# Five-Card Stud: How the Deal, Betting and Showdown Work

> Learn five-card stud rules, from the deal and betting to showdown, plus how to count a fifth-card flush chance using opponents’ upcards.

- Source: https://toolsgambling.com/blog/five-card-stud
- Publisher: ToolsGambling
- Published: 2026-10-26
- Updated: 2026-10-26
- Cite as: "Five-Card Stud Rules: Streets, Betting and Showdown", ToolsGambling, https://toolsgambling.com/blog/five-card-stud

Five-card stud is a poker game played with a 52-card deck, where each player gets five cards: one face down and four face up. The deal starts with antes, followed by one face-down card and one face-up card, then betting. Each further upcard brings another betting street, with showdown after the final street.

## What five-card stud is

Five-card stud gives each player one hidden hole card and four upcards that everyone can see. Your opponents can read the exposed part of your hand, but they cannot know your complete hand from those cards alone.

That shared information matters in two ways. It shows the strength already visible in other hands, and it reveals cards that can no longer arrive in yours. You therefore need to watch more than your own cards when deciding whether to continue.

Keep current hand strength separate from the chance of improving. Four cards of one suit form a flush draw, not a completed flush. Likewise, an opponent’s upcards may look weak while their hole card completes a stronger hand. The hidden card preserves uncertainty even when most of the hand is exposed.

Five-card stud is still played in some places. It is a forerunner of seven-card stud.

Each player pays an ante, then receives one hole card face down and one upcard face up. There are no blinds. Betting begins after this initial deal.

![Five-card stud deal order: one face-down card, four face-up cards and four betting streets](https://toolsgambling.com/media/article/2026/10/45d4cabe817edeb9a38ddabcc13f3bd9.webp)

*Educational diagram. Five cards per player: one face down and four face up, with betting after each up card.*

Where a bring-in is used, the player with the lowest upcard pays it. Ties in rank are broken by suit, with clubs lowest, followed by diamonds, hearts and spades. The opening player may make a full small bet instead of the bring-in; a subsequent player may also complete the bring-in to a full small bet. A bring-in is a forced opening bet that starts the action. Without a bring-in, the player with the highest upcard starts the first betting street.

Players still in the hand then receive another upcard, followed by betting. This happens three times after the initial deal. Anyone reaching the end has one hole card and four upcards, with four betting streets in total: after the second, third, fourth and fifth cards.

For your first game, connect each street with the number of cards in front of you. Betting begins when you have only two cards. After the fifth card, there are no more cards to come, so your decision concerns a finished hand rather than the chance of completing a draw.

## How betting works

After the opening street, the best showing hand acts first on each street. Only upcards determine that order; a hole card can improve the player’s actual hand without affecting who starts.

Incomplete straights and flushes do not count when comparing showing hands. A collection of consecutive cards or suited cards does not receive credit for what it might become. Compare the hand already showing, not its possible improvement.

Pagat gives the suit order used to break ties for action as clubs, diamonds, hearts and spades, from lowest to highest. This is an action-order rule, not a way to award the pot between equal hands at showdown.

The usual format is fixed-limit betting. Pagat describes a cap of one bet and up to three raises per street when more than two players remain active. The cap applies per street when more than two players are active at its start; with two players, check the table rule.

In formal US casino games, Pagat describes the lowest-upcard bring-in as normal practice. Its amount is smaller than the small bet but larger than the ante. The bring-in and a full opening bet are therefore not interchangeable amounts.

The basic actions retain their usual meanings. A call matches the outstanding bet, a raise increases it, and a fold ends your participation in the hand. A check passes the action without betting when no bet needs to be matched and checking is allowed.

## Showdown and the pot

At showdown, players compare complete five-card hands using the same hand rankings as hold’em. Stud changes how you receive cards and how much information is visible, not the standard ranking of high poker hands.

In the [Wikipedia showdown example](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five-card_stud), the last player to bet or raise shows first. Treat this as an example of showdown order, not a universal procedure for every table.

Equal final hands split the pot. PokerNews describes an odd-chip rule that awards the extra chip to the player nearest the left of the button. Suits used to settle action order do not make one otherwise tied showdown hand beat another.

When assessing a final hand, use all five cards, including the hole card. The strongest exposed hand does not necessarily win: the hidden card can change the comparison once players reveal their complete holdings.

## How many players

Five-card stud can accommodate up to 10 players with a 52-card deck and five cards per player, as described in [Pagat’s five-card stud rules](https://pagat.com/poker/variants/5stud.html). Pokerology describes a normal full table as seating up to 8.

Table capacity is different from the number of players whose cards affect a particular calculation. For the example below, what matters is how many cards you can actually identify. 

Opponents’ exposed cards reduce the number of unseen cards: when none are spades, the flush chance in the table rises from 20.0% with 2 players to 27.3% with 6 players. Each opponent’s exposed spade cuts your outs by one.

## How to count the flush chance on the fifth card

Under these assumptions, your fifth-card flush chance with four players is **9 of 39, or 23.1%**: you hold four spades and no opponent has a visible spade. The biggest moving assumption is the opponents’ visible spades. One removes an out, leaving 8 outs and 20.5%; two leave 17.9%; three leave 15.4%.

Consider the position just before the final card. You have one hole card and three upcards, all spades. Each of your three opponents has three upcards. You know your four cards and their nine exposed cards, leaving **39 unseen cards: 52 − 4 − 9**.

There are 13 cards in the suit, and you hold four. With no spades exposed elsewhere, you have **9 outs: 13 − 4**. Here, an out means a card that completes the flush. Dividing those 9 outs by the 39 unseen cards gives 23.1%, rounded to one decimal place. A full enumeration of the unseen cards gives the same 39 possibilities and 9 qualifying cards.

The player-count comparison below keeps the other conditions unchanged: every opponent has three upcards, and none of those upcards is a spade.

| Players | Unseen cards | Flush outs | Fifth-card flush chance |
|---|---:|---:|---:|
| 2 | 45 | 9 | 20.0% |
| 3 | 42 | 9 | 21.4% |
| 4 | 39 | 9 | 23.1% |
| 5 | 36 | 9 | 25.0% |
| 6 | 33 | 9 | 27.3% |

![Educational calculation: 9 outs from 39 unseen cards give a 23.1% chance of a flush on the fifth card](https://toolsgambling.com/media/article/2026/10/b3b0dd8838401bf6e7e8698bc577e5de.webp)

*Educational calculation with four players. A flush on the fifth card does not equal winning the pot.*

The table rows differ in the number of visible opponent cards, not in the opponents’ strength, with nine outs in every row because no opponent shows a spade. Choose a row only after checking whether the exposed cards actually meet that condition.

For four players, the sensitivity to visible spades is:

| Opponents’ visible spades | Flush outs | Fifth-card flush chance |
|---|---:|---:|
| 0 | 9 | 23.1% |
| 1 | 8 | 20.5% |
| 2 | 7 | 17.9% |
| 3 | 6 | 15.4% |

Opponents’ hole cards remain unseen. Do not subtract guessed cards from the denominator or remove guessed spades from your outs. This calculation uses information available to you, and all percentages shown are rounded to one decimal place.

### Comparing the draw with the call price

With a pot of **8 units before an opponent bets 2 units**, calling costs 2 units and requires **16.7%**, calculated as **2 / (8 + 4)**. The denominator includes the starting pot, the opponent’s bet and your call. This is the required share of the resulting pot, not a comparison with the starting pot alone.

A flush at showdown is not the same as winning the pot. Your opponent may hold a stronger hand, so comparing 23.1% directly with 16.7% does not settle the decision.

Under the assumptions that there are no other ways to win and a miss always loses, the flush must win on at least **72.2% of hits**. The calculation is **16.7% / 23.1% = 72.2%**. If it wins less often, the call does not pay under these assumptions. This threshold excludes split pots and additional betting.

## What to do in practice

List the visible cards, count unseen cards, count your outs, then compare the result with pot odds. Work in that order so that you do not confuse completing a hand with winning the pot.

1. **List every player’s upcards.** Mark cards in the suit you need, including those held by opponents whose hands look unthreatening. Every visible spade matters to a spade draw. Check that the number of exposed cards matches the situation you intend to calculate.

2. **Count unseen cards.** Subtract your known cards and the opponents’ known upcards from the deck. Keep unknown hole cards in the unseen group. If the visible-card count differs from the example, do not reuse its denominator of 39.

3. **Count outs.** Remove suitable cards already exposed in other hands. To review the hold’em approach, use the [outs calculator](https://toolsgambling.com/poker/outs-calculator); for stud, count manually using all exposed cards. After identifying 9 outs, the [rule of 2 and 4](https://toolsgambling.com/blog/poker-outs-rule-of-2-and-4) explains approximate conversions to one-card chances, but it does not replace the exact fraction used here.

4. **Compare with pot odds.** For the 16.7% threshold above, the guide to [pot odds](https://toolsgambling.com/blog/pot-odds-implied-odds-poker) explains the price comparison. To check your own pot and call amounts following the example, use the [pot odds calculator](https://toolsgambling.com/poker/pot-odds). It does not assess whether a completed flush beats an opponent’s hand.

You now have two separate pieces of information: the chance of receiving a suitable card and the price of continuing. Before acting, consider whether the resulting hand would be strong enough and whether the assumptions fit the cards in front of you.

## Variants: lowball and high-low

Lowball awards the pot to the best low hand rather than the strongest high hand. In the version described by Pagat, the highest upcard pays the opening bring-in; Wikipedia describes the best low showing hand as starting later streets. Ask which low-hand ranking system applies before using familiar high-hand comparisons.

In high-low play, the pot is divided after betting, with one part going to the best high hand and the other to the best low hand.

The separate game [Cajun Stud](https://toolsgambling.com/blog/cajun-stud-poker) includes side bets, and its rules can differ from the five-card stud game described here.

## Limits and mistakes

Check the table’s rules before playing because betting and procedural details can differ. Confirm the opening-bet procedure, bet sizes, raise cap, showdown order and odd-chip treatment rather than assuming the general deal sequence answers every question.

The flush calculation covers one specific situation before the fifth card. It does not evaluate the entire hand from the initial deal or calculate equity: the expected share of the pot at showdown under stated assumptions, including a proportional share of ties.

A common mistake is counting outs from your own hand while ignoring opponents’ upcards. A card already exposed elsewhere cannot arrive in your hand. Keep the full visible-card list beside your count rather than relying on the appearance of your own draw.

This guide makes no profit promise. Its purpose is to help you check the deal, the available cards and the cost of continuing with a consistent calculation.

## FAQ

### How many cards does each player get, and how many are face up?

Five cards: one face down and four face up. Only the player sees the face-down card; everyone sees the upcards.

### How many players can sit at one table?

A normal full table seats up to eight players. In theory up to ten, because a 52-card deck gives five cards to each of ten players.

### What happens when two hands tie at showdown?

The pot is split equally between the tied players. Per PokerNews, the odd chip goes to the player seated nearest the left of the button; confirm the house rule.

### What is lowball in stud?

A variant where the low hand wins. On the first betting round, the player with the highest upcard posts the bring-in. On subsequent rounds, the best low showing hand acts first.

## FAQ

### How many cards does each player get, and how many are face up?

Five cards: one face down and four face up. Only the player sees the face-down card; everyone sees the upcards.

### How many players can sit at one table?

A normal full table seats up to eight players. In theory up to ten, because a 52-card deck gives five cards to each of ten players.

### What happens when two hands tie at showdown?

The pot is split equally between the tied players. Per PokerNews, the odd chip goes to the player seated nearest the left of the button; confirm the house rule.

### What is lowball in stud?

A variant where the low hand wins. On the first betting round, the player with the highest upcard posts the bring-in. On subsequent rounds, the best low showing hand acts first.