- Follow players' up cards. You can use the chat box to record the up cards each hand.

- 76x and 87x lows will lose you a lot of money. 75x, 74x, 85x and 86x are much better. Obviously, if it looks like your opponent has a worse made hand, like a T or 9 low, than the 76x and 87x lows may be good.

- If you don't improve on 4th, you can see another card, because it's still cheap. After 5th street it gets more expensive, so dump your hand if you don't think you have a decent chance at winning the hand.

For Razz there are few books, and pretty iffy/unclear advice in them anyway. Or obsolete (Skalansky on Razz, for example... or the weak sauce that Hellmuth or Brunson have in their books). TBH the Razz chapter in the Full Tilt Poker book, which is just a general strategy conversation between Rafe Furst and Ted Forrest, is the most valuable conceptual info. I have seen in print.


Best tip: visit http://propokertools.com/simulations and take a bunch of time and just go crazy with hand match ups from 3rd street on down to 6th. Ingrain into your brain when you are WAY ahead and when you are just slightly ahead or behind, and keep the pot small when you are "close" (and when the next card could kill your lead), and especially exploit a bad player based on the objective math when you can i.e. VALUETOWN 6th/7th especially!



But most of all adjust to your opponents... It may seem "safe" to just start with 764/854, but even the stupidest of opponents will notice how super-tight you are and thus you will get blinded to death or win only small pots (or lose big ones when you get 4 perfect then triple brick vs. a station who just won't let go of their 98765!)


Obvious adjustments would be if your opponent almost always folds a bricked 4th then you can do a late open with ANY low card 7- and call if they re-raise you, and then keep betting 4th/5th if your board is scary (and they brick, i.e. ~30% of the time!), then shut down on double-bet streets if you think he has regained the lead or will obv. not fold.

OTOH, if some villain raises limpers every time then you might be profitable just waiting for 854 or 754 and then get extra value by limp-raising and then firing all the way if you don't brick 4th, with luck they won't fold a rough draw and if they "get there" on the river they might even raise when you have board lock. ezgame


PS: and what do you mean by raping?

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think I'm gonna play some razz tonight on Stars.

Ah, that makes sense. If you're playing mostly .25/.50 and .50/1 and have profited $50 over a few weeks that's certainly a good run. You must not be triple-bricking as much as I am :grrr: (which is why I am presently *unhappy* with your true words: "hands get to a show down about 75% of the time" <-- yup it sure seems to be the case ... especially when I'm running bad >_< )


One thing I've noticed @ Stars is that folks will call a Complete or even a complete+RAISE with [xL]L where L=low (8..A) but "x" is a total brick (either J+ or a pairing of a low card). In other words, they play the "can I have 4 low cards by 5th street?" gambling game.

So it's really frustrating when you start off 3-perfect and then brick 4th -- Skalansky suggests in his book that you should almost always FOLD as soon as you brick the one time. But considering what your opponent commonly started with, you are often still AHEAD of your opponent when he hits "good" if he started with only 2 good low cards -- and very often a very rough 86 or 87 or even 98! So the next card for you is half-price and can make you a HUGE favorite if you hit even just an 8 (let alone an unpaired wheel card), so ez peel imo. EXAMPLE: http://www.propokertools.com/simulations/show?g=rz&h1=75448&h2=98765&s=generic (can you imagine folding on 4th there? let alone if villain started with [78]7 instead of [987]?)



BNS: lol welcome to the cult, maybe I'll see you there!

you will enjoy the looseness, for sure... Just played a quick sesh at lunch, virtually every "big pot" showdown I saw shipped my way. omg they called with JTxxx sometimes, when I had 3 wheel on my porch. :yum:

.50/1 = -2.75, .25/.50 +1.50, .10/20 +1.28 +7.94(!)
BR = profit +7.97, During current Razz session you were dealt 235 hands and:
 - saw fourth street 69 times (29%)
 - saw fifth street 48 times (20%)
 - saw sixth street 34 times (14%)
 - reached showdown 16 times (6%)
 Pots won at showdown - 12 of 16 (75%) <-- and most of these were BIG pots! I think only 1 or 2 of my 4 "losses" were big pots!
 Pots won without showdown - 48
PTBBavg = 0.475, so +$7.97 in 235 hands = $3.39/100 = 7.14PTBB/100

I'm focusing on only "defending" with 954 854 754 or better, and with my now-super-tight image I can OPEN-steal if last or 2nd-last "low" card, if they think I am stealing and they raise me I always call and bet out the better board on 4th/5th so getting tons of fold equity... ez game

I played 10 minutes of $0.25/0.50 and didn't see anyone, so I left up $3.50. I was in the mood to play razz earlier today, but Christmas shopping wiped me out.

up $17 already. these games are just rediculous.

lolsameoldsameoldaments

Flat. If both his down cards are less than a Q he is winning now, and he knows it.

Played a short 25 minute session on Stars and left up $8. I kept improving and they kept calling. T'was nice.

The Razz games have a lot of LAGtards (mostly from Russia and similar) who sometimes go on rushes of hitting 6th+7th perfect to scoop a huge pot while I triple-brick...

But recently I discovered that "they kept calling" is also true at the LIMIT holdem fullring tables (micros, anyway). So I've been mass-tabling those for a bit, playing mainly suited and connected cards and pocket pairs, rarely raising preflop (since they never fold, and it becomes "hit to win" Bingo) and not over-playing "one pair" hands (even TPTK) and due to the gamboooool mood of most tables when I hit my straight or flush on the turn or river they pretty much never believe me, heck sometimes I even get raised by morons with 2 pair (not even TOP 2 pair!) so imo way less frustrating than the Razz games where a monster 70:30 lead on 4th turns into a fold-the-river :latherrinserepeat: :sigh:.


So imo LHEfullring>Razz for lower-variance profits ... for now anyway (while I'm hitting all my draws )

But I don't think I'll ever completely "give up" on my love-hate relationship with Razz.

Yay, I'm pretty sure I've figured it out, a new strategy for Razz to reduce stress and variance:


























do not play anymore, ever *cough*doomswitch,phukthisstupidgame*cough* <-- spoiler