Razz

Razz is seven-card stud played for low. The lowest five-card hand wins the pot, straights and flushes are ignored entirely, and aces count as the lowest card — which makes it the mirror image of the stud most players learn first.

How a hand is dealt

Razz follows the seven-card stud structure. Each player receives two cards face down and one face up, then three more face up one at a time, then a seventh face down. There is a betting round after each card from the third onwards, giving five betting rounds in total. The best five of a player's seven cards make their hand.

Unlike hold'em there are no community cards, so a large part of the game is reading the exposed cards — both which low cards opponents are showing and which of the cards you need have already been dealt elsewhere.

The ace-to-five ranking

Razz uses the ace-to-five, or "California", lowball ranking. Three rules define it:

- Aces are low, ranking below the deuce. - Straights and flushes do not count against a hand. Five cards of the same suit are simply five cards. - Pairs are bad. A hand with a pair loses to any hand without one.

Hands are read from the highest card downwards. A hand described as a "seven-five" is a seven-high hand whose next card is a five, and it beats any eight-high hand. When the top cards tie, the comparison moves down to the next card.

The best possible hand is 5-4-3-2-A, known as the wheel or a five-low. The second best is 6-4-3-2-A.

The inverted bring-in

This is the rule that most often catches out players arriving from stud. In seven-card stud high, the lowest exposed card must make the forced bring-in bet. In razz the ranking is reversed, so the *highest* exposed card brings it in — a king showing is the worst card to have and the one that pays.

From fourth street onwards, the player with the lowest exposed hand acts first and may check or bet, which is likewise the reverse of stud high, where the highest hand leads.

What good play looks like

Starting-hand selection is mostly about the first three cards. Three cards to a strong low — broadly, three cards eight or below — is a playable start, and the lower and the more spread out they are, the better. Any pair is a serious handicap, because improving means drawing a card that neither pairs again nor runs the hand too high.

The discipline the game demands is in folding a drawing hand that catches badly. A hand that begins well and then takes two high cards or a pair is usually finished, and there is no flush or straight potential to fall back on. Razz is widely regarded as frustrating for exactly this reason: the hands turn over slowly and visibly, and the right play is often to abandon a start that looked excellent.

Where it is played

Razz is a mixed-game staple rather than a standalone draw. It is one of the eight disciplines in H.O.R.S.E. and appears in the dealer's-choice rotations of most high-stakes mixed games, as well as having its own bracelet events in major series.