Common Razz Poker Mistakes

When you are first starting out in razz or even if you are more experienced, everyone falls into a few traps and bad mistakes every now and then. The important thing is to learn from those mistakes but you must first realize what your mistake is. This page will list and go through a few commonly made mistakes that players often do in razz poker and we will explain how to learn from and fix these mistakes. Learning some of the tips here will also help you detect mistakes that other players are making as well, which only makes you even more skilled at razz.

One common mistake that is often done is when players try to slow-play their starting hand at the beginning of a round. The main reason people do this is to build up the pot and trap aggressive players. You should only do this when you have something very strong like having the first three of the cards contained in the wheel (A-2-3-4-5). The goal is to check and call when you are playing with an aggressive player who always raises, then at the very end start raising and re-raising the heck out of them to get the maximum profit. This becomes a mistake if you do not have an exceptionally powerful hand because since razz is a fixed limit game, more people feel safe staying in longer and they are likely chasing powerful hands that will probably come up since razz is a poker game of high variance. So don't do this mistake if you have a partially good hand.

One of the most important things a player should do when playing poker is be patient. Impatience is one of the biggest mistakes that you can do and it is an easy trap to fall into. Some days you are getting lots of good starting hands and other days things get slow and you get fair hands instead. The worst mistake is to accept these fair hands and start betting more money.

The reason is someone else probably has a much better hand and not everyone at the table is getting the same slow and poor hands that you are being dealt. So one of the paramount tips to avoiding this mistake is to be patient and wait for a good hand. Even if you never get one, there is no point is throwing out good money at the same time for no good reason.

A great way to profit more often and maximize your winnings is to bring enough money to the table. When playing razz, you should always have more than 16 BB (big blinds) worth of chips at any one time. The maximum amount of chips you can lose is 16 BB roughly. The reason you should do this is to maximize the profits when you get a big hand and when everyone is in.

There is nothing worse than having 1 or 2 chips left when you finally get the most powerful hand and end up with a small side-pot proportional to how much you wagered. Keep enough money in the game to get to the showdown with the strongest hand. This is a mistake that huge amount of players make. For instance, if you are playing at a $1/$2 table, you should have $36 at the bare minimum in play ($2 x 16). You will often see players with $25 on average.

Another bad mistake that can easily be avoided stems from chasing losses. This also ties into the mistake of being impatient, angry and frustrated. Many times when a player loses to a bad beat or a ton of money in a huge round of razz, they will obviously be upset about it. Then on the very next hand, they will raise the heck out of it either out of anger and frustration (Kamikaze) for no reason and to recoup their losses.

This is known as chasing the losses and players often lose even more money by doing this because it is irrational and a huge mistake. Plus other experienced players will catch on to this and take advantage of the situation to win their own big hands, so remember this if you see some other player doing this. A good tip when you are upset is to walk away and cool off for awhile to come back to your senses, then start playing razz later on.