Seeing as live in a time when Texas Hold’em rules the poker world, a lot of new players are not learning some of the more traditional games. There will come that time when they crave some diversity and will start looking to those games that have been tried and true for literally decades. For that player who is curious about 7-card stud and this is the perfect book.

The author, Roy West, is a well respect poker instructor, which means that he knows how to speak to the student who is trying to learn the game. The overall tone of this book is one that is easy to read and enables the student to clearly understand the directions they are being given. The book is fundamentally broken down into three topics. There are 17 lessons that deal with general strategy and another 21 chapters that deals exclusively in how to play specific hands. Finally, there are 4 lessons that deal in how to play in tournaments. The chapters that handle tournament strategy are written by former world champion Tom McEvoy. Each lesson is constructed to follow a logical flow and the general strategy tips are loaded with tons of valuable information. The best part is that nothing he is teaching is theory, it is all proven strategy that has over and over again in both cash games and during tournament play.

There is a drawback to this book though. The concepts that are explained are rock solid when you play the low limit game but he did not spend nearly enough time on the concept of pot odds. Even though this book is aimed at beginners, pot odds is such an important topic it is almost a crime to give it only a cursory explanation.

That one bit of criticism not withstanding, this still is the best book out there for the newbie 7-card stud players.