Common Misconceptions About Razz

[checkymcfold 0]

this first little entry is going to be a short one, but there are a few fundamental misunderstandings about razz that even conceivably good players commonly hold. i'm gonna fix em, in order of importance, imho:):the #1 misconception about razz that people have is that they think that hands are well-defined on 3rd street. this leads people who have a basic understanding of the game to play FAR too tight and get out of pots that they can enter profitably if they had more confidence in their ability to play well post-third. simply, no non-broadway hand in razz is that far ahead of any other hand on third street, and if the pot is looking like it's gonna be heads up, there's not a lot of reason not to get involved unless your door card is the one defining your hand (such as, 23/10 has a LOT less value in razz than does 210/3, as we'll see in a sec). sure, you might be behind, but if you can get into a pot that will get to 12SB for 1SB, even if you have only 35% equity or whatever, there's no reason not to unless your opponent seems to have a read on you. BE CONFIDENT ABOUT YOUR POST-THIRD PLAY AND QUIT BEING A NIT, lol .misconception #2: razz should be played as if hands actually go to showdown. everyone, go back to your hand history of your last non-microlimit razz session. what % of hands actually went to showdown? the answer, i'm sure, is not many. if that's true, then why the **** should you care so much about the cards that your opponent can't see? if someone completes a seven, and you're holding KQ/2 with no decent door cards behind, go ahead and raise him sometimes (not every time, but do it occasionally as an experiment). SO OFTEN, if he catches bad and you catch decent on fourth, he'll just muck. if not, he'll muck fifth unless he improves. promise. of course, i don't mean to imply that playing every good door card like a LAGtard is a good idea, but there are a LOT of spots for pushing people around that are missed by most "solid" players. watch a higher limit razz game sometime--LOTS more hands go to showdown, because people are making moves like this all the time and everyone's adjusting to it. fortunately for you, though, through most 15/30 games, people aren't good enough to make these kinds of adjustments. so run them over. sometimes.misconception #3: well, this one's not really a "misconception" so much as a mistake, but whatever. this is my list so **** off, lol. anyway, a HUGE thing that people mess up in general is that they play too passively to a 3rd street 3bet. since most hands are not far behind most others, oftentimes you can gain a huge edge by inflating the pot such that you can draw profitably in thinner spots later on, while your opponents will not adjust properly and will fold when they shouldn't on streets that have extremely big pots. if you can make your opponent fold in 10BB pots when they're good a lot more often than 1/10 times, you've created a HUGE edge for yourself. moreover, when people 3bet third, they almost always have 3 to a six. that means that at least half of the wheel cards that come on their boards on later streets will pair them, so they've actually done you a favor in that they've pushed a small edge at the expense of making themselves quite readable later on. yes, they're ahead, but not by much (see misconception one), and you have a lot better idea of what paired them than they do of what paired you. that means you're a winner.#3b: people don't 3bet relatively light enough. :)misconception #4 (related to #2): people think that you need to be able to make a hand to win. LOL. not true at all. to win a hand in razz, you can do a lot of things, most of which come more from betting, raising, and your opponent's board than your actual hand. the only times you need to feel like you need to make a hand are when the pot is multiway (so 3bet more on third when your door card is a wheel card to isolate, silly) or when your opponent's board is actually a strong one. in most of the other situations out there, the boards are going to read like a "standard" hand, and your opponent will play against you like you actually have it if you've played it that way.misconception #5: people often think that shitty hands never win, and that showing down a loser is always a mistake. here's a question for them, then: let's say your opponent is representing something like a six on 6th street, but it's clear to you that if he doesn't have the six, then he's playing something like a queen or jack. usually, you're correct in calling down a 9 or 10 in this spot, even if he's of course going to have the six or another hand that you're drawing dead to some of the time. the question in razz most of the time isn't so much "does he have it here?" but rather "how often does he have it here?" since if he's bluffing, he's gonna keep betting since he has no other way to win, and if he has it, he's gonna keep betting anyway. you're not calling down in one hand only, you're calling down in a certain type of spot as a general play, and even if you're paying off two bets on 6th and 7th to see a showdown against hands you might be drawing dead against, you have to think in terms of longterm percentages of being correct rather than one hand at a time. sure, you'll look retarded sometimes. people will call you a donk (hell, i can't remember the last razz session i had where i wasn't called a retard by someone). but you'll have their money. you win.that's installment one, kiddies. i'll write some more in a week or two. hope it helps.

[zengame 0]

Thx. luv razz look forward to your next installment.

[Chiefclint 0]

thanks for the installement.B ut this might make it tougher for me to do damage on teh Neg-o horse, lol. Looking forward to more.

[wisky_VI 0]

nh sir

[Cappy37 0]

Yup, we all love this stuff. Good job, checky.

[wisky_VI 0]

running like god a fair share helps too, man reading this a few times then running goot in very first session is a goot combo. catching others off guard with new strategy is the nutz ! man the chat box reads are fun !

[ThePhoenix88 0]

Please teach me everything you now sir.