then another bet is placed. Then it goes down the line, each player trying to beat the previous high hand/card. Thus, if the first player turns over an ace, the second player must keep turning over until a pair is reached. Then the third player must beat that pair (with a higher pair or better), and so on.
Obviously, this can lead to many interesting situations where someone turns over almost all of their cards, with the next player not turning over any (yet.) And, of course, position is HUGE in this game, as the first player has the advantage to see many cards before he or she must act again (although they must also keep betting on their essentially blind hand).
Truth be told, Blind Stud used to be a more common variant of poker play until about twenty years or so ago. There was a time when California gambling law decided that certain games such as Blind Stud, Twenty-One, Faro, Fantan, and Stud Horse Poker were illegal, causing the removal of such games from California card rooms in 1985.
This caused a bit of confusion in game rooms as it led many to believe that while draw poker was acceptable, somehow stud poker variants were not. As a result, California cards rooms stuck mostly to lowball games. Fortunately for Blind Stud, it was eventually considered a variant of Draw Poker family, as all of its cards were obscured from view during play. But other stud games weren’t so lucky, and many fell out of favor.
So with stud no longer near the top of popularity lists, what eventually replaced it as the cardroom favorite? The answer is Texas Hold ‘Em, a community card game with an ever-growing fan base.
