Auction

Auction is dealt using the standard Seven-Card Stud structure: two down cards and one up card to start, up-cards on fourth through sixth street, a final down card on seventh street, with a betting round after each street.

The defining twist happens immediately after third street is dealt, before the first betting round: players bid chips (into a separate side pot, distinct from the main pot) for the right to name that hand's wild rank. Bidding typically proceeds once around the table (or with a set number of raises), and the highest bidder wins the right to declare any rank (of their choosing) wild for the entire hand — with their winning bid amount added to the main pot rather than kept by the dealer.

Once the wild rank is named, the hand proceeds exactly like a fixed-wild-card stud variant (similar to Baseball or Dr. Pepper): the chosen rank is wild for every player, for the whole hand, usable as any rank and suit needed.

Showdown proceeds as in standard stud, with the auctioned wild rank included when evaluating each player's best five-card hand from their seven cards.

Strategy notes: The auction phase adds a meta-layer of strategy on top of standard stud — a player who wins the bidding will naturally tend to name a rank they're already showing or holding in the hole, so opponents can use the winning bidder's likely wild-rank choice (informed by their exposed door card) as a read, even before betting on the hand itself begins.