Razz
Ahh, Razz. The game that one minute seems fun and easy to beat and the
next minute has you standing on a rooftop debating on whether or not
to jump. I believe that Razz is the easiest of the three major Stud
variants (Stud and Stud Hi/Lo being the other two) since generally the
play is pretty straight-forward.
The object of Razz is
simple: make the lowest hand possible. Straights and flushes do not
count against you and Aces qualify as a low. So the best hand in Razz
is A2345. This is known as the "wheel". If you make this hand, raise
and re-raise all the way to the bank because no one can beat you.
It is important to note two things about Razz:
•Unlike
in Stud Hi/Lo, there is no low qualifier. In other words, you don't
need to make an Eight or Better low. Any card counts towards your low
but certainly high cards or cards that pair your hand don't offer much
help.
•The winning hand is determined by whoever has the lowest
high-card in their qualifying hand. Many novice players don't realize
this and it costs them a lot of money when they're first starting out.
A player with A4567 has a "seven low" and would beat someone holding
A2348 (eight low). If one player has 23457 and another player has
A2467, they both have "seven lows", so who wins the pot? The first
player does because his next highest card (a five) is lower than the
other player's next highest card (a six).
In Razz, you can win the pot one of two ways:
•By
making the best low.
•By making people believe you have the best
low so they fold.
In full-handed Razz games (eight
players), you'll generally need to make the best low in order to win
the pot. This is especially the case in small stakes games. The reason
for this is that most hands usually go to a showdown. To win the pot,
you're going to need to be able to show the best hand at the end in
order to win. In games with fewer players or when you're in late
position and the action has folded to you, you can sometimes win the
pot just by representing a good low hand.
For instance,
suppose the action folds to you and you have
K Q
down with
4
up. This is a wretched Razz hand. Face cards are absolutely horrible
in Razz. However, your opponents can't see these cards. All they see
is the Four. If there are only one or two players left in the pot and
neither of them have a very good low card showing, go ahead and raise.
Even though your hand is trash, chances are they'll believe you have a
good low hand and fold.
A situation you'll commonly see in
Razz is where two or three people stay in the pot to fourth street. At
this point, it becomes a game of "who gets dealt the best cards?" Say
you have
4 2
down and
5
up. This is certainly a very good starting hand in Razz. You and two
other players who are showing the
6
and
2
stay in the pot. On fourth street, you are dealt the
2
while your opponents receive
10
and
Q. The
2
was a worthless card for you. You could literally tear it in half and
light it on fire and it would not detract from the strength of your
hand. However, your opponents can't know this and each of them
received cards that
everyone knows are bad. So go ahead and
bet! There's a perfectly good chance they'll fold allowing you to win
the pot with what might have been the worst of the three hands.
But let's say the player showing
6 10
calls. On fifth street, you are dealt
4
while they receive
9. Again, an absolutely awful card for you. You might as well have
been dealt a blank piece of paper. However, your opponent can't know
this and the card they were dealt wasn't all that great so bet again!
They'll almost certainly fold now. If they don't, give up and make a
note that they're a bad player that you should avoid bluffing in the
future.
Position is very important in Razz because it determines how
good of a starting hand you need. If you are immediately to the left
of the "bring-in", you'll need a much better starting hand than if
you're to the immediate right of the bring-in and the action has
folded all the way around to you. The same concept applies in no-limit
hold'em: the more people left to act in the pot, the stronger your
hand needs to be. The fewer people left in the pot, the more you can
open up a little bit and raise with a bit of a weaker hand.
A very good starting hand in Razz is when your highest
card is five or lower (with no pairs, of course). I would raise and
maybe even re-raise with this hand from any position. If your high
card is a six, your hand is probably good enough to play even from
early position. If your high card is a seven, you can still probably
play it but maybe not from early position depending on the number of
your "outs" that are missing.
If you're dealt
4 5
down and
7
up in early position, whether or not you play this hand depends on the
face-up cards of your opponents. Aces, Twos, Threes, and Sixes are all
bad cards to see because a.) it means one less rich card in the deck
to help improve your hand and b.) they might have a better starting
hand than you. In this scenario, I would probably play my hand if only
one of these "outs" were showing. If two are showing, it becomes
pretty questionable. With three or more, I'm almost certainly going to
fold.
Losing Razz players don't care about what cards
their opponents are showing. They only care about their cards. Winning
Razz players know their opponents cards are just as important and
sometimes even more important than their own cards.
People play Razz painfully straight-forward. If they have the
best low hand showing, they will bet almost without fail. While this
is generally the appropriate strategy, it can and should be exploited.
Let me explain what I mean:
Suppose after fifth street you
have
A 2
down and
4 3 Q
up. Your opponent is showing
7 6 10. He technically could have a stronger hand than you at the moment.
After all, your opponent knows the best possible hand you can have is
a Queen-low. Knowing this, if he has a Ten-low, he'll almost certainly
bet. Even if he has something worse than a Ten-low, he might bet
anyway hoping you'll just give him credit for the Ten-low and fold
your Queen-low. However, even if he does have a Ten-low in this
situation, you're still a 55%-60% favorite to win the pot! Raise him!
You've got two chances to catch a Five, Six or Seven all of which will
almost certainly give you the pot or an Eight or Nine which could
certainly wind up being good enough depending on the strength of his
last two cards.
Play with our
poker hand simulator
and plug in different fifth street scenarios to see how some hands,
despite technically being "behind" on fifth street, are actually
favorites to win the hand. Use this to your advantage and entice your
opponents to pour money into the pot when these scenarios present
themselves. Razz is a straight-forward game but some people play it
too straight-forward. If you raise the player with the Ten-low in the
above example, chances are he's going to be thinking "gee golly, I
know I have a better hand than this sucker, I'm going to re-raise
him!" Re-raise him back! For every $1 you can get him to put into this
pot on fifth street, you'll profit about $0.10-$0.20 in the long run!
Higher-stakes Razz games can be very profitable on account of
inexperienced players not realizing this crucial concept.
However, in those instances where your last two cards are
K K
after you capped it on fifth-street, just try to focus of all the good
things about life while you stand on the ledge of the roof.
Next Article:
7 Card Stud Hi/Lo