...eh, having two compulsory bets and no possibility of a limped pot where the bring-in catches up on 4th seems messy, but doesn't change the fact that the bring-in is just setting fire to his money on account of a random event (being dealt a bad door card). That has proven to be a vocal complaint of people who don't want to add Razz to a mix. In the pass-out scenario the starting pot money contributed to each round is the same for every player and is independent of cards.

It gives a-holes one less thing to yell at the dealer about too.

well look at the BB in holdem. he has to put a bet in, with a random hand, though not at least 1/3 of a band hand, but in the worst position. the b/i in razz could still be in position for the rest of the hand, and in razz, likely will be.

Because the BB rotates in HE, every player is compelled to put in the same amount of money each round, with a chance of getting a playable hand in a forced blind. What the reluctant players object to about Razz is being forced to put up money randomly, where most of the time that money is just lost because the way the bring in is chosen is dependent on having a bad hand. That the first contestant in a pot is guaranteed to have a bad hand makes for very little action. Those two things are what this would address.

The forced complete would just be the best door bringing it in for more with the worst door paying a kind of punitive extra ante, and the people who don't like the bring-in rule now would hate that.

I'll play it any old way and find a way to adjust and still get rivered, so I don't care, but they do.

does anyone else agree that the lowest card as b/i would increase action? I think the "folded out" concept is a red herring and that hasn't been addressed.

With a high card bring-in, there is almost guaranteed to be an open from a low card on Third. With a low card bring-in, many deals would not have a stealing opportunity present and no money would go in. That seems pretty obvious to me.

you're still missing my point. yes it increases the chance it folds around. but as far as generating action, folding around and stealing the b/i is basically the same thing. so decreasing the chance of folding around by making the high card b/i is not increasing action since a lot of times, the opener takes the pot uncontested rather then the low card b/i. increasing the chance of an open from a low card doesn't necessarily increase the chance of seeing further cards and generating bigger pots.

it seems to me that increasing the chance that the b/i will have to defend will increase action.

I mean, look at HULHE ffs. the BB has to defend such a large range, you get a lot of big pots. look at HU razz currently. even though the low card opens 80-100% of the time, you don't get that much action since the b/i defends such a small amount of the time.

tell me how increasing the chance that steals are successful increases action. it can't.

He won't have to defend often because people will attempt to steal less. They'll attempt to steal less both because their door cards are weaker and because the steals will be so much less likely to work.

Sure, in those situations where you have two decent hands butting up against each other, then there will be action, but that's a tautology.

he will have to defend often because he's 1/3 of the way to having a good hand.

also compare 8/b (action game, b/i starts w/ a good card) vs. stud hi (nits game, b/i starts w/ a bad card)

You don't need to defend if nobody opens.

Stud8 is an action game because people can be loose and bad in two directions.

I think you're severely underestimating the amount of opening that would occur, like what happens in stud8 regardless of the b/i maybe having a good hand.

is anyone else going to chime in?

I cannot imagine it increasing action to have low card bring in. I think you'll see many more instances of everyone folding around to the bring in, and I think you'll see many fewer instances of a complete and a second raise on 3rd by a second best up card hand

I think chips is getting hung up on the nuances of 3rd street play that would be different, probably because he is high, but not seeing that overall, despite specific scenarios we can envision in which a particular deal will have more action, there may be less incentive to play on 3rd street, not more.

Also, if the story is that stud high was successfully changed for just this reason, it seems like the empirical evidence points toward more action with worst card bringing in than with best hard bringing in, although I'm not up on my poker history, so I don't know...

1. Biggest non-paint brings it in. Kind of split the difference between best and worst card opening. Still good incentive to steal but also more chances to defend with 7/8/9's than T/J/Q/K's.

2. Every paint brings it in. Smallest card acts first after this. ie board is 2, K, K, J, 9, 8, 8, 5. King, King, and Jack all must bring in. Action starts on the deuce.

3. Blinds with a rotating button. Def a decent way to bring the game to some of the more casual home game settings and such.

4. High card posts a little blind, immediate left posts a big blind/live complete. Play from there.

just some ideas. Game is fine as is though imo. I do like the double river bet in all limit games though.

I've also played it with 3 down, 1 up, and with 2 down, 2 up as the opening round. It was action in the games I played it in but those were going to be action games regardless. The three down one up often had some kind of bounty/split pot element regarding the hole cards.

I disagree it makes it "less in line" because in as you said, the K is just "nakedly bad." It also gives away the hand when the BI calls. In Stud hi, the lowest doorcard doesn't reveal that much about the hand if the BI comes in. That BI can still have a big pair, a three-flush, be rolled up, or looking to fill a straight. So, if the Razz BI is the lowest card, it better conceals the nature of the BI's hand, making Razz closer to Stud hi and closer to Stud8.

They could also take the cap off raising HU in all limit games, and make it more like casino poker.

I do. I've thought so for years. The lowest card as BI completely changes the dynamic on 3rd, the BI will be in steal position themselves far more often, and with a big hand can "limp" raise-reraise against already-committed players much more easily. I'd think it would lead to more multiway jammed 3rd streets. You'd also get players raising more to put pressure on the BI to fold who might otherwise just call the complete because they are closing the action, they assume, as last small doorcard to act.

It also occurs to me, if you want to get casino players to allow Razz in the mix, it's a simpler change to make and might pacify the whiners.

While I commend Steve and the others who chimed in for their creativity in attempting to make razz more palatable to the Gen Y'ers who have a 12 sec attention span, I'm not sure I like the slippery slope of changing the fundamental structure of the game. I agree that a lot of times there is too little action on 3rd st, esp. in live shorthanded games where you'll do more shuffling and stacking 5 chip pots than actually playing the game. I would much rather see the parameters that are already available for tweaking used to correct the problem tho, i.e. jack up the antes. If you want the bring-in to feel less like he's setting money on fire, lower the bring to 0.2 SB or so. If you want him to defend more liberally, make it 0.5 SB.

Or we could all just play more Scandies:

Razz ($10/$20), Ante $1.50, Bring-In $3 (converter)

3rd Street - (1.05 SB)

Seat 1: xx xx K___folds
Seat 3: xx xx A___completes
Seat 4: xx xx K___brings-in___folds
Seat 5: xx xx 2___folds
Scandy 6: xx xx Q___calls___folds
Hero: J 6 6___folds
Seat 8: xx xx J___folds

Total pot: (1.95 SB - $19.50)

structure of the 4/8 razz game at venetian was $1 ante $2 bringin. Needless to say i defended liberally

I know it's a pretty fundamental change, but how about adding a "second street" before "third street". Two hole cards dealt, blinds of 1/2 SB and 1 SB, bet size is 1 SB; get rid of the antes, the blinds serve the same purpose.

Third street would play like fourth street does today -- best board opens the action.

You'd see more action with people defending (A2)K for sure, because on second street, they built a decent sized pot and have much better odds to justify playing (A2)K.

And you'd have less stealing on third street, because most second streets are probably going to be raised at least once, and players won't usually get to third street without two halfway decent hole cards -- meaning that more low door cards will be value plays on third street, and also meaning that more high door cards will defend.

I know NL razz doesn't make much sense b/c you have so many betting streets and ppl would go broke quickly; but what about a NL cap razz? Betting is NL but capped on every street

or fixed limit 3-5th and NL cap on 6/7th

You would empty out the fish in a hurry.

Big bet Razz would probably make a much better tourney game than a cash game.

Yea i thought about that too.