I haven't posted these for a while, so here goes again: some games you really should try.

Stud with a two-card flip, fka/aka mississippi 7cs, when played with fixed-limits or 1/2 pot-limit is simply 7cs with no bet on fourth street, so everyone gets two cards for their opening bet/call, instead of only one. So the game is shortened by one round of play and five cards are in play at the second round.

Razz with a flip and Hilo with a flip are also very playable, and might appeal to those who are used to the four-round layout of omaha. If you want to try them with 1/2 pot betting I suggest you use the eight-card version, which uses an extra hole-card, so you can start with (A23)4, (AAs2s)3s. etc. You can use a maximum of two of your starting hole-cards, so (AAA)x is a pair of aces, not trips. To enforce that rule the river hole-card must be kept under a marker, separate from the other cards, or else the hand is dead.

Eight-card Stud with a flip also works for high-poker. .

Stud with a flip for non-fixed limits, ie, PL, NL and 1/2 Pot, has the additional change of dealing the river face-up, so that straights and flushes, or big trips, can be the absolute nuts at showdown, which makes them much more valuable in a PL/NL game than when the river is turned down. The same applies to the eight-card version when played PL, ie, deal the river face-up, which of course removes the issue of keeping the river separate from the other cards.

Betting: Pot-limit pre-flip and NL after the flip works well. But you can use either from start to finish. Half-pot is also excellent. Ante, of course, and don't use a low-card bring-in: it's just not right. I recommend a bring-in of half the pot from the high-card, in the dark that is, with no choice about the size of the bet. If there are two of the same high card showing OR the high card is lower than a Jack, then the opening bet reverts to bet-or-fold, with the minimum being one ante, maximum the pot (or your stack if playing NL all the way) If the high card folds, the next highest card must open or fold, and if no one opens, the low card wins by default. I prefer the forced bring when a player has a genuinely high card because it forces the rocks to play more hands and makes pre-flip raises much more viable. It's hard to raise someone with a strong card showing in PL Stud if they only open with them about 1/4 of the time, or if they bet the maximum after looking at their cards. But if they've been forced to bring it in with a standard bet, they will only have a pair about 1/7th of the time, so you can maybe take a shot.
y.

Some starting hands and rough averages of their chances of improving on the flip, using the rule of two and four, ie, counting 49 cards as unknown.

(TsJs)Qs: With 25 outs you can improve at least once on the flip over 70% of the time, not including gutshot draws. You can improve twice on the flip up to ~25% of the time, including those which make a a gutshot draw plus a flush draw, or pair. And you will flip a either made straight or flush about 1/13th of the time, ie, about 1/25 for each. Those figures will be higher or lower, according to how clean your cards are.

(AsKs)T With nine outs, you pair one of your starting cards over 35% of the time on the flip, with the additional chance of a running pair adding another 6%. You have backdoor chances of flipping a flush draw (1/25) or a gut-shot draw (30%) or even a made broadway (~1/70) which is not as bad as it might look when you consider that the chances of flopping a straight in Holdem are only 1/125.

(As2)2s: with five outs you have almost a 1/5 chance of flipping aces up, or better, with additional chances of a running pair boosting your chances of improvement to over 25%. If you are playing a clean pair against eight players then your chances of flipping trips are about 1/11.

Eight-card hands:
(AAs2s)3s 4sA 6s (3)

That's a hand which flips a set of Aces. a straight-flush draw and a low draw, then makes a six-low and a flush on the turn, and then a full-house on the river. So it could be Razz, Hilo or high-only, it's good in all of them.

If the river card had been a deuce then it wouldn't have made a full-house, because AAA22 requires all three starting hole-cards, and only two may be lawfully used. So the river card must be kept separate, under a marker.

The eighth card makes it possible to make a low and a full-house, or quads in one hand, which is impossible when only seven are used, so the game fully exploits the ranking system it uses, unlike traditional Stud8.

For the big bet varieties, how integral do you feel dealing the river card face up is? Do you think keeping it face down would assist in making NL Stud with a flip look less like a NL hold'em knockoff (i.e. a different game with its own merits and not a stud version of hold'em).

One of my local casinos spreads a game they call Mississippi stud. It bears little resemblance to the game you describe, as it's played against the house and you don't get very many cards at all. You should probably sue.

What the hell is wrong with having the low card bring it in? A half-pot bring-in seems excessive, but it's not like I'm going to be playing this game any time soon.

I still don't understand why you have to know you have the nuts to make a big bet on the end.

It's not what it looks like that matters, it's what it does. Dealing the river down in PL/NL Stud w Flip is just as harmful to the value of straights and flushes and big trips as it would be if you dealt the river as another hole-card in He and PLO: if the stacks are deep they become almost unbettable, because they can never be the nuts, and a raise will kill you. So to maintain the value of those hands in PL/NL the river has to be face up. But for fl and for 1/2 pot it works with the river down, because a raise isn't going to kill you, and you can still bet your hand if you want to. So maybe 1/2 pot river-down is a good way to get acquainted with the flip, at least.

If your hand can never be the nuts at showdown, that reduces it's playing value, and in traditional PL Stud, small straights and flushes and small pairs, are usually unplayable. In PL/NL Stud with a flip, they are playable, not only because they can be the nuts on the river, and you can make them more easily, but also because you can often steal the pot when you make a scary board by hitting your doorcard in some way on the flip.

So SwF stands on it's own merits, and offers a very different approach than NLHE, even though it looks similar. It's different, and that's a good thing, because Stud offers a whole world of playing and bluffing opportunities which community-card games lack. And vice-versa of course, which is all good, because it means that poker doesn't have to remain a virtual mono-culture, as it is today.

(BTW, I don't know if you saw the thread in poker theory about the game you invented before Rush appeared, ie, anonymous Rush. It's headed "NIpoker" for non-iterated poker, which is what I was calling it a few weeks ago.)