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Talk more about soko. I like it a lot because I like stud and it has the added element of four-straights/flushes making AKs a monster, whereas in five stud it's not that good against, say, 22. Do you think that people would play soko and five stud more if they could.
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Regular five card stud won't make a comeback. There's just not enough action in this game. I tried it as a limit game at Paradise a few years back and I found it so boring unless there was a terrible donator in the game.
I think sökö would be a bit more popular (but still no bigger than other niche games like triple draw or badugi) if it was spread online anywhere besides the B2B Network. The game is usually played pot-limit so there's a decent bluffing element to the game. Also, the four-straights and four-flushes make certain hands (like high suited connectors) more playable and others (like small pairs and unsuited Ax, Kx hands) less playable than in standard 5CS. My experience in small tourneys at B2B was that a lot of bad players would call far too much to chase those hands and a surprising number of players would pay off when they were board-locked. I haven't played a hand of sökö since B2B banned Americans.
Here's an old thread about
sökö from about 2 years ago when Al Mirpuri helped me out. I kind of miss the game.
Telesina is another sicko stud variant. It's played with a 32 card deck (stripped of deuces through sixes). The game proceeds as 5CS, but a community 6th street card is dealt at the end and you make your best 5 card hand. I only ever got to play this game in freerolls, but it was pretty volatile. A lot of that was because it was impossible to keep some people from seeing all six cards.