Full Tilt Poker $0.05/$0.10 Limit Razz $0.01 Ante - 6 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

3rd Street:
Seat 1: xx xx 4
Hero: 5 6 4
Seat 4: xx xx 8
Seat 5: xx xx A
Seat 7: xx xx J
Seat 8: xx xx 9

Seat 7 brings in for $0.02, Seat 8 folds, Seat 1 completes, Hero requests TIME, Hero folds, Seat 4 folds, Seat 5 folds, Seat 7 folds


So the 4 completes which for a low limit game it's pretty uncommon to have people complete first in.. He has a 4 behind and an A behind him, so he's clearly not worried about them and likes his hand. I'm kind of stuck in a spot because if he has a 4 showing and he is completing, it's rare for him to have worse than 84A, and that would probably be a small percentage of all 4 showings, so he either has 743/742/74A, or he has a better 6 than I do at the moment.

So with that thinking, correct fold? Also, another reason I folded was because I was next to act and unsure of action behind me with the A showing, and if there were more people calling the complete, I would call (is that bad reasoning?)

You are 48% against a strong range. So you are 50/50 against the completer or a very small dog. There is dead money in the pot and at this level it is perfectly normal from someone to tag along with a brick in the hole (or showing for that matter). Folding is bad--calling and raising are both fine. Most posters here will suggest raising to get HU (as if).

wow, thanks for the site. also interesting to note that i have 44% equity vs 42A.

and you're 40% with 865 vs 32A? so never fold when you have 3 to an 8?

Here is what I don't understand, say you have a 9 showing and you're last to act after a person opens, someone completes with a 6 showing, rest fold to you, should you call with 97A since you're getting (5c to call 7c in ante + 2c bring in, + 5c complete = 5/14 ~ 3 to 1odds) and vs 62A and you have 97A, you have 36.5% so you're getting better than 3 to 1 odds to call.. so you should call?

Fiddling around with PPT.. should you never fold before 7th if the opponents board doesn't look that scary and you have a 97xxx? razz is hard!

If you never fold a three-card Six, you can't be far wrong.

+1

if you fold here, you must just about never play a hand..........ever.

No, you should fold your 97A. Use the simulator wisely: It only tells you the equities provided that both you and your opponent goes to the end of the hand. That will not happen. Your hand is "rough" and wide open to see for your opponent. Your most likely "hand" in the end will be a rough nine, and your opponent will know that almost exactly. So, there is a big "information asymmetry" between you and your opponent. He will be able to play his hand perfectly against you, and you will be in the dark for the entire hand. If your hand is the exact same 97A but you show your ace, the situation is a bit different: You may take the pot later from your opponent, provided that you catch good and he catches bad in the fourth street (and probably in the fifth street too). Even in that case, however, your hand is nothing to write home about if your opponent is semi-decent in hand reading (I can explain why if you want me to further dwell on this point, but anyway...). So, fold it.
Cheers

may I quote you on that?
+1
Impressive

O.K now lets get back to real poker, you over thought this way to hard and its a no-brainer...re-raise that ish all day you gotta be able to scrap in this game.

Yeah...real poker...The OP was just trying to "understand" something about Razz and he was not over-thinking anything. Since he wanted me to further clarify my point, here I go:

RAZZ IN A NUTSHELL:
When a player who is not in an obvious steal position (meaning that there are two or more cards below "9" after he completes), you should fold your rough hands like 9(7A) even though you have decent equity versus the completer practically under any circumstance. Why?
You fold because your hand has an "anchor" around which it turns, and the opponents' hand does not have an anchor. What do I mean? Suppose that your opponent completes with the following hand 3(58). There is a 6 between you and your opponent and you have your 9(A7). 6 folds and if you call the completion, you will be heads up with the opponent. If you go and insert the cards to the simulator, you will see that you have a decent equity against the completer. Should you call? No. The reason is that because of the anchor of 9 around which your hand turns, you will make mistakes later in the hand according to the fundamental theorem of poker defined by Sklansky and your opponent will almost never make a mistake according to the same theorem.
Example, you call, you catch a 10, your opponent catches a 5. The hands are 35(58) versus 9T (A7). You still have decent equity because he paired. But you do not know that. He bets, you fold, and you made a mistake according to the fundamental theorem by folding (if you knew his hidden cards, you would correctly peel one more to see the fifth, but you cannot do that since the opponents' hand does not have an "anchor"). For all you know, he could have A235 and you could be crushed.
Another example: Same hand, you catch a 2, he catches 5. He bets, you call. Fifth street, he catches an 8, you catch a J. Hands: 358 (58) versus 92J (A7). If you look at the equities, you will see that you are doing more than perfectly fine here according to the equities. He bets and you fold (thinking that he may already have an 8 and you are still trying to make a 9), and by folding you made a mistake according to the fundamental theorem.
Why do you keep making these mistakes? Because your hand is rough and has an anchor, while your opponent's hand does not have an anchor (well in the second example, his hand has the anchor of 8 in the fifth street, but even knowing that did not help you, do you see why?).
What is an anchor? An anchor is a card that defines your hand. As such, by definition, in the game of razz, the anchor should be a card above 5. 6 is a flexible card and the best anchor that you can hope for. But you would naturally prefer to have no anchors "showing" in your hand. If the hand does not show any anchor cards, it may for all purposes be a perfect "wheel" and therefore remains undefined (that is it could be a wheel but it could also be a six, seven, eight etc.)
Having hidden anchor cards in your hand, on the other hand, is much better than an explicit anchor, and this kind of hands may even be alright under many circumstances. Why? Because your opponent cannot see them, and therefore these anchors do not define your hand (they are anchors made out of silk instead of steel, you can always untie them at your convention).
As such, a starter hand like A(29) is infinitely more profitable than a hand like 8(76), because it does not have any anchor cards that define it. Your opponent will not know whether you have A23, A34, AKK, or A29 like you actually have. But you will almost exactly know the nature of his hand. He has an anchor of 8, and his most likely final hand will be a rough 8. Knowing that, you will almost never make a mistake according to Sklansky's theorem (that is: almost always, when you fold it will be a correct fold, and when you bet, it will be a correct bet and your opponent will suffer).
Example: A (29) versus 8 (76). you catch a 2 in the fourth, your opponent catches a ten. You bet and he has to fold. He made a mistake. Alternatively, let us say, you catch a 2, he catches a 5, you bet he calls. A2(29) versus 85(76). You catch a 4, he catches a K in the fifth. You bet and he simply has to fold. By folding he made a mistake. Let us suppose that he did not fold: You catch an 8, he catches a 9 in the sixth. A248 (29) versus 85K9(76). You bet, he has to fold, fearing that you already made a smooth eight. In other words, his eight limits his entire hand, by anchoring his ship to a horrible coast named "the coast of 8", whereas your ship is floating free in the ocean. He makes mistake after mistake whereas you continue to own his soul according to the fundamental theorem of poker.
I hope this was helpful.
PS: Small and mid-stakes Razz player here, owning the souls of helpless guys, who think that Razz is too easy and that you should not "over-think" it, for the last 70,000 or so hands in FTP for 2.5 BB/100.

Cheers

That thur's a mighty big nutshell

These guys are going to be such tards post-third I'm never folding this.