Razz

How in the world do you play Razz. From playing on Fulltilt it seems as if you need the worst possible hand. hah. That true?

You're right on. The worst possible hand out of all the remaining hands wins. It's not like a lo pot in hi/lo, where they all have to be 8 or lower. An A2379 will beat an A358J. Just as long as you have the worst. My experience in this game is usually I get running trips or a flush... the hands I would love in stud.

but flushes and straights doesnt count do they? the best hand (or the worst) you can get is A-2-3-4-5, a straight. Or am i totally off here?

Correct, straights and flushes have no effect on the outcome in Razz, 5 lowest cards win.

wait so whats the difference between the L/H pot? the low is the worst hand but in razz the H pot is the best hand not counting flush/st8 and stuff.

There is no High hand in Razz.

You are looking for the 5 lowest cards.. A2345 being the best hand but not because it's a straight....but because its the 5 lowest cards in the deck.

so whats the difference between the H/L pots? i dont understand how you win each pot.

H/L is not played in Razz, Razz is a lowball game where A counts as low and Straights and Flushes are not counted.

For H/L games, e.g. 7 Sud H/L, one player tries to make the best hand, and another tries to make the worst with 5 cards under 8. You can get the entire pot for example you get 5 suited cards under 8 and someone else doesn't have a full house, a higher flush, quads or a straight flush.

Like the others have said, Razz is *insert game* H/L without the higher part. Best possibly hand is a wheel(A-5). Goal is to make the lowest 5 card hand, pairs counting against you(as in you lose that card), and straights and flushes not counting against you. You add up the total number of your 5 lowest cards, with your highest low card being your "low". If you have A2346 you have a 6 low, 23458 loses to 34567 as it has a lower "high" card.

what do you mean pairs count against you? do you mean that if you have A2235 that a 2 would not count and you would have to take your next lowest card to make your hand?

yes Razz is a poker style when the objective is to make the worst possible hand which is 1 2 3 4 5 or other refer to it as the wheel. Well if you don't have the wheel and lets say you and your opponent both had A low the second card that will decide who wins the pot would have to be the last highest card you have. If you have the lower one then you win. I joined a few razz tournament and not knowing how to play. It's not a good idea to join one if you don't know the rules although i went pretty far into the tournament without know how to play which is pretty funny but also shows that poker is not all about the cards it's abou bluffing and making the right decisions.

Also, 23457 would beat A2367 because the winning hand is determined from the highest card down to the lowest, and the 7-5 is lower than the 7-6.

Exactly. Your goal is to make the lowest 5 unique cards so AAAA2 would lose to 9TJQK.

so just out of curiosity, are there any articles on starting hands in razz? like a-x-x is good or do you want the x-x to be lower than a certain number...or would say... 3-4-5 be an acceptable s/h. obviously this cant be answered in a post, so a link to an article or something would be great.

Thanks,
Bullets

Yep, see this post:
http://www.cardschat.com/showpost857561-post5.html

Just to clarify, the above isn't quite true - at least, it's not for any high-low game commonly played today.

The two high-low games we play most commonly are the HORSE ones - Omaha8 and Stud8, both of which need a low hand to be five cards eight or under.

Razz does not have an eight-or-under qualifier.

thanks a lot, i look forward to reading all of them and putting them to good use

well, thats pretty much true. lol. When you grow to understand razz it will get incredibly frusterating to you, trust me on this one. You will learn to hate razz as i have.

Oh. Okay. So 5 lowest cards. ha it's funny because i always seem to get such good cards while playing razz but when i go to play stud I get nothing. Kinda wish I could switch games.

The funny thing is H.O.R.S.E. first u play razz and than it swich and u play stud. If u dont see that it swich, u can lose a lot of money :-(