Razz poker is a variation of stud played for Ace to five, best low hand. Razz poker became famous ever since it was played in the 2004 WSOP.  Razz poker is available for play in real money and free tournaments in most online poker sites.  Straights and flushes are not considered against the low hand.  They simply do not matter in Razz. If community card games are not one’s choice; Razz poker can be the vote for such people.

There is more than one strategy to play Razz poker and the multiple strategies are worth the learning for anyone that is into playing Razz.  There is going to be a total of 7 cards that will be dealt and the player will have to make the Ace to five, best low hand, faces are high rank cards that are not worth having in any kind of draw in Razz.  In high rank games, the appearance of the high face cards is considered to be luckiest, but in the Razz poker games, the face cards are simply considered unlucky. The appearance of face cards in each draw is a warning sign of a possible need to fold.

There are lot of deceptive hands in Razz poker where the opponent might have a really scaring up card like an Ace or some very low ranked cards like 2 or 3, but the pocket cards that are down cards can be pretty useless ones like a King or Queen or any other combination of 7 or 8 or some high rank card.  In such cases, the opponent might believe that the player has something really good, but truly the player has no good card in the pockets other than the good up card.  This is a deceptive situation, which the player might use to bluff he is strong or might just fold based on how the cards turn up as the streets proceeds based on the yet to come cards.

The appearance of eight or better cards is better for regular games, but for a low ball game like Razz poker, the appearance of high ranked pockets can turn out to be a hard situation.

Luckily, if the starting hand seems to be an Ace, deuce, and three regardless of what is the up card or what is the low card, this the best ever hand that someone can hold in Razz poker!