RAZZ advice needed please.

[Dodger]

Looking round the strategy sites they seem to agree that you need 3 cards 8 high to carry on betting at the start. Although you should be wary with 8 high as it is vulnerable to all sorts of better hands. Also you can play 9 or 10 if no lower cards are shown. Not having any problems with bluffing when the board looks favourable...that's what this game seems to be all about. The situation I am struggling with is this: You bring in with a Queen, holding A2 hidden. Only one player completes with a nine showing. Following the general advice I have been folding this hand. I have been doing reasonably well in PokerStars MTTs but, always looking to improve my game, I need to know from regular players...is there any value in playing this hand? or is it better just to get out ASAP?

[heniek31]

Re: RAZZ advice needed please. Id call him in very early stages or later with above average stack. Its well worth seeing next card and then easy fold if its blank. If you call him, he knows you have two very low cards and if you hit another one on 4th street and he doesnt, he will become wary of further betting. In certain situation you should go for it.

[Dodger]

Re: RAZZ advice needed please. Found a Razz simulation at http://www.propokertools.com/simulator/razzSimulationEditor.jsp Played around for a while: If my opponent holds 3 cards less than Q it makes me almost 2:1 underdog in most cases. With 2 random cards with the 9 it makes me evens. I'll play with this a bit more but it's looking a bad proposition to carry on...I think! Thanks for the reply heniek...that was roughly how I was looking at it, making the call if it wasn't going to hurt. But nearly every time I do I seem to be folding to his bet after the next card...I need to get my head round the maths before making a definite stand...although I'm very close to just making it a fold only situation, which, for the moment at least, is maybe my safest option.

[Dodger]

Re: RAZZ advice needed please. Spent some considerable time researching this question on the net. Probably the most interesting is these two statements from the same web page, one saying always fold and the other saying have a go if the table sits right: From insidepokermag.co.uk: ''High upcards make a hand virtually unplayable – there’s no point in ever voluntarily putting money in a pot when you’re showing a King, Queen, or Jack. Even if you have two low cards in the hole, fold if you’re showing paint. Your opponents will be able to guess exactly what you have in the hole if you put money in with a Queen showing, meaning you won’t get action when you do make the best hand. If your hand doesn’t develop well, it’s also going to be impossible for you to bluff.'' but on the same page: ''One of the biggest mistakes made by weak players in hold’em tournaments is that they defend their blinds too liberally. The same applies to defending your bring-in in razz. To be frank, if you never defended your bring-in when you were showing a bad card, you wouldn’t be giving up much. There are reasons to defend your bring-in occasionally however, particularly in a tournament. To defend, you want to have two cards lower than your opponent’s upcard, and a live draw. For example, if you brought it in with (A-2)-K, the player to your right completed with a 9, and a couple of Aces and deuces were gone, you could consider defending – especially in the early stages of an event where it won’t cost a large percentage of your stack.'' So this article says you can ''consider'' playing only if your needed cards are strongly live. However...if there were aces and twos already showing elsewhere (as in the example above) then surely one of these would have been betting into the pot...therefore the criteria for defending your bring in as detailed in this article would be highly unlikely ever to materialise. So...I am happy that I have at least sorted this out in my own head. Never felt quite right folding the shown J Q or K with A2 sitting in the hole...but now I'll do so, knowing it is the right move. :ok

[Valiant23]

Re: RAZZ advice needed please. Dodger, I wouldn't play this hand against multiple opponents or multiple raises but I would certainly give this hand a chance heads up. I find that some players get blinded by the fact you're showing one paint card or that they have a decent/better starting hand. If I'm heads up I'll consider the player and if I think is range is quite wide then I'll take another card. I realise the queen isn't good, but your hand is likely to improve tremendously and if he's on a 9 high there are a lot of cards you can draw that will put you ahead in the hand. For me it isn't an automatic fold. :ok

[msaban]

Re: RAZZ advice needed please.

Dodger, I wouldn't play this hand against multiple opponents or multiple raises but I would certainly give this hand a chance heads up. I find that some players get blinded by the fact you're showing one paint card or that they have a decent/better starting hand. If I'm heads up I'll consider the player and if I think is range is quite wide then I'll take another card. I realise the queen isn't good, but your hand is likely to improve tremendously and if he's on a 9 high there are a lot of cards you can draw that will put you ahead in the hand. For me it isn't an automatic fold. :ok

I think if I'm bring with this, and its only been raised once then I'd call and take another card regardless of how many opponents. Multiple raises and its an autofold.

[ubermonkey1]

Re: RAZZ advice needed please. i also think its a good call as long as there are no reraises and you have enough stack to get out of the hand if needs be:ok one bad thing about this call is that you are giving your hand away a bit,if someone calls with a k,q,or j i would guess they have a2 or a3 at worst. so dont bluff with this hand if you hit real lo cards on 4th 5th 6th streets but pair an ace or a two and the opponent catches a few bad ones ,chances are a good player will spot you have paired and call;)