A Few Tips on Playing Razz

Razz is a game of patience and intelligence, and it requires knowledge and experience on specific actions such as how to bluff, how to steal, and when to sacrifice starting hand equity to tournament strategy considerations.  Stealing is the most important aspect of tournament Razz, and, indeed, you can throw away a hand like A-2-3 when the stealing is good, because Razz starting hands are so high-variance.  Learning to steal profitably in tournaments is the most important thing to improving at tournament razz. In fact, no less an authority than two time tournament Razz bracelet winner and Full Tilt Pro Huck Seed opined that stealing is the most important meta-game strategy of Razz and that stealing in tournaments is the way to success in this arena.  You should steal from weak-tight players who have a record of folding when they don't improve on later streets, or who are vulnerable because of their tournament situation, like small stack, bubble, etc.

Another important idea in Razz is dead cards, paying heed to when the cards you have are already out, exhibited on the upcards of your opponents. If your cards are out, the strength of your hand gains appreciably, because the cards that would double you are out.  If, for example, you have the case four, then you can't get another four.  Pay heed to to upcards of your opponents, and if their cards are the same as your own, you know that you hand is much stronger for not being vulnerable to doubling.  Say you opponents have 3,6,7,8,9, and 4.  You know that you hand (4 6) 3 would likely be good here and you are not losing equity by putting in a cap bet here.  Conversely, however, if your cards are (2 3) 5, and you opponents upcards are A, 4, 7, 8, A, it would probably not be positive-equity to cap the betting here, since so many of the cards that you need to make your hand are out.

Also, don't chase a superior low with higher cards just because you think you opponent may be stealing.  Unless the opponent is exceptionally sophisticated, he is probably not aware of the idea of stealing in Razz and is most likely value betting a superior hand.  Understanding the high-variance of three cards being dealt is important, and you can make positive-equity decisions based on your understanding of dead cards and not chasing superior draws just because of the age-old fallacy of "pot odds" in Razz games.