I would advise against playing stud h/l until you have the br for 3/6 or above.

I am a better stud h/l player than I am a stud player, and I dont play stud h/l at the low levels.

If you are going to have 6 callers for each hand, someone is going to make a low every hand, which means even your good high hands will get split.

I think you are better off playing stud until you have a bigger roll.

Better payoffs when you dont get split.

-Jus

Thanks for the input Monk! I've never played a stud8 hand in my life so I had no clue just how different it was. Really all I meant by being "a lot, lot, lot better at regular stud" is that I'd chosen regular stud as my new game to learn and I'm not about to try and figure out how to play any new game, be it stud8, Omaha, Omaha8 or whatever, until I have a very good grasp at the game I'm trying to learn at the moment (then I'll have to decide if it's profitable enough for me to want to continue playing it). My poor little bankroll can't take the types of swings that will most likely be needed for learning more than one at a time. My options are still open for what to learn after I feel I'm a pretty good stud player, so I'll keep your stud8 accolades in mind.

I think it's "easier" because generally people play stud8 worse than they play straight hi, so even though the game is (in essence) more complex, the skill level you require to beat the average player is much lower. This is why I reckon limit hold'em is probably the "hardest" poker game even though it's the most simple - the general relative skill level of your opponents is much higher than in a game where most people view it as a gambling exercise, such as most hi/lo split poker.

But I take your point, both games have their subtelties and skillsets - the main point I was making is that the two games are much more different than a stud neophyte might at first realise!