# seven card stud - face down?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seven-card-stud-face-down/525018>\
**Category:** The Game Room\
**Created:** [January 15, 2010, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seven-card-stud-face-down/525018 "2010-01-15T00:58:42Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![TGWATY](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b5e925/32.png) [@TGWATY](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TGWATY)\
**Post date:** [January 15, 2010, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seven-card-stud-face-down/525018/1 "2010-01-15T00:58:42Z")

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Having never played the game, I have been looking at various online rules. Each says that so many cards are dealt face down. But I am unsure about what “face down” means.  
Does face down mean that the player holding those cards never sees them until the showdown? Or does it just mean that those cards are not revealed to the other players until the showdown?

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**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\
**Post date:** [January 15, 2010, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seven-card-stud-face-down/525018/2 "2010-01-15T01:08:12Z")

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> [@TGWATY](#):
>
> Or does it just mean that those cards are not revealed to the other players until the showdown?

This.

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**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\
**Post date:** [January 15, 2010, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seven-card-stud-face-down/525018/3 "2010-01-15T01:08:36Z")

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Oh, he can look at them all right. There are blind varieties of poker however where you never know what some of the cards in your hand are until the showdown.

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**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\
**Post date:** [January 15, 2010, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seven-card-stud-face-down/525018/4 "2010-01-15T01:12:26Z")

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Moving to the Game Room from GQ.

Colibri  
General Questions Moderator

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**Author:** ![TGWATY](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b5e925/32.png) [@TGWATY](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TGWATY)\
**Post date:** [January 15, 2010, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seven-card-stud-face-down/525018/5 "2010-01-15T01:17:43Z")

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Great. Thank you!

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**Author:** ![minlokwat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/minlokwat/32/2844_2.png) [@minlokwat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minlokwat)\
**Post date:** [January 15, 2010, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seven-card-stud-face-down/525018/6 "2010-01-15T17:05:09Z")

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We called it “No Peek” or “Midnight”. I called it lame-o and never liked it.

You go around and once someone turns up a higher hand on the table, there is a betting interval. It’s supposed to be about betting enough to scare other players from turning over their cards but it never worked for me and not what I would consider real poker.