Razz: Two scenarios for betting after hitting bad

Two general situations, which I was in earlier today. No exact hand historys, but its not so much advice on the hand that I want, but advice on how to play these general situations in the future.

Situation #1:
Hero has 35622 on 5th.
Villain has XXT72.
One T is out. Pot has 2.95 big bets in it.

Villain bets 1 BB, Hero raises to 2BB.

So obviously I shouldn't raise every lower draw, since a draw to a 5 is behind a made 6. Is there some general rule (like my draw has to be 2 ranks lower to raise?) that I can use to know when to raise my draw?



Situation #2:
I know the general rule in razz is if you catch bad on 4th, and your opponent catches good, then you should fold. However, I was in this situation:

Hero has 124
Villain has XX8

Hero raises in middle position, Villain 3-bets, all others fold, Hero caps 4th street.

Hero is dealt 124Q
Villain is dealt XX87

In this situation I'm almost a 65:35 underdog. However, I'm getting pot odds to peel a card, correct? Should I have just called on 3rd, looking to exploit a larger edge later?

I can answer situation 2 for you. You can peel 4th if you catch bad vs. good if :

1. The pot is unusually large, like it is in your example.
2. You probably started with a much better hand than your opponent. Like say you flat a 3 card bike vs. an overly aggressive guy who was in an obvious steal situation.
3. You're not in last place in a multi-way pot, and it's unlikely to be raised after you, or everyone folding out if you're first to act after the bet. So generally if you're ahead of someone, it's probably right to call if they are going to see 5th as well.
4. You feel you have a very large edge vs. the opponent on later streets.


For situation one, generally speaking a smooth draw is ahead of a rough made 9 or worse. (A264J vs. XX976). There's other situations too, but it's been forever since I did any work with Razz equities, so hopefully someone else can help you out.

Caveat: Clearly I'm not the Razz guru, so I'll be interested to hear what Skol has to say.

There are a lot of potential scenarios that come in to play here. You clearly have the best draw. A lot will depend on what was 3rd/4th str action looked like imo. Villian in on 5th with a T7 low in the example given? In that example, if you were betting 3rd/4th and he's calling along, he's either a moron or very strong hole cards. For the latter part, there's a good chance that 2 on 5th paired him. If it's the former then he could have 63 or something in the hole to which you are crushing him. Plus, I don't like raising your draw here with a pair on the board against his "visibly" made hand. You're better off flatting here imo and reevaluate on 6th street.

Having said all that, if you're on a draw where the villian needs to hit is visible draw twice to over take you (assuming you make your draw), then raising for value here is a viable option I suppose. But in general I don't see a generic rule we can always apply for reraising our better draw when we've paired the board.


Just to be a nit, it looks like you're missing a bet here. Obv I know you're point is that the street is capped by hero, but for sake of clarity the 3rd str action to get it there would be:
bring-in, complete(raise), reraise, 3-bet, cap.

OR

open complete to sb, raise, 3-bet, cap

End result is that there are 4 small bets now in the pot from each player still in at this point. Difference is how we got there which plays into analysis later in the hand.

Yes. General rule: If you've had a double raise or more on 3rd and hit bad on 4th, you have the proper odds to flat a bet and see 5th

No, if he was willing to cap 3rd with an 8 door card then get that money in there. The good news is that he probably has low hole card of which at least one is an A or 2 which lessens the chance of you pairing those later. But scenario as shown I jam 3rd street, peel one off on 4th with the proper odds, and reevaluate on 5th str.


Note: I'm moving this to strategy now since it isn't specific hand analysis but strategy discussion.

Well, even if he has 1237T, I'm still a 52:48 favorite or so. Additionally, raising 5th may get me 6th for free if I catch, say, a 3 or 5. I think raising in this situation is a no-brainer. Was just wondering how good my draw had to be and how bad villain's hand had to be as a rule to make this raise profitable.

Also, its unlikely the deuce paired him, since I have two of them :P

Raising a completed bet is 3-betting, yes? In any limit game, you can only raise a maximum of 3 times (or bet 4 times). Correct?

Okay great. I know in a tournament, you generally want to try and exploit your 4th street edge, rather than 3rd street edges since they're not very large (123 is only a 60% favorite over 876). But I figured since it was a cash game, going ahead & capping was fine.


I kinda wanted to post this in Skold's razz thread, but apparently I missed :P. If you would kindly move it there, as this forum is... bad.

Guess we'll have to wait for Skold on this for more input as I'm not well versed enough to answer definitively as a general rule for all occassions. But if we're talking generic terms of how good/bad to make raising profitable, then we also need to ignore the given half-example we started with and instead define what examples would look like along with previous actions.

It's also unlikely to make quad aces by catching consecutive running cards, but I did this weekend when 4th-7th came out and I wound up with 254AAAA as my final hand. Unlikely - yes. But you can't simply ignore it and that's why I said we would really need to have previous actions for discussing the example.

Maybe it's a terminology thing that I'm wrong with on 3rd street action. But unlike blind games, the bring-in is not a live bet per se. By that I mean the bring-n bettor doesn't get to act last in the round if players only limp in. In a blind game (like hold'em) the BB gets an option to act last whereas the bring-in acts first by either posting the bring-in or completing the small bet. So on 3rd street I would think the first real bet in discussion is the completion of the entire small bet, followed by a raise, then a 3-bet, and ended with a 4-bet which is the cap.

Or are you saying the bring-in is the first "bet" then the completion is the raise, followed by a 3-bet (reraise) then by a 4-bet, and capped with a 5-bet? I can't recall hearing of a 5-bet cap before in a limit game except once where the game specifically allowed a 5-bet cap on every street. I thought the 4-bet was the cap. On every other street the 4 bet is the cap, right? But again, it's terminology only that we need to clear up. Regardless of what you call it, capped 3rd street action results in four small bets being in the pot for each player that called all the way and is seeing 4th street.

Example ($2/$4, $.25 Ante, $.60 Bring-in, Full Ring)
3rd street:
Player 1 Brings-in for $.60, Players 2-6 fold, Player 7 completes to $2.00, Player 8 raises to $4.00, Player 1 folds, Player 7 3-bets to $6.00, Player 8 4-bets (caps) to $8.00, Player 7 calls $2.00. End result is that each player 7 and 8 that are in the hand now both put in four small bets of $2.00.

So in that example, am I wrong in the terminology then and the cap made by Player 8 should say 5-bets (caps) to $8.00? That doesn't sound right to me tbh and it isn't that way on any other street. On those other streets the first bet is the whole small or big bet that is made. But if I'm wrong then I'm okay with that too and I'll start calling it differently on 3rd street.

Um, I thought I agreed with you on this one. Cap 3rd, call 4th no matter what hits, and reevaluate on 5th. That's what you're saying, no?

We can make this forum better by having these great discussions like this. Hand analysis should be for hand analysis imo.

We do agree :P

I'm not as optimistic, since the audience is different :P

I think we can change this. There are currently only a handful of us that are really interested in discussing Razz in more depth. If we all know that and name threads here accordingly (e.g. start title with Razz) like peope should be doing anyway, maybe that'll come around some too. Plus if we're aware to look here for strategy and there for hand analysis, then we're already ahead of the game (so to speak).

I'm not sure if this'll be especially helpful or if I'm just rambling, but my thoughts below:

(Disclaimer - I only play low stakes)

Situation 1:

Interesting one. I see a lot of people who'll lead into someone on fifth just because their opponent has caught bad, and with no real regard for the cards they're showing. They'll do it because some players lose their stomach for a hand when the big bets start and also because fifth is where a lot of players will give up on their bluffs. If you'd been playing (Q3)622, for example, you'd probably have to give up there. I'd interpret villain betting in that spot as often being an automatic reaction, nothing else.

In this specific case, raising tells the villain that we do have a real draw and we're not giving up. Thinking about it though, doesn't flat calling tell him the same thing? He was probably expecting us to fold because we were either bluffing or didn't have the stomach for continuing after a brick - either a call or a raise should tell him he was wrong.

I don't mind raising in an effort to get a free card, but I think the strategy is fairly villain dependent. Some people just won't play along and will bet sixth just because they bet fifth, so often we end up putting in an extra bet when we're behind.

In general terms, I think JD makes a good point in his first post: if the villain needs to catch runner-runner to beat whatever hand you're drawing at (assuming you make it) then a raise is probably OK. With something more marginal, like say a (35)822 it's probably not so crash hot. The villain will have about the same odds to improve that we do, and the situation is reversed.

Situation 2:

Assuming the majority of our outs are still live, yes, I peel there and I don't mind capping third.

1. You are about a 60-65% favorite often here and are correct to raise 5th. If you're drawing to a smooth 7 or better and opponent has a rough 9 or worse, then raising is best if your hand is live.

2. When 3rd is raised, you have odds HU to call on 4th when you brick and opponent catches good. I like mixing my play on 3rd, but will generally raise especially vs an 8 up.

BTW, please pm me in future if you want my input on a Razz thread. I just saw this. For those who don't know, I play almost exclusively Razz and am a winning reg.