Bickmat's Razz Poker journey

Ugh getting killed in the last few weeks. Had some unreal sessions where 3/4 of my made hands on 5/6 streets got sucked out on the river.

Needless to say I've dropped back down to playing just 2/4 instead of the 3/6 tables. I'm finding the 3/6 tables hard to beat. It is really frustrating when I'm getting my ass handed to me by other people playing any 2 low cards and I'm playing 3 low cards.

Got some new books so will do some mini reviews next time when I have a chance to sit down and do justice to them.

I started playing the 3/6 tables based on the feedback I got about how much bankroll I should have. With $2000 as my bank roll I have 333xBB which is more than sufficient and also gives me a healthy cushion. I'll peg $2000 as my line in the sand for the 3/6 tables. The 3/6 tables isn't alway running on Pokerstars and I generally play more than one table so I am still playing a lot of 2/4 tables as well.

The next level would be 5/10. I'm thinking that $3500 will be my next goal to level up. this would be 350xBB which again gives me a very healthy cushion.

As always grinding these levels out can get a little boring. I like playing the ultra cheap sit and gos $3.40 and lower which helps me from playing 789 hands out of boredom. I usually have my filter set to only show NL holdem and Razz sit and gos but the other day the filter had disappeared and I have been to lazy to reset it up. I went to the sit and go tab to load up a game and noticed there was 5/6 players sitting for a $2 pot limit 5 card draw sit and go. I figured what the heck this should be fun or at least different. I ended up having a lot of fun playing and easily won the game. So far I've played 3 of these and won 2 and lost one when my fullhouse lost to a bigger boat.

Hit $1900 last night when I finished out a $120 bonus on PokerStars. Still playing the 2/4 tables mostly because when I've been on either the 3/6 tables have not been running or I'm multitasking and don't want to get in to a high stakes game in that frame of mind or lack of.

Not even close to the gold vpp level. I'll see how close I get next month. If I'm still far away I'll just cashout the vpps to the silver cash rewards.

Been on a roll lately on the 2/4 tables. I hit silver vpp award level on Pokerstars as well. I don't anticipate hitting the gold level at the 2/4 level based on the hours I play. This is more of icing on the cake rather than any goals I have.

I've taken a shot or two at the 3/6 game but haven't started playing it regularly. I haven't officially set my 3/6 boundary level yet. For 2/4 my goal was $600 which is 150 * the BB. For 3/6 - 150 * BB (6) would be 900. This seems a little low to me. I'm thinking of setting my 3/6 boundary at $2000. Anyone have any recommendations/suggestions.

Holdem sng are basically he same. I play them now and then and am a slight loser in this category. I only play the $3 and under so I consider it an inexpensive education.

Well had this week off so had time to play more than my share of razz this week.

Razz has been working out well for me. Ironically things seem to have switched for me. I used to do well in playing heads up and sucked badly in a full ring game. Now I am doing well playing in the full ring game and suck heads up. I think this mostly because I have toned my aggression down a bit.

For holdem sngs I had a winning streak of 4-5 sit and gos in a row. But since then have struggled. At this point I'm a slight loser with sit an gos but I think I'm getting better. I keep watching the sit and go videos over on StoxPoker.com which have helped a lot. I almost always end up in the top 5 positions unless I get sucked out horribly on.

Mitchell Cogert kindly sent me a copy of his new book titled Play Razz Poker to Win (along with a nifty t-shirt) to review.

The books itself is thin however Razz is not the most complex game and the book does cover each street in detail. Most people playing razz do not understand the basic strategy of razz and and Mitchell certainly covers this well.

The book also cover drawing hands particularly a made 9 against a drawing hand. Learning this concept is a key point that separates the Razz beginner players from the intermediate players.

The real meat of the book is covered under how card duplication adjust your odds. This one aspect of the book is well worth the price of the book. For me this is an area that while I was aware of the concept did not really pay too much attention to.

Stealing in Razz is also covered however at the lower limit tables and covers the fact that the more people in a hand the worse your odds are. It also goes over how to important position is when you decide to steal. I would have like to see how the ante size changes your stealing strategy.

Overall I felt that this book will certainly help anyone who is new to razz to become a winning player at low limits and certainly recommend it.

As a final note I've had a week to play poker after receiving Mitchell's book and get some real money results. As a bit of history I've been trying to hit $600 for he past few months and have been pretty much trading water with my bankroll holding $400. I am quite happy to say that after reading the book and tweaking my play I got to my goal of $600 within 3-4 days. Once I hit $600 I was able to move up to the 2/4 table and moved up to $750.

Been on a roll recently after reading Mitchell Cogets book Play Razz Poker to Win.

Once I hit $600 was able to move up to the 2/4 which makes wins/losses go twice as fast as the $1/$2 tables.

Haven't played much but got some time in this weekend. Had a few bad sessions with some cash games where I just kept getting drawn out on which is always frustrating.

I was in a $10 razz tournament and learned a good lesson by making fatal mistake late in the tournament. I was playing very well for all of the tournament and was in the top 10-20% of the field all the way up to the end. As the blinds went up the small stacks started having to go all in with a premium hand and the big stacks had the ability to call them down fairly light which resulted in a lot of see saw action and some of the big stacks doubling up to become monsters. This in turn allowed the now monster stacks to play fairly aggressively against the rest of the field.

As this was happening I had been playing super tight as I waited for the small stacks to be gobbled up. Unfortunately a few bricked hands and I was getting down to 18k which is precariously close to the felt for this part of the tournament. I knew I had to make a move sooner rather than later to have any sort of chance to make it to the final table.

The mistake I made was that I forgot to pay attention to the bubble. I ended up going all in against a monster hand with a premium hand against a similar size stack. He bricked twice on 3rd and 4th streets but was pot committed and ended up drawing me out and boucing me out in 19th place. However, after I looked at the people left in the tourney I realized that there where 4-5 people that would have been eliminated by the blinds in the next two to four rounds. I could easily have made it to the bubble before making an all in move.

Now this was just a $10 tournament so not much was lost but it's the princible that counts. Besides it always hurts playing all that time to end up with nothing. A $20 consolation prize would have at least eased the pain and it waiting 2 or 3 rounds would not have had a material impact on whether I reached the final table or not.

Cash games where pretty ugly I had actually dropped down to $350 at one point. The problem here is that $400 is my cut off point for the $1/$2 tables. When I get below $400 I drop down to the .5/1 tables which is just a pain to grind out. The play is a bit easier but the rake is pretty murderous. Main goal is to hit $600 so I can start playing the 2/4 tables.

As you know I've been grinding the $.5/1 tables and finally managed to hit $400. For me this is the point where I am allowed to play $1/$2 table and $10 heads up games. I can also play the $3.25 holdem sit and gos.

Grinding at these limits is just pure patience and can be quite frustrating when someone draws out on you when you fold 50 hands and then get A234 and brick brick brick

A good example of how crazy razz can be was when I was playing a $10 heads up game the other day. My opponent didn't know how to play. First hand I capped every round when he was showing KKQ. I then quite nicely explained that this was razz and gave him a link to the rules on my site. He understood the rules but played poorly and he still won just by calling everything and hitting runner runner runner miracle hands time and time again.

I ended up losing and just had to laugh and say well -- that's razz for ya.

Not doing anything real exciting. Just grinding out the $.5/1 tables on PokerStars. It is helpful for me to get back to the basics as a big part of my downfall was trying to make 'fancy' plays. With the low limit crowd you just need the best hand as the 'tricky' plays just go over most people's head.

If there's a tournament on tonight I'll try and play it. Hard to schedule those in with my time schedule though.