Black Mariah
An intense Chicago variant, also called Follow the Bitch: the queen of spades is wild, and the lowest spade in the hole (not the highest) wins half the pot.
Coming soon — not yet playable
Rules
Black Mariah is dealt exactly like standard Seven-Card Stud: 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.
Two rules layer on top of standard stud. First, the queen of spades ("Black Mariah," or in the more colorful traditional name, "the Bitch") is wild for every player, wherever it's dealt, for the whole hand. Second, at showdown the pot is split in two: half goes to the best standard five-card high hand (as in regular stud), and the other half goes to whichever player holds the LOWEST spade among their hole (face-down) cards — the reverse of standard Chicago, which awards the highest spade in the hole.
If a player's only spade in the hole happens to be the queen of spades itself, house rules vary on whether it still counts toward the low-spade side of the pot or is excluded since it's already being used as a wild card elsewhere — agree on this before dealing.
Strategy notes: Holding a single low spade (especially the deuce or three) in the hole is quietly very valuable, similar to how a high spade is valuable in standard Chicago, and the wild queen of spades means hands can be significantly stronger than their up-cards suggest — reads based purely on exposed cards are less reliable here than in plain stud.
Common house rules
Queen of spades excluded from low-spade side
The most common house ruling is that the queen of spades, since it's already wild, cannot also count as the low spade for the split-pot side — if it's a player's only hole spade, they're treated as having none.
No spade in the hole carries over
If no player has any spade at all in the hole, the low-spade half of the pot is typically carried over to the next hand's pot rather than awarded to the high hand, per house agreement (mirroring standard Chicago).
Only the wild queen, not all queens
Unlike Follow the Queen, only the single queen of spades is wild here — the other three queens are ordinary cards. Worth stating explicitly since the two games are often confused at a mixed dealer's-choice table.
Related games
Based on shared category, origin, and rules that reference each other.
Chicago
A Seven-Card Stud variant where half the pot is awarded not for the best hand, but for the highest spade dealt face down in the hole.
Learn the rules →Follow the Queen
A Seven-Card Stud variant where the appearance of a queen as an up-card designates the next card dealt face up as wild for the rest of the hand.
▶ Play nowLow Chicago
A simpler cousin of standard (high) Chicago: half the pot goes to the best hand, the other half to the lowest spade dealt in the hole — no wild cards involved.
Learn the rules →Seven-Card Stud
The classic stud game and the backbone of home poker for decades: seven cards dealt to each player, three down and four up, with the best five-card hand winning.
▶ Play now