-Ways to improve your overall skill.
Having well-rounded skill is an important part of creating and maintaining profit while playing poker.
Many professionals play more than one type of poker, each having their favorite. While Dave “The Devilfish” Ulliot, has earned a reputation in the No-Limit Texas Hold ‘Em poker community, his favorite game of poker is actually Omaha!
Playing different types of poker and getting a feel for each of their strategies helps in many ways. For me, although 7 card stud is my poker game of choice, I will not deny that the other types of poker that I play have helped develop my skill with 7card stud.
The strategies are different for each type of game you play. Limit and No-Limit Texas Hold ‘em have different strategies between them even though they are basically the same game, just as 7 card stud and Stud 8/b have different strategies, as well as Omaha-Hi strategy is different than Omaha 8/b and even pot- limit Omaha games.
Texas Hold ‘em is a lesson on playing position, and only playing with top quality hands. It also teaches one how to fold playable hands, such as having a bottom or middle pair on the board with overcards in multi-way pots. It is especially helpful with teaching the skills of bluffing, betting, and raising on the ‘come’ based on odds for straights and flushes.
How this ties in to increasing prosperity at 7 card stud poker is; being under the pressure of paying an ante to see your first three cards every round, it can be tempting to call with any paired hand at times. Playing hold ‘em helps to discipline the temptation of a player to play lesser quality hands such as a pair of sixes with a Jack kicker, and other combinations depending on your position. Playing fewer hands with only the best combinations and consideration calling hands in a favorable position will increase your win percentage. It also offers the ability to raise and re-raise with less fear when your hand is currently dominant.
Omaha offers the development of skill to read another player’s hand and understand what types of combinations are possible to open with. Each turn of cards can become increasingly more difficult to bet or call with, while players have so many cards in the hole. Sets, flushes, straights, and full houses are common in Omaha, which are the types of hands most preferable to strive for in 7 card stud. Learning Omaha strategy is especially helpful for stud players at middle and higher limits, training a player to be patient and only play with the best possible hands, identifying the best opening combinations, and folding down high two pair with high possibilities of better hands in play.
While these are the most popular types of poker, basically any additional type of poker game that is played, is a skill enhancer for your poker game of choice.
In the ‘Top Recommendations’ section of this site, Poker School is listed exactly for this reason.; enhancement of skill and increasing experience while not having to spend a lot of income to learn. While the money at the Poker School tables is not real money, the ranking system and their play chip money restrictions sets a guideline for players to play competitively, and skillfully.
What unfortunately took me many dollars over time to gain experience at the real money tables with, I would have learned through Poker School Online, had it been around earlier, or had I been aware of the benefits of playing at the site sooner. I encourage anyone and everyone to learn and practice the skills required of other types of poker, take the knowledge, and convert it while playing any one specific card game.
Whether through Poker School Online, strategy literature, audio lessons, online and offline software, or all of the above, going beyond your current knowledge of or focus on one type of poker game points you in a direction of greater benefit.