As the country"s leading representative of Razz poker {
}I
do sometimes feel it is my duty to lead the way in supporting the development of the game.
The idle APAT banter reminds me of a conversation I had with Andy Bloch while I was at the World Series, but there"s no time for that now
Razz: the worst hand wins but straights and flushes don"t count.
Effectively that means that the 5th lowest card you have decides who wins.
e.g. A2349 loses to 45678 A mistake that some beginners make is to look at their lowest cards, but they"re no good if the last card in your hand is too high.
Obviously if the 5th lowest matches your opponents it goes to the 4th, 3rd cards etc. and this is where your good "kickers" do come in.
As with all poker, starting hands and position are key.
The starting hand requirements can get looser as the tournament progresses but a generally tight requirement is to start with three cards 8 or under, because there will be a lot of people who will go for 9 or under and/or 2 cards in that range - so you"ll start ahead of those.
You can only handle 2 "bad" cards so if you start off with one, and then get another one on 4th street you are going to need 5th, 6th and 7th to come out perfectly - in other words if you get two high cards (or you get paired) by 4th street you should fold. If it happens on 5th then you should probably fold but if your opponent"s are also looking in bad shape then it
might be worth staying in.
Generally speaking you can try 3 ways of playing, (1) tight (2) loose (3) solid.
(1) tight: have really strict starting hands, check call the pot until you have a made hand and then jam the pot with as many raises as you can get away with.
(2) loose: have fairly strict starting hands, but primarily ensure that your up cards are beating your opponents and jam the pot all the time it looks like your ahead - even if it"s before you actually have a real hand.
(3) solid: play either of the 2 ways above depending on who is on the table. Good players will generally fold if it looks like they"re behind - so playing loose can take down quite a few pots. But, bad players tend to be calling stations in Razz so you have to play tight against them - but when you do make your hand they will still call all your raises. Obviously this is the best way to play but it does rely on you being able to work out who is capable of folding and who isn"t.
On a similar note, you can take advantage of position by bluffing opponents of a hand. This is best avoided with calling stations and is most effective when the bets double on 5th street.
This is a slightly haphazard mixture of my thinking on Razz, but it"ll do for now - if any magazine wants me to write a properly structured article on it, I have a very cheap going rate
