Razz is a seven card stud game where the best
five card low hand wins. It's played on the Ace
to Five scale with the ace being low and
straights and flushes having no value beyond
their spots.
The absolute best starting hand that you can
have is a A-2-3 but any starting hand with three
unpaired cards between an Ace and Five are
excellent hands. The most important thing to
remember when evaluating your starting hand is
that the strength of your hand is directly
related to what other cards are showing on the
table.
For example, your starting hand is 3-4-6. As
you look at your opponents cards you see two
Aces, two 2's a five and a seven on the board.
These are all cards that are important to your
hand but your opponents are holding them. Your
hand is not as strong as it originally appeared
to be.
Let's take a look at this same starting hand,
3-4-6 with other cards out on the table. Now
let's suppose that you see several of the same
cards in your hand out on the table, two threes,
a four, and a six. These are cards that you
don't want and now have less of a chance in
receiving the remaining ones in the hand. Your
starting hand appears and is strong.
With a little experience, you will easily be
able to figure out which starting hands you can
start that particular hand with. You should be
pretty conservative when selecting which hands
to play. For example, you should not play 8-7-6
when there are two threes and ace still to act
behind you.
If you have 9-3-A and all the players behind
you have up cards higher than nines then you
have a playable hand. In fact this is actually
the best starting hand compared to the other
players at the table.
As you continue to play your hands you
absolutely must keep an eye on your opponents
cards and reevaluate your hand. If it looks like
you have a weaker hand and have little or no
chance to win you must fold your hand. You must
be a disciplined player in order to be a
consistent winner.
You will end up folding many weak hands as
you play Razz. This why I don't typically
recommend being an overly aggressive player when
betting. Why put more of your money into the
hand when the others are all betting. Mostly
call bets with your good hands.
The reason for this is that as your fortunes
may change with every additional card that is
dealt to you, you are going to fold more hands
than your less disciplined opponents. Therefore
all the money you have put into the pot early
will often be forfeited by you, but not often by
your opponents.
While many players think that a big part of
Razz is luck it is really knowing which hands
are good hands to play and which ones are not.
With a little bit of experience, discipline and
keeping an eye out on the cards on the table you
can do quite well when playing Razz. In fact,
Razz is one of the easier games to be profitable
at.
