Razz past and present

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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?