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!