Bickmat's Razz Poker journey

Ouch! Putting these numbers down on paper both is a little unreal for me. Mostly because I don't consider myself a gambler. The big consolation for me is I am only playing with money I've won so anything I manage to hang on to is icing.

Got slammed last night mostly in the 15/30 table agains -TJQK- I would like to say that the cards where against me but I do not think that was the case. -TJQK- just outplayed me. It seems like everytime we had a show down he was beating me by one card.

This opened my eyes due some various strategies that I will test out in the lower levels.It'

Well I played a little bit of everything tonight. I think I played every limit up to 15/30 in the heads up room. I sat in on a table at 15/30 with 4 or people. A Full Tilt Pro sat down at some point.

I played a $2 single table sit and go which I won and played peony on the $200 heads up sit and go. Again we tied at 1 win/1 loss a piece.

All in all I came out even and only had an $85 win for the night.

Well I did not feel I played my best last night but was able to post a winning session so I guess I can't complain too much.

I played two people heads up for longer than normal. In one case I think my opponent quit when he was slightly ahead.

In the other case I was slightly ahead of my opponent and he kept suggesting we increase our limits. We went for 3/6 to 8/16 to 15/30. I had a sense that I was ahead but was shocked that when I had to go to bed he mentioned he was down $700.

I also played a multi table razz $5 tournament and a $5 razz sit and go.

For the multi table I was slightly ahead but managed to leak my chips on playing draws and not hitting.

I won the $5 sit and go easily. By the time it was down half the table I had $5k in chips which is about %40 of the chips. From there I could just stay out of the fray and swoop in with premium hands.

On a final note I went 1 win/1 loss againt peony again on the heads up $200 tournament which means I lost $20 in rake. While I was playing him the $5 razz sit and go started. Peony has never said a word to me in chat but he asked me what I was doing playing the $5 sit and go. On the face of it it certainly seems weird till I explained that I was doing the sit and go for tournament experience/practice.

Wow I surprised myself when I went to log this. Generally when I am playing I don't really keep track of how much money I've earned lost.

When it's time to make posting I check whats in my Full Tilt Poker account against what my blog bankroll database is showing and make the appropriate entry.

So needless to say I was quite surprised and pleased with the amount of my wins which is about two-three nights worth.

I do remember taking a shot at $15-30 and beating someone out of their buy ($300) so that accounts for 1/3 of it.

I would like to play more razz tournaments but it's hard for me to set aside a block of hours to play. Mainly because if my girlfriend sees me playing poker she usually gets upset and I have to get off.

I was recently chatting with forizzle1233 who had deposited $50 and was trying to grow his bank roll. As an answer I said I would write an article and post it on my site.

I started out playing on Full Title in April 2007. I deposited $100 and have since grown my bank roll to $4,000 playing razz poker.

I consider myself a very slightly above average poker player. I have no special ingredient that I will sell you for $99.99, no secret system that, no mathematical savant genius mentat abilities. I did it using simple every day common sense.

First of all never play with money you would not light on fire. If you would not use a $100 bill to light your cuban cigar then do not do this. Always gamble with other people money and never your own.

I started playing the .25/.50 table and was able to get my to about $200. At this point I withdrew my original $100 and now I was playing with other peoples money and not my own.

One option that I did not explore at this level was playing the $1 razz sit and gos. If I did it again I would play a sit and go and a cash table at the same time. I think the $1 sit and go is a cheap way of getting experience. In fact I am starting to play these now for tournament experience.

From here I again grinded my way up to $200 and then started taking pot shots at the $.5/1 tables. If I went below $200 then I would go back to .25/.50. The more cushion I had above $200 the more I would play the .5/1 table.

At $350 I played .5/1 exclusively. I stayed at this level until I had built up my bankroll to $500.

At this point I now could safely play the $5 heads up sit and go. I would play two of these at a time. I played these until I was at $750 and then started playing a $5 and a $10. Once I hit $1000 I started playing the $20/30 sit and gos. At $1500 I was confident in doing $30/50 sit and gos. At this point I take shots at the $100/$200 sit and gos but can't do it on a regular basis.

Now that I had $2k I migrated to the heads up 2/4 table. This quickly shot me up to $2500. I played a few of the higher tables and skyrockected to $4000. At this I'm comfortable playing 3/6 and 5/10 while 8/16 is still a stretch. I've played as high as 15/30 but have had some big losses there so need to build up my bankroll.

Anyway that's my story. It may not work for anyone else but it is how I did it.

Saw peony sitting at the $200 1v1 razz sit and go table. I figured I was doing well so far so sat down on a whim.

First game went back and forth but I got him on the defensive and was able to whittle him down.

Second game went back and forth and he was pushing me around. I got married to the wrong hand and bye bye Bickmat.

Third game went back and forth and was the closest game. Blinds got high enough that it soon became a one hand wins game and I squeaked through.

Played a bit last night and did well again. Notable opponents was someone who sat down at my 5/10 heads up table and loaded $5000 and then immediately asked if aces where low.

Won an easy $100 there but tried to be nice. I gave him this site so he could read some of the basic razz strategy articles I have listed.

Oh and the big score was I came in 3rd in a $1 full table site and go. $1.60 mine all mine lol. Main reason for playing a tournament like this is it is cheap experience. I played passively at the end got aggressive during the late middle and was chip leader when we got down to 3 people. Then I blew it by not toning my aggression down. Oh well cheaper to make these mistakes at this price than at the higher prices.

Well my last post left us with me being going on tilt and losing $700. I'm happy to report I re-evaluated my razz play and got back to where I was before going on tilt.

I was talking to someone who was struggling with a $100 bankroll and asked me how I go my bankroll up. I said I would write an article on that and am going to try and do that this week. So watch this space.

Omg I went from having my best night (bank roll was up to 3k) do losing all the winning plus 700.

I was playing the higher stakes multi-table and just got creamed on a few hands and then tried to re-coup it by tying to force hands. I ended up in an ugly death spiral.

The only positivie thing I can say is that I pissed away other people's money.

I think I'll go back to my tried and true sit and go's and stick to the $2-4 heads up table until I get back to the $2k mark.

Played some more heads up cash games and won $179.

The higher tables seem to be softer as I still seem to be struggling at the $2-$4 tables.

I'm saving all my hand histories and need to get some time to spend on parsing them out to a spreadsheet or something so I can do some detailed statistical analysis.