up, one down". Upon showdown, each player makes the best five-card poker hand they can out of the seven cards they were dealt. Seven cards to eight players plus four burn cards makes 60 cards, whereas there are only 52 in the deck: in most games, this is not a problem because several players will have folded in early betting rounds. In the event that the deck is exhausted during play, the four previously-dealt burn cards can be used, but if these are not sufficient, then the final round will have a single community card (which can be used by everyone) dealt into the center of the table in lieu of a downcard to each player. Discarded cards from a folded hand are not reused. Unlike draw poker, where no cards are ever seen before showdown, stud poker players use the information they get from face-up cards to make strategic decisions, and so a player who sees a certain card folded is able to make decisions knowing that the card will never appear in another opponent's hand. Variants There are several variations of 7 Card Stud Poker in which each player is dealt a set number of cards. Not all of these variations can be found at poker rooms but they can be fun to play at home. "Down the River" is the basic variation of 7 Card Stud Poker and this is the game played in poker rooms. "Mississippi" removes the betting round between fourth and fifth streets, making only four betting rounds. This game also deals the fourth and fifth cards face up. This makes the game more closely resemble Texas Hold'em by having the same betting structure and the same number of down and up cards. Another is "roll your own", in which four rounds of two cards each are dealt down, and each player must "roll" one card to face up, followed by a round of betting. Except for the first round, the card rolled may or may not be from the round just dealt. "Queens and after": in this variant, all Queens are wild, and so is whatever card that is dealt face up that follows the Queen. All cards of that kind are now wild, both showing and in the hole. The fun part is that if another Queen is dealt face-up, the wild card will change to whatever follows this Queen. The former