Razz past and present

[SGspecial]

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TT doesn't have any first-hand knowledge of razz as it was played back when.

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Oldtimers baby.... they can be a great help when you have questions. I've become friendly with a few old-school lowball players. Plus living in Vegas has its advantages, the old guys are still around playing their old games. And when everything else fails i can always ask Mason, he is a fountain of knowledge even on games he doesn't play often - a human encyclopedia of poker pop culture.

ok, enough kidding around.

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I think a lot of folks around here overstate the difference between a low-ante game and a high-ante game. Especially when the game is loose, the bottom line is you have to show down the best hand in order to win.

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Excellent quote, you should add it to the FAQ.

TT [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]

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OK here is our own topic so we don't hijack Chipsahoya's topic anymore. For those new to this debate, I personally have no knowledge of how Razz was played back in the day. I can only go on hearsay, and what I've read in Sklansky on Poker (Razz). But I've played enough to know that ante sizes count, so let me kick off this thread with a quick calculation.

Say you're a very good player playing in the old 15/30 games and you're making a healthy 6BB/100 hand profit after the rake. You're paying $1 ante per hand plus your share of the bring ins ($5 every 8 hands on average in a full ring), so your fixed costs are about $162/100 hands. Time warp to now... you're playing 15/30 on FTP with a $3 ante and $5 bring in (all bets are double those in the 30/60 game in SOR). You can play the same strategy, but now your fixed costs are $362/100 hands and now all your profit has vanished and you're losing. The question is, are you still a good player?

[SplawnDarts]

Anyone suggesting the the size of the prefop pot doesn't matter is full of it. Plain and simple.

[WhiteWolf]

IMO, treating antes and bring-ins as "costs" is the wrong way to look at it. While it's true that you have to put more into the pot on average with each hand, so do all of the other players. You pay more for a starting pot where you have an increased expectation, dollarwise. In general, this evens out in the end.

However, I also think that playing the same strategy in a high-ante game as you do in a low ante game is the wrong way to go.

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IMO, treating antes and bring-ins as "costs" is the wrong way to look at it. While it's true that you have to put more into the pot on average with each hand, so do all of the other players. You pay more for a starting pot where you have an increased expectation, dollarwise. In general, this evens out in the end.

However, I also think that playing the same strategy in a high-ante game as you do in a low ante game is the wrong way to go.

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You're right, and it was intentionally oversimplified. If you play the same very tight, premium hand strategy that earns you a steady profit with small antes, you won't collect nearly enough in the pots you do play to compensate for the antes you pay when they are large. Also, you won't be able to take as many pots uncontested since the opps will be getting better pot odds to chase you.

[Andy B]

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While it's true that you have to put more into the pot on average with each hand, so do all of the other players.

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This hits the nail on the head. I stand by my statement quoted in the original post.

[SplawnDarts]

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While it's true that you have to put more into the pot on average with each hand, so do all of the other players.

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This hits the nail on the head. I stand by my statement quoted in the original post.

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Even though it's incorrect?

Fair enough - it's your statement I guess.

[*TT*]

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While it's true that you have to put more into the pot on average with each hand, so do all of the other players.

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This hits the nail on the head. I stand by my statement quoted in the original post.

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Even though it's incorrect?

Fair enough - it's your statement I guess.

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Your using a myopic POV. Andy's statement was essentially low or high limit poker - low or high antes, its still poker. You still need to calculate odds to improve, make the right decisions, and consider pot size at all times. The game is the same, both low and high limit players need to factor the same variables equally. Of course the variables change between the games, and therefore decisions change. AND I stand by Adny's statement as well, its not all encompassing but who cares?

PS: - how the hell did I miss this thread?

TT [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]

[ACPlayer]

I doubt (or at least hope) that no one in this thread is saying that we should not be calculating pot odds in making the decisions.

The OP posited that in the old tighter structures (the same strategy would not work. Again, this is on the face of it obvious. If Andy's statement is that in the loose games you have to show down the best hand so the strategy is the same -- well that cant be true and I doubt if Andy meant it that way. Though perhaps the quote reads that way.

I suspect everyone is saying the same thing is different ways.

[*TT*]

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Say you're a very good player playing in the old 15/30 games and you're making a healthy 6BB/100 hand profit after the rake. You're paying $1 ante per hand plus your share of the bring ins ($5 every 8 hands on average in a full ring), so your fixed costs are about $162/100 hands. Time warp to now... you're playing 15/30 on FTP with a $3 ante and $5 bring in (all bets are double those in the 30/60 game in SOR). You can play the same strategy, but now your fixed costs are $362/100 hands and now all your profit has vanished and you're losing. The question is, are you still a good player?

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You forgot that a larger ante size induces action and therefore larger pots. Nitty players who prefer smaller ante games get small pots, give me the big ones any day [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] Not long ago TSMDB reported about a high limit S8 game where the bringin and ante was HUGE and it sounded like the best S8b game ever - smart players were calling down with futile hands to try to suck out because the pot was so large, while tight ones lost because they didn't have enough gamble.

Bottom line is the game hasn't changed, we still have to adjust with every limit change based on the the ante/bringin/completion ratio, and the way to correctly adjust has always been the same. Your mistake is thinking that all 15/30 games will be the same structure,when we cant even find matching structures online between poker sites let alone common structures between live poker rooms - and Sklansky properly explains how to adjust.

TT [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]

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Your mistake is thinking that all 15/30 games will be the same structure,when we cant even find matching structures online between poker sites let alone common structures between live poker rooms - and Sklansky properly explains how to adjust.

TT [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]

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That was my point exactly, that a 15/30 game today is VERY different from the 15/30 game in SOR because the ante has tripled in size. You correctly state that the increased ante will induce more action, but a player who was successful waiting for premium hands in the old structure will be leaking money if he DOESN'T adjust.

As for Sklansky's advice on adjustments, he does show many cases where the strategies for the 15/30 game and the 30/60 game should differ, and we can extrapolate these structures to a more general "high ante" or "low ante" one at any level. There are some places tho where he gives blanket advice without considering the ante sizes or the action they may generate. I'll have to check my copy to cite you some page numbers. [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]

BTW... what took you so long finding this thread??