Razz - playing the smooth hand

[roggles]

Raising to isolate when you don't have the best hand in a game without position? How does that not become costly?

What is the advantage of this, how do you play 4th? My strategy more or less consists of folding if I brick 4th and my opponent doesn't, and I'm guessing if I've put in extra raises to isolate this changes.

[ChipsAhoya]

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Raising to isolate when you don't have the best hand in a game without position? How does that not become costly?

What is the advantage of this, how do you play 4th? My strategy more or less consists of folding if I brick 4th and my opponent doesn't, and I'm guessing if I've put in extra raises to isolate this changes.

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I said in my last post not to isolate here. If there's a double bet on 3rd then yes, you call if he improves and you don't.

Sometimes at the higher limits you'll get whipsawed if you have a 7 and the other two players have better. Even if they don't fold you still make money on the bets going in even if you're in 2nd place although this isn't *always* the case. Here it isn't because the 8 isn't that much worse than you.

-ChipsAhoya

[RustyBrooks]

Yes of course there is no guaranteed position in razz, but that's not why you isolate in poker anyway. You isolate to get the hand down to heads up or at worst 3 people, because there is almost no hand you want to play 4 handed or more. It's even worth getting heads up with a better hand than yours, because you'd be an even bigger dog against that hand and 2 other hands of similar or slightly worse equity than yours. Since in razz, unlike many other poker games, you are very rarely a tremendous dog on 3rd, it's OK to try to isolate with a weaker hand than you believe your opponent to have as long as your weakness isn't out in the open.

Trying to isolate here is unwarranted, though, and unlikely to work. And if you can not isolate it is often better to call instead of raise.

[betgo]

On 3rd to the reraise from the 3, fold > call >>> reraise. Your hand is junk and the steal didn't work. Does anyone here understand dead cards?

Isolating is not that valuable, since the 8 hasn't put in much. Isolation is not that great in general on 3rd in razz, but on later streets it is sometimes important to knock someone out. The isolation should work, but this is low stakes and the 8 is a calling station.

[RustyBrooks]

Not a single person is recommending isolation here as far as I can tell. And yes, we understand dead cards.

[betgo]

I would also fold 4th as played, regardless of teh pto size.The smooth hand 5678 with dead cards is in awful shape against A632 or whatever villain has. There is a 2 out, so it probably didn't pair him.

[Mathew82]

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Not a single person is recommending isolation here as far as I can tell. And yes, we understand dead cards.

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I don't like the idea of trying to eliminate the second best hand with what is likely to be the third best hand. Most players are too loose on the 50c/$1 tables which means it is very unlikely you are going to eliminate them. By attempting to do so, you are more often than not just going to find yourself gambling with the worst of it.

[RustyBrooks]

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Not a single person is recommending isolation here as far as I can tell. And yes, we understand dead cards.

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I don't like the idea of trying to eliminate the second best hand with what is likely to be the third best hand. Most players are too loose on the 50c/$1 tables which means it is very unlikely you are going to eliminate them. By attempting to do so, you are more often than not just going to find yourself gambling with the worst of it.

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This isn't even what I'm talking about. I'm talking about trying to eliminate the 3rd and 4th best hand with the 2nd best hand. It's not easy but if there's an early completer and you can raise him then everyone else has to call 2 cold, and that's fine.

For clarification, I do NOT EVER consider trying to isolate in a spot like what's described in this hand. Ever. And certainly I am not generally going to try to isolate when there are already 2 people who have put in money especially if 2 people have put in a full bet already, unless I can make at least one of them call 2 and one of them call 3, which doesn't happen often, and should not be done except with a great hand.

[Mathew82]

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This isn't even what I'm talking about. I'm talking about trying to eliminate the 3rd and 4th best hand with the 2nd best hand. It's not easy but if there's an early completer and you can raise him then everyone else has to call 2 cold, and that's fine.

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Sure, force them to pay to play is a great idea if you are the second best hand. You will either force them to fold and to improve your chances of winning the hand with the dead money they leave in the pot or increase the overall pot size with the odds you currently have to maximise your mathematical expectation of profit. No disagreement there.

On a note, it is a particular frustration to me when playing meek opponents that do not have the courage to jam the pot when there is a chaser.

I stopped trying to get fancy when in early position and a chaser in the middle, try to check-raise these passive types at 50/1 is a bad idea because usually even when they have a good hand, very often they just give a free card. At least if I bet straight out they will have to call at least one bet to go... if the player realises that he should jam the pot, then great but I have given too many free cards to think that this is the best move generically.

[RustyBrooks]

Not only do players not jam (when they should) at lower stakes, they often get pissed off if you do with "a worse hand than theirs" especially if you win. I always do it, even though it often just gets me heads up with the winner [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

With meek players, I do sometimes check to them, and hope they'll bet so I can make it 2. I can't make the chaser call 2 cold but at least I can make him call 2 which is OK by me.