PokerStars Razz Sit And Go’s
Razz SitnGos At PokerStars
PokerStars.com offers Razz sit and go’s at various buy-in levels. $16 and $27 turbo sit and go’s take just a few minutes to fill, seat 8 players, and pay the top three places. Each Razz sng tournament at PokerStars will start as soon as all 8 seats fill, and all sit and go’s are played in a fixed limit format.
Single Table Razz Tournamments
For Razz sit and go payouts let’s use a $114 entry fee for an example:
8 players enter this Razz sng tournament, each paying $105 to the prizepool and a $9 fee to the house for a total prizepool of $840 to be split amongst the top 3 players.
- 1st place for a $114 Razz sit and go – $420.00
- 2nd place for a $114 Razz sit and go – $252.00
- 3rd place for a $114 Razz sit and go – $168.00
Multi-Table Razz SNG’s
PokerStars is definately the tournament and sng leader of all Razz poker sites. In addition to the single table sit and go tournaments PokerStars also two table multi- sng’s with sixteen players total.
You can play these Razz sit and go’s anytime the seats fill, let’s use a $27 two table Razz sit and go to examine the payout structure and entry fees.
Each player will pay $25 to the prize pool and $2 in a house fee for a total prize pool of $400 being paid to four places as follows:
- 1st Place – $160.00
- 2nd Place – $120.00
- 3rd Place – $80.00
- 4th- $40.00
As you can imagine, these can be quite profitable for players who can win these single table razz tournaments on a regular basis – and especially for players who can play multiple Razz sng’s at the same time.
Ready to play? Visit PokerStars to join a Razz Sit And Go now!
Tips on Making the Money in Razz Multiple Table Tournaments
While single table razz tournaments can be a great way for a skilled player to make a quick buck, multiple table razz tournaments are where the real money is. These tournaments may have a limited number of positions, or they may allow anyone and everyone to enter. The great thing about multiple table tournaments with low buy-ins (frequently seen at the online poker rooms) is that they entice a large variety of players with plenty of fish to pump the prize pool. Remember though that as the tables are narrowed to the final table, your competition will get more skilled and your strategy should change accordingly.
When you’re playing in a large field, it’s important to start playing aggressively immediately. You want to build your stack as quickly as possible, and the low blinds make it easy to play marginal hands through the flop without investing too much. Likewise this strategy immediately identifies the calling stations and the habitual bluffers, information that will prove useful as the tournament progresses.
Your less skilled opponents will either follow your bet—pumping the pot when your hands are strong and you stand a good chance of winning—or fold—surrendering the blinds for a small but quick win. When you get a monster hand early in the tournament, play it for all its worth. These truly good hands are few and far between and while marginal hands are your bread and butter the big hands will make or break your stack and will ultimately decide your position at the final table.
As the blinds get bigger and the players get better, you’ll have to tighten up your play and betting accordingly. This does not mean playing less aggressively, just avoiding losing your stack by playing over-aggressively with players that aren’t afraid to call or raise. You’ll be folding more in the middle of the tournament where the blinds are more significant, but you’ll also be betting more aggressively on good hands. It’s especially important at this stage in the razz tournament to pick your battles.
By the final table, the blinds will be so big that folding everything but the best hands will be out of the question. At this point, there are few enough players that a middling hand is a good one and a better one is unlikely to come along. Don’t let the blinds or chip leaders push you around—it’s better to take a smart risk going all in on a good hand than to throw your stack away on blinds.
Taking Advantage of Online Poker Bonuses
If you’re new to online poker, chances are you’ve already seen quite a few ads promoting some pretty impressive bonuses. If you’ve started playing online already and have not taken advantage of these bonuses, then you’re doing your bankroll a big disservice. Online poker bonuses are so prevalent that pretty much every poker room has them, so it only makes sense to take advantage of the benefits of these free promotions.
What Kind of Bonuses Are There
There are three common types of bonuses you can expect to see: money bonuses, match bonuses, and fixed bonuses. Money promotions are usually used as a sign-on bonus. For signing up and creating a member account, you may get $5-10 of free play. Alternately, some sites will give you free entrance to special tournaments. Match bonuses are the preferred promotion for first deposits. With these bonuses, the site agrees to match your first deposit up to a certain dollar amount. Most sites will match 100% of that first deposit, essentially doubling your money, but a rare few offer a 200% match. Finally, fixed bonuses are like match bonuses but are usually offered for future deposits. With a fixed bonus, you may get a fixed percentage (like 50%) or a fixed dollar amount (like $25) for every future deposit of a certain amount. For long-term players, most sites also offer loyalty programs and special monthly promotions to keep their older members coming back.
Terms and Conditions of Online Poker Bonuses
Virtually all online poker bonuses have terms and conditions. For example, with money bonuses you cannot simply cash out the $10 received for signing up. That money is only good for playing cash games. For match and fixed bonuses, you usually have to play a certain amount of raked hands in cash games or buy into a set number of tournaments before that money will be released. Sometimes the money is released in increments as you earn it and other times you must meet the full requirements of the terms and conditions before you can access or “clear†your bonuses.
Bonus Whoring
New players may find it challenging to clear their first bonuses. In the beginning, you’ll be losing more than you win, so clearing your bonus could take more money than it’s actually worth. But as you get better at the game you’ll get better at clearing bonuses too. Many amateur and professional players take full advantage of bonuses by joining several rooms. When players join and play in a room for the specific purpose of clearing a bonus from it, this is called “bonus whoring.†Obvious bonus whoring can get you banned from poker rooms, but done subtly and in conjunction with regular play it can be a great way to make more for your money.
Playing Against Aggressive Players
Because most seasoned poker players consider the best strategies to be those that are aggressive or a combination of tight-aggressive, as you get more experienced and start playing more games you can expect to run into a larger number of aggressive players than are typically seen at the low blind tables most beginners start on. If you are going to run with the big boys, then you’ll need to alter your own strategy accordingly. Here are a few good ways to use an opponent’s aggressive style in your favor.
Fight Fire with Fire
If the game dictates it, then you shouldn’t let another aggressive player prevent you from likewise playing aggressively as long as your betting is always backed by a good hand. If you are at the final table, and especially in a heads up situation, then you should expect your opponents to play aggressively. Don’t let it intimidate you, or you’ll end up losing anyway as the blinds slowly chip away at your stack.
Avoid Playing Overly Aggressive
Many players naturally respond to aggression with more aggression. This is not the same as playing aggressively as a strategy but is instead more of a head-on challenge. The problem with this is that betting on anything and everything can easily backfire, as your overly aggressive opponent will likely find out themselves. Alternately, if your opponent has a bigger stack, then they can outlast you at this little game, making it pointless if not reckless to take them on in this way. Some players even do this intentionally to try to bait their opponents into going all in when they shouldn’t. The only way to protect your chips is to stick to your strategy. With more experience and knowledge of the strategy, you will be better prepared to take on these other aggressive players.
Learn how to Set a Trap
The best part of playing an overly aggressive opponent is that little to nothing fazes them. They’re betting and raising anyway, so why would they let your betting and raising deter them? Ultimately this mindset will be the end of them. Trapping an aggressive player takes very little work, because all it takes is a good hand to steal the pot they’re so eager to build for you. You may have to forfeit a few blinds waiting for a good hand to come along, but if you’re down to a few players, don’t be afraid to make your move on a marginal hand either—you’re going to have to eventually anyway to stay in the game. The best way to finish off an aggressive player is to go all in yourself. They’ll either have to stick to their strategy and call, or break their streak and back off, forfeiting the pot. Either way, it’s a win-win situation.
How to Play Razz
Razz is a lowball variation of seven-card stud that has been progressively gaining in popularity every year. Always a perennial favorite among professionals (it represents the R in H.O.R.S.E. tournaments), lately it has been catching on with amateurs as well. If you are already familiar with the regular rules of poker, and specifically with stud poker, then moving to razz poker should be easy, and you can consider this article a refresher course. If however you are new to poker in general, then read on to learn the basic playing rules of Razz.
First, the game starts with the same old characters—a dealer and anywhere from two to eight players. The hands are dealt from a traditional deck of 52-cards but unlike more traditional poker games the point is not to build a high hand but to build a low one. You will be dealt seven cards with which you can build the lowest possible hand of five cards. In Razz, the Ace card always plays as 1 and is the lowest and thus best card you can get. Straights and flushes are not acknowledged in Razz, and having a pair or other combination is in fact a bad thing making the best hand an Ace, 2, 3, 4, 5.
As with other seven-card stud poker games, each player will ante and then the first two cards will be dealt face down. These are your “hole cards.†Each player will then be dealt one card face up. This card is referred to as the “door card,†and will determine who is first to bet. The player with the highest door card must “bring it in.†That is, they must make the first bet. This process is similar to blinds in that the “bring it in†bet is obligatory and is traditionally set at 1/3 to ½ of a regular bet but is unlike blinds in that it does not rotate in any order.
After the initial round of betting, a fourth card is dealt face up and is followed by another round of betting (with checks, bets, raises, and folds as per usual poker rules) with all bets adhering to the low limit. The fifth and sixth cards are dealt in the same way and followed again by a round of betting with the only difference being that the bets are raised from the low to the high limit. The seventh and final card is dealt face down. Once the bets are placed, the “showdown†ensues wherein each player reveals their hands in an attempt to take the pot.
And that’s how you play Razz!
