Help with some Ray Zee advice
 

Catagory 7 hands from H/L split poker.

Three consecutive high cards to a straight flush.

Ray says these are "some of the best starting hands" as long as your cards are live.

How live?

Do you want the cards that pair you live too?

Just what does he consider "high cards"? AKQ of course, but what about JT9?

He also says that you can take these hands to 5th and even sixth if when you brick up if your opponents boards do not look "too threatening"

This seems like terrible chip spewing advice to me. Can someone please clue me in? These hands seems marginal at best to me.

Re: Help with some Ray Zee advice
 

Mike McD tells the judge in rounders to play these hands as well.

Re: Help with some Ray Zee advice
 

I don't think he's talking about high-low in that scene.

I'm with you Beavis, I don't see these hands being very profitable.

Re: Help with some Ray Zee advice
 

[ QUOTE ]
Mike McD tells the judge in rounders to play these hands as well.

[/ QUOTE ]
OP is asking about hi/lo, whereas in Rounders it was just hi.

Personally I've always wondered about that advice as well. Instinctively its not something I'd want to play HU against a low. However in a loose game where I can get in for the bringin I will definitly play if my suit is live (no more than 1 showing)

Re: Help with some Ray Zee advice
 

[ QUOTE ]
Mike McD tells the judge in rounders to play these hands as well.

[/ QUOTE ]
He was talking about stud/high and he said 3 cards to a straight or 3 cards to a flush.

Re: Help with some Ray Zee advice
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Mike McD tells the judge in rounders to play these hands as well.

[/ QUOTE ]
OP is asking about hi/lo, whereas in Rounders it was just hi.

Personally I've always wondered about that advice as well. Instinctively its not something I'd want to play HU against a low. However in a loose game where I can get in for the bringin I will definitly play if my suit is live (no more than 1 showing)

[/ QUOTE ]
Some books say to fold this.

In a loose game, you probably can limp behind and fold 4th street if you don't improve. Depending on the situation, you may have to fold a draw later on, as you are usually playing for half the pot.

Otherwise, this is mostly useful as an ante stealing hand with deception in a tight game. You might open raise with an ace showing. If you don't take the pot immediately, you have deception. You could also open limp or open raise in late position, misrepresenting a big pair. A low may call and fold if it "catches bad."

Re: Help with some Ray Zee advice
 

[ QUOTE ]
Mike McD tells the judge in rounders to play these hands as well.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not intending to bust your chops, but seriously should we be taking advice from Rounders?

Re: Help with some Ray Zee advice
 

With a brick-high straight flush, I would think you would want your straight, flush, AND pair cards to be live.

Here's why I think they are playable: without low possibilities, a straight draw alone or a flush draw alone is not playable, because one is drawing to half a pot. However, a straight-flush draw has effectively twice as many ways to make a high hand -- both the straight draw AND the flush draw -- as a draw without other possibilities of improvement, and so it becomes as playable as a pure straight or pure flush draw in high-only stud.

I should say that I don't have a good sense of how to play these hands -- I want to see fourth street for cheap, but I have no idea whether or not to peel on fourth if I catch a blank. Obviously this means I should spend some time fussing around on twodimes.

Re: Help with some Ray Zee advice
 

A 4-straight flush is about as easy to complete as a 4-low, and a 3-straight flush has more ways to catch good than a 3-low. I think the idea about getting in cheap is because you can make a high pair that is probably the best high hand, since no one raised with their nice pair.

I'm not sure AKQ is that great of a hand; QJT is better because of the straight potential. However, I'd bail on 4th if I was heads up against a low that caught good.

Re: Help with some Ray Zee advice
 

Threads on this subject go bact to the earlist days of the forum. If you go to the Oct and Nov 2000 archives, and search for "Stud/8 expersts please help" (sic), you'll find some of the better players from those days (and these) talking about the same thing.

Oct 2000
Nov 2000

PS I've never learned how to make any money off of this hand. Every once in a while, as I re-read Zee on Stud 8, I make the same post. Nobody has explained how to make money from it, at least in terms I can understand. Someday I plan to fold this hand for the bring-in, and then write a Tommy-Angeloesque article about it.