From London to Vegas in 16 Letters
Day 18: R is for ...
R is for Razz. This was the first R that came into my mind even though for a long time I had literally no idea what Razz was (never having played it or watched it). Barry helpfully told me to "just play it the same as low-ball" which was of no use at all when I hadn't played that game either.
Eventually I was forced to learn the game when I decided to participate in the first HORSE tournament staged at The International. Actually, that format was filled with games I didn't know. Arguably I didn't even really know "H for Hold'em", since it was limit hold'em. The other games were even more exotic. I thought I might know "O" for Omaha but it turned out to be limit Omaha Hi-Lo Split which is not at all similar to PLO (high only).
Razz is 7-card stud (2 card down & 1 card up initially, followed by 3 more up cards and then a final down card. A total of 4 up, 3 down and no community cards) played for the low only.
The winning hand is the LOWEST 5-card hand you can make. Straights and flushes are not counted and Aces are low, so the nuts is A-2-3-4-5.
What is not apparent from these straightforward rules is what a mad, gambling game it can be.
There are 5 rounds of betting (after the initial 3 cards, then on each subsequent card) and the limits double on the 3rd round. So the fact is, even at limit, the pots get very big very quickly.
The other thing is that you get an extremely clear view of the relative merits of your own hand vs your opponents hand as it develops on each street. Lastly, unlike Hold'em where the best starting hand (AA) can often win unimproved, the best starting Razz hand [A-2-3] can be destroyed by bad cards to the point where you effectively have no hand at all whilst your opponents unpromising junk develops into a winner.
Ironically for a limit game, I find it presents quite a few opportunities for bluffing especially as you often have a very good idea what hole cards your opponents must have started with.
I used to find the whole idea of a game played for high-low split rather unappealing, let alone low-only, but now I will be actively on the look out for some Razz action on my trip to Vegas this year.
R is for Rules of Thumb. I find these very useful ! A classic example would be the "less than 10BB" rule or the "10% rule". As I understand them, the first rule tells me to push all in rather than raise if I have < id="SPELLING_ERROR_3" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">stack in a tournament. The second tells me that when playing a deep stack I can call a push from a short stack with any two cards if it represents less than 10% of my chips. Then there is the 20-1 rule which aims to help us decide whether to call with a small pair hoping to hit a set.
The usefulness of these rules is obvious. They substitute for tricky calculation in real time at the table and, if they are well-founded, then they can mean that we make lots of good decisions.
Their failing is that of course they fail to take account of all the game conditions. The fact is in a tournament poker situation, there are an incredible number of relevant variables including the whole payout structure, all of the chip stacks and their relative positions, player images, betting patterns, game dynamics and so on. Rules, de facto, cannot cope with this rich dataset.
A more subtle issue is that reliance on rules can tend to take us away from a proper analysis of the situation. Failing to practice the analysis stores up future problem.
Perhaps I need a new rule: Use No Rules.
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