There's a scene early in Rounders when Matt Damon's character watches his law school professor playing poker. Let's follow this list by walking through a sample stud hand and considering how you might use your hand reading skills to figure out your opponent's hand. They may not be betting just because of the cards they have, but because of what they think you have.

Recognize your betting action and your exposed cards may also be used by good opponents to help shape their betting action.

Continue to narrow the range of hands betting actions and the cards that become exposed as the hand progresses.

Use the other exposed and folded cards to narrow further likely ranges of hands.

Use opponents' betting in combination with exposed cards to narrow likely ranges of hands.

Be aware of opponents' exposed card(s) to infer what they are likely and unlikely to have.

So how do you go about it? Here are five considerations in your stud hand reading: The extra layers of information contained in the folded cards and in your opponent's individual (and developing) board make hand reading much more complicated in stud than in hold'em.

Similarly, there is no need to consider the individual exposed cards of your opponent, as you share the same board. There is no need to remember folded cards, nor to consider them when reading your opponent. In hold'em, hand reading relies on considering your opponent's betting, his image and the board. One of the ways that seven-card stud is different from hold'em is your ability to read the poker hands.

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