The fire is gone. She was putting out from the first time we met and things were going great. But then something changed. She started becoming distant, detached...frigid. The passion was gone.

I've come to a couple of conclusions:

1) There is a lot more variance to Stud-8 than I appreciated

2) I clearly got lucky when I first started playing, which gave me a false sense of the profitability of this game

Lately I can't put together a winning session if my life depended on it. I've been studying my hand histories and closing all the leaks that have led to big lost pots and even that hasn't worked. Last night I played a smart, disciplined game, never losing a pot past 5th street, and still managed to lose more than 1/2 my buyin just on antes, bring-ins, and folding on 4th or 5th when my hand wasn't going anywhere. I've realized there is a brutal catch-22 in this game because of the structure. If you play too nitty, you just leak chips like I did last night, waiting until you finally hit a big hand to win a nice pot. But if you play too lose, you end up getting caught with 2nd best hands and losing big pots. That catch-22 doesn't really exist to the same degree in blind games like NLHE and O8 because it's much easier to win small pots here and there to stay afloat while you're waiting for some cards to come your way.

That O8 was always a hot one, maybe I'll see if she's interested in starting something again...

So what your saying I guess jmbreslin is after sleeping with Stud 8 like a gazillion times you were quite happy but then Stud 8 like the slut she is went and cheated on you with your brother (donkeys) and then your father (antes & bring in), so she isn't worth anything to you now. Am I right?

Yeah, that about sums it up. Bitch.

I hear you. I gave up on Stud-hi for the same reason. The variance is off the charts - you can go like 40 hands without winning a single pot in a full-ring game. And when it looks like you're about to break the dry spell, heads up with kings against some donkey, he pairs his ace doorcard and bets into you. It's A LOT harder to stay afloat by stealing. Also I find it harder to multi-table because of the exposed cards, so this means you play even less hands - and the hands typically take longer than ones in NLHE.

Of course, the swings work both ways. Over Thanksgiving I hosted a 6-handed Stud-hi game with my family, .5/.10 penny antes (took forever to explain the actual casino rules), and I played like a loose, wild idiot, and no matter what I did, for a stretch of almost 2 hours, I won. I'd make terrible calls and say, "homegame poker at its finest," and get there everytime; and it didn't matter how - gutshots, open enders, runner-runner fullhouses, higher trips. Obviously it helped that my opponents didn't know what they were doing, so I never had to be really afraid of running into dominating hands; my favorite hand involved my brother, the worst ever, who bet because he has the best hand showing (as he always does) and folded to my raise for only .10 more for a pot of almost $5. I mean, .10 into a $5 pot. Can you beat that level of terrible? Oh yeah, you can, because the other 3 players on the river also folded, even though they were calling and raising every street up to that point.

Then my mom sat down, the same person who loves suited connectors in HE because they can make a straight flush, and crushed the game.