Starting Hands
I don’t know if any one has ever done a true starting hand list for Razz and I am not even going to try. This game isn’t as simple as reading the 2 cards dealt to you at holdem and assigning a preflop value to them.
First off, you are going to get 3 cards dealt to you.
Secondly, not only do you have to assess your 3 cards, you then have to look around the table and view your opponent’s upcards and based on what you see and what you know of their betting habits on 3rd street (and your position, of course) , you have to assign a value to your hand. A hand like KKA is completely unplayable in one situation and a must-raise hand in another situation.
I guess first off, you need to know what sort of hand you want to end up with. Here is a short list of the best hands in Razz, in order (best at top, not-so-best at bottom):
5432A
6432A
6532A
6542A
6543A
65432
7432A
7532A
7542A
7543A
75432
7632A
7642A
7643A
76432
7652A
7653A
7654A
76542
76543
The best hand “5432A” is often referred to as a bike, and bike is easier to type than 5432A so please commit that term to memory, I may just end up saying it a few more times.
The hands I listed above are all the hands 7 low or better. If you have one of these hands you will win most of the time, but it is so very important to pay attention to what your opponent may be drawing to. Razz is all about pressing home small advantages so don’t be pressing home unless you know you have that advantage. This is a game where a player who overbets his hand will find himself losing a large pot in a game where it can sometimes be tough to win a large pot. I have forgotten this piece of advice recently and need to reapply this to my razz game... believe me this lapse has cost me. Razz is about staying in control of the minutiae whereas nlhe is often played with a sledgehammer. In other words, a moments lapse of judgement can not be made up the next hand as readily as in NL holdem, but on the other hand for the player who doesn’t care for the flashy win of a big pot and is more concerned about steadily increasing his bankroll Razz may be the game for you.
I was playing Razz with Howard Lederer one night over at Full Tilt and two things came up in the conversation that I put into memory. At one point another player told Howard that they wanted to turn pro. That they had started at .01/.02 and had moved up to $1/$2 which is what we were playing at the time and they figured in another year they would be beating the $5/$10 game. Howard replied that when he first started playing poker that he conquered the $2/$4 tables pretty quick but it took him another ten years to consistently beat the $5/$10 table.
The other player then mentioned that he was planning on becoming a pro specializing in Razz, to which Howard replied that in his opinion Razz was a great game to turn pro on because there is so much less variance to the game than in other forms of poker.
From this conversation I deduced 2 things:
#1: Razz is a game where a good player can consistently win. So far I am either proving Howard right, or I am the luckiest donk in this hemisphere. Which brings us to point #2.
#2: If you ever get the chance to play with a pro, make it Lederer. He honestly does try to help other people improve their games and he is a good teacher. I remember a PPT episode where he gave a player next to him some sound advice during the game.
Anyways, back to starting hands:
Possibly the most important aspect of a good starting hand is what others hold in their hands. If you have 345 and are facing a raise… or maybe even under the gun and you look around the table and see A,A,2,2,6 showing in the doors of the other players, this is a great time to fold. I mean think about it, yeah you have great starters but what are you going to catch to improve? Yes you are drawing to a rough 5, which is no the worst place in the world to be… but you only have 2 aces and 2 deuces left to catch and a 6 is gone too. Odds are that the best hand you are going to catch is an 87543 and that probably wont be good enough.
Take that same hand 3,4,5 and have doors showing like this: K,T,4,9,3… you are in far better shape… not an ideal hand but one worth seeing a few more cards. Now I know you are looking at this example and seeing that all your outs are live but the other thing that improves your situation is that fact that the player with the 4 showing has to draw a 5 and a 3 to hit the nuts and you hold one of each of those cards and you already know that another player holds another of the cards needed. This is a good thing. You are holding blocking cards on both your opponents and your opponents hold blocking cards against each other but (as far as you know) they do not hold any blocking cards on you.
See why Razz starting hands are more complicated than holdems? So many people say Razz is too simple a game for them, but I think the real problem is that the players don’t understand the intricacies of the game.
Hmm I think that’s about it for now.
As many of you know I started my own site a while back and I don’t really have the time to dedicate to this, especially since interest is so low. At first I thought there was a higher level of interest in Razz in this forum but after a while I saw the same people posting the same questions (in multiples of 3) and realised they just wanted passwords.
Hopefully I have helped some of you learn the game of razz a bit.
I wouldn’t recommend following my advice ad verbatim as situations in different games require different strategies. I gave you a solid base to play loose low limit games and once you feel comfortable there move to a higher level and adjust your play as needed.
If anyone here feels this article is worthy of pinning go ahead and do it.
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