Home Game Heroes: Strategic Differences Between “Declare” and “Cards Speak” Games

In my last column on the home game variant of Boston Stud, I promised I’d writing something about another of my favorite home poker games, seven-card stud hi-low declare. The truth is, one could write an entire book on this game, it is full of so many interesting and potentially complicated situations.

“Declare” Games in General

First of all, recognize that this is a “declare” game. For simplicity’s sake, we are here going to consider only simultaneous declare versions (as opposed to sequential declare), meaning everyone declares at the same time. Let’s look first at how the declare is made and how it affects strategy in general. Then we’ll look at a specific hand situation to see how it…