In certain instances, we may earn revenue when a reader makes a purchase or completes a form through our pages or on a partner’s website. We adhere to a strict 
Razz poker has been part of the WSOP tournament since the early 1970s and saw an uptick in popularity in the mid-2000s as online poker swept the country.
While the game has been spread in land-based casinos from California to Atlantic City over the years, today, it remains pretty elusive anywhere but online or in the run-up to the WSOP or other large tournaments.
While simple to play, this limit game, essentially a seven-card lowball form of poker, has a checkered history from when it was spread at the Stardust in the old mob days.
Known for its cheaters and collaborators, the game moved to the Las Vegas Hilton in the 1980s but was largely gone before the 1990s. It’s even rare at the best online poker sites.
So, what is razz poker and how is it played?
What is Razz Poker
Razz is played with seven cards, like seven card stud, from a standard 52-card deck. At most, it can be played with eight players, or you might run out of cards.
The goal is to have the lowest hand possible, with Aces being the lowest card, using five of the seven cards in your hand.
Razz poker rules mean you disregard straights and flushes. The best hand in Razz poker is A,2,3,4,5, colloquially known as The Wheel, since the Ace is considered low.
The game isn’t played everywhere, but is loved by many pros like Daniel Negreanu, one of the richest poker players.
Razz Poker Rules
Before getting started, you’re going to need to know Razz poker rules. Here’s the basic lowdown on what you should know:
- Best five-card hand out of seven.
- Aces are the lowest card; straights and flushes don’t count.
- We begin with two cards down and one face up. This is the door card.
- The highest door card puts up the bring-in button, and the action starts there.
- When we get to Fifth Street, the bets double.
- There is no eight or better opener rule in Razz.
- The last man standing wins. If everyone folds ahead of you, you keep the pot.
How to Play Razz Poker
The action begins with the ante from every player. Two cards to each player are dealt face down, and then the door card is face up, bringing us to the first betting round. Here’s how to play Razz poker:
Getting Started
Razz poker doesn’t use a traditional blind system. Instead, the highest door card has a mandatory small bet ‘bring-in’.
The bring-in is typically half of the table’s standard betting limit. All bets after the bring-in are in the agreed-upon increments.
Interestingly, if the highest door cards are the same, the matter of the Bring In is settled by suits. From high to low, the suits are ranked Spades, Hearts, Diamonds, and Clubs.
Into the Action
The action moves clockwise from the bring-in. As with any poker game, the position is important here, so use your position to your advantage if you’re to the left of the bring-in.
The fourth card dealt on the board follows betting action. On the fifth, sixth, and seventh, betting is doubled. If you were playing $ 1/ $ 2 Razz, you could bet $1 through the ‘Fourth Street’, and then the bet can go to $2.
‘Street’ refers to the different rounds of dealing and betting.
Community Cards
Razz generally doesn’t use community cards unless it’s an eight-handed game where the dealer runs out of cards. But only if it appears that the dealer will run out of cards, one community card may be dealt on Seventh Street for all remaining players to use.
When to Hold and Fold
The general advice for new Razz players in full games is to fold hands with pairs or cards higher than eight. However this rule, like all poker rules, has its exceptions.
The odds of being dealt a seven-card hand without pairs, straights, or flushes are about 25%. It stands to reason that most pair or better hands aren’t great.
However, you should consider how many players remain in the pot, which street you paired on, and your opponents’ visible cards. With so many cards from the deck exposed late in a full-handed game, a lot of information can be gleaned about the remaining cards.
Razz Poker Hand Rankings
Because Razz is a lowball poker game, but the Ace is considered low, sometimes hand rankings can be tricky to grasp.
Here are the best hands in Razz in descending order, suits don’t matter:
| Rank | Hand | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | A-2-3-4-5 (Wheel or 5-high) | This is the absolute best hand in Razz. It’s unbeatable. |
| 2 | A-2-3-4-6 | The next best, as there are no pairs, and the highest card is a 6. |
| 3 | A-2-3-5-6 | Still a very strong hand with no pairs and a 6-high. |
| 4 | A-2-4-5-6 | Similar structure, ranked just below the above. |
| 5 | A-3-4-5-6 | A great hand, with 6-high and no pairs. |
Hands are evaluated without flushes or straights being considered, so only the highest card in the hand matters for ranking. The closer a hand is to A-2-3-4-5, the better it is in Razz.
How to Bet in Razz Poker
All players will put up a small ante before the cards are dealt. This helps build the pot.
- The player with the highest-ranking face-up card (the ‘door card’) at the start of the game is required to make the initial, mandatory small bet called the ‘bring-in’.
- This will either be ½ the smallest limit bet or the smallest limit bet.
- So, in 10/20 Razz, the bring-in bet might be $5 or sometimes $10. After that, bets will proceed according to the limits.
In this example, it is in increments of $10. After Fourth Street, the limits double. That means on Fifth Street, betting units are in increments of $20 in this instance.
Razz Poker Payout and Odds
Razz is almost always played as a limit game. Payouts will, therefore, be significantly affected by the size of the bet limits. A $1/$2 Razz game will pay very differently than a $10/$20 game.
Razz Poker Strategy
Building a bad hand sounds easy when you’re playing Texas Hold ’em. After all, it seems like all you ever get is bad hands. That is until you start playing Razz. Then, not getting dealt a pair seems like an impossibility.
- If you have a high pair, it’s time to get out.
- If you have a low pair with many people left in the hand, it’s probably time to get out.
- In fact, some experts say knowing when to fold is the most important Razz poker strategy you need to know.
Assess Your Opponents
Take time to look at everybody’s hand as it comes out. When hands are folded, those dead cards can be very important when deciding your odds of getting paired with any of the cards you have.
If you hold a two, and you’ve seen three other twos go into the muck, you can rest easy that you won’t need to worry about the possibility of another pair there.
Bluffing
Bluffing is just as important here as any other poker game. Perhaps more so. Learn to read your opponents. If they’re tight, try and steal pots. Because of the pot structure of Razz, pre-fourth street pots can still be decent since everyone must ante, and you have the Bring In bet added in as well.
If the other players are loose, wait for that low hand, then raise and call aggressively, build a big pot, and try to force everyone else out. Remember, you don’t have to make it to Seventh Street. If you’re the last one standing, you win.
Raising the Stakes
Because Razz is a limit game, some people will play stakes outside their comfort zone because they are looking for bigger pots. This is almost always a recipe for disaster.
You will need to work your way up through the Razz betting levels, ensuring you haven’t got any leaks in your game and understand everything from reading your opponents to bluffing to recalling the dead cards.
You have to walk before you crawl, and you have to crawl for quite a while before you decide to enter the $10,000 WSOP Razz tournament and become a pro poker player.
Razz Poker vs London Lowball
London Lowball is seldom seen on the American side of the pond. It is identical to Razz except that it is usually played as a pot limit game, which can quickly result in some rather large pots.
Also, in London Lowball, made straights and flushes count, making estimating your opponent’s hands much more difficult. Also, of course, that means the best possible hand in London Lowball is A, 2, 3, 4, 6, which is obviously unsuited.
