Poker Articles

My Mid-Life Crisis Turned into a Poker Career, aka
How I First Learned Seven-Card Stud
By Donna Blevins

My mid-life crisis was different than most other women I know. Mine was stimulating, filled with joy and turned into an amazing mid-life rebirth.

When I asked my life-partner, Greg, to teach me how to play poker in 1996, little did I expect it would lead to a new, exciting career complete with adventure, travel and ultimately fortune. Granted, the ultimate fortune is yet to come, but I KNOW it will.

Greg keeps saying the 2004 World Series of Poker is mine. Sure that's a lofty goal, but I've always been an overachiever!

There are few opportunities like poker. Anyone can play. Poker gives you the arena to use the skills you already possess. Poker is almost the absolute equalizer. Poker players come in all sizes, shapes and ages. They are young, old, tall, short, thin, fat, hearing impaired, Olympic athletes and wheelchair confined. They come with all levels of education, all levels of abilities and challenges.

When Greg first taught me seven-card stud, it seemed like he went through hundreds of hands before he ever dealt a full seven-card hand. I've never heard of anyone else learning poker quite the same way, but in retrospect, I believe this was an excellent way to learn to play the game.

It helped me develop patience, speed up my decision making process, and raise my comfort level. At first, I was very slow and afraid of making a mistake. Here I was in my mid-forties learning a new skill which, I felt, should be easy. For goodness sakes, there are only 52 cards, four suits with 13 cards to each suit. How hard could that be?

On top of all that, I had a difficult time learning what beat what ? one pair, two pair, three of a kind . . . then comes the straight, flush, full house, four of a kind, and finally the straight flush. There I was . . . a professional businesswoman who helped people make life-changing financial decisions on a daily basis, having a terrible time remembering what beat what in poker. I felt so inept. My short-term memory sucked!

In reality, it wasn't that poker was hard, it was just different and completely new to me. I felt awkward and initially out of place - more like a teenager learning ballroom dancing.

After several months of kitchen lessons, I told Greg I was ready to play in a live poker game. The only live poker near us was 45 minutes away on Indian land in a bingo hall where they spread low limit poker. When I say low limit, I mean really low limit. The betting was limited to twenty-five and fifty cents, and no pot could exceed ten dollars. They also had one-table mini-tournaments with buy-ins ranging from $25 to $55.

The first time we went to the Indian Bingo Hall, I watched the twenty-five and fifty cent games. After a short time, I told Greg this wasn't poker, it was showdown. After the pot reached ten dollars and was closed, allowed no further betting, of course, no one folded.

The other option was their mini-tournaments. People who know me will probably find it hard to believe that I was reluctant to go into the poker area and sign up for a mini-tournament. Frankly, I couldn't understand why I was feeling so shy and out of place.

When I finally walked up to the podium, a young man greeted me warmly with a smile. He asked what I'd like to play. I boldly said, "Seven-card stud, mini-tournament." He put me on the list and said it would only be a few minutes before they opened up a new table and called my name.

When they called my name they told me to go to table four. I looked around and saw no obvious signs on the table. I watched as other players congregated around one of the tables. As I approached the table, flat on the table to the right of the seated, uniformed dealer, I saw a metal plate with a large number four printed on it.

The dealer had laid eight cards face down on the table. He told us to draw for seats. When I picked up an eight, I looked around for seat numbers. There were none. Seat number one is always to the immediate left of the seated dealer.

Most live action seven-card stud games are limited to six players so there will always be enough cards to go around. Sometimes in seven-card stud mini-tournaments, or in lower limit cash games, eight players are allowed. When that happens occasionally there will not be enough cards for each player to receive his individual seventh card, which would have been dealt to him face down. When that happens, the last card is dealt in the middle of the table, face up as a common or community card ? all players use that same community card with their other six cards to make their hand.

The night of my first live poker game was a momentous night. We were all give 500 non-negotiable chips for our $25 buy-in. We played 25 hands of seven-card stud. The three players with the most chips at the end of the 25 hands received a payout. I felt like a real winner that night when I outlasted four other players and came in fourth!

I was beaming as I left the table. You would have thought I had just won a major tournament.

It was a wonderful rush! I loved it. I was hooked.

Poker rescued me from my overworked existence and carried me into a world of excitement and stimulation. A world that starts fresh every time you sit down at the table.

Poker is a game which uses all your existing skills of people reading, mothering, child rearing and salesmanship, and blends them into a stimulating game of skill and excitement.

See you on the Net!

Seven-card stud poker overview:
In seven-card stud casino play, after the first third cards are dealt, two down and one up for each player, there is a round of betting. The dealer deals one card down, the burn card, and discards it before he deals the fourth card up to each player; then there is a round of betting.

A card is burned; then each remaining player is dealt a fifth card face-up followed by another round of betting. Another card is burned, and the sixth card is dealt up to each player followed by a round of betting. Yet another card is burned, and the seventh and final card is dealt facedown for each player.

The dealer burns a final card at the end of the deal before the final round of betting. Each player remaining in the hand now has seven cards: three down cards and four up cards.

Note: The burn cards in live poker are to insure no cards are flashed or exposed.