Bickmat's Razz Poker journey

So my girlfriend (who hates it when I play poker) is coming home late so I decide to play a final sit and go for the night. I'm doing ok and the game is fairly even when she walks in the door early - doh!

So I shut down and figure I'll just eat the loss. A small price to pay for domestic bliss. After we get settled she decideds to watch Last Comic standing which of course is fine by me.

I log back in and see that I am down to 800 chips and figure I'll just play super aggressive in order to get the game over before the tv show ends.

I basically roll over merlin707 as he bricks out on every hand we get involved in.

Haven't played a razz poker 1v1 sit and go for a bit. Game went bakc and forth for a bit but I managed to squeeze out a win in the end.

Played a variety of cash games and pretty much was losing. Luckily at the end of the day I won about $400 of johnnydepth at the one on one $8-$16 tables.

Played a few cash games in the last few days but the bulk of this money came from razzspoony (sp?)

I was playing $8 - $16 which is high limits for me but ended up winning about $300. Lost a bit of it later to random people though.

So this is second tournament for me and I manage to get 2nd place. First quarter of the game i was down to like 200 chips. Luckily I was able to come back and had a huge chip lead 20-25k when the average stack was 2k. This let me just coast and play only premium hands.

I pretty much coasted to 2nd place and then had to battle for 1st place. Other player was hyper aggressive no foldem type which always give me problems and I quickly lost to him.

Oh well can't complain too much. I've been on a roll the last day or so.

Lost a 1v1 razz sit and go to rjbb. Game went long and was back and forth for a while until the bets where so high that the game was decided on a coin flip hand. I was leading the hand but he out drew me :(

Found a good basic razz tournament strategy article. I will add this link to the strategy and tips section.

Razz is one of the simplest forms of poker around, and to play and enjoy it in a tournament setting all you need is a little patience. In the early and middle stages of a razz tournament, you play tight, straightforward poker. This means your starting standards should be strict – with all three starting cards valued 8 or lower before you even enter a pot, and usually something better than that to call a completion.

Read more: Razz Tournament Strategy

I've been playing a lot of $2 - $4 heads up razz games and have been fairly successful. I generally break even or lose to the good players but make a profit on the random strangers that hop on my table.

Unfortunately I am not as disciplined in logging my sessions - this entry covers about 2 weeks worth.

I'm saving all my hand history logs though and am going to see about writing a parser to parse them all out. As an added bonus this will let me track how much I've won/lost to any player I've played.

Full Tilt razz 8 person sit and go's greater than $5 are fairly rare. Mostly everyone plays the $1 sit and gos or the $5 sit and go's. So when I saw a $20 8 person sit and go with 5 people I sat down and did some work until the tournament popped.

For these multi sit and gos I generally am extremely passive at the start and won't bet or raise without a very solid or a made hand.

About one third of the way through the tournament (when everyone was still ramming and jamming) I got dealt the following hand which made me chip leader by a large margin (4500)
The raised where being capped on 5th and 6th street with some crazy bettin action.

*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 3,620 | Rake 0
Seat 1: browntat00 folded on 3rd St.
Seat 2: ROKOM mucked [Ks Kc Tc 7d Jd 9h Ah] - J,T,9,7,A
Seat 3: london1616 folded on 6th St.
Seat 4: SpursGaz folded on 4th St.
Seat 5: saltydog76 mucked [4h 2c 7c 8s Ts 5h Ac] - 7,5,4,2,A
Seat 6: Bickmat showed [Kh 5d 4s Ad Jc 3d 2s] and won (3,620) with 5,4,3,2,A
Seat 7: XHEAD HUNTERX folded on 3rd St.
Seat 8: unklepaddy folded on 4th St.

After that I was able to simply passively pickup hands without trying to force anything. This went on till we where down to 4 people where most of the people where trying to bubble but Browntat00 was trying to pick up undefended chips. This went on for a while but eventually tagged him with a 6 low and knocked him out.

*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 7,549 | Rake 0
Seat 1: browntat00 mucked [8d 5s 6s As Kc Qh 3s] - 8,6,5,3,A
Seat 6: Bickmat showed [6h 5h 3c Ad Ks 9h 2s] and won (7,549) with 6,5,3,2,A
Seat 7: XHEAD HUNTERX folded on 3rd St.

After that I had enough chips to weather the large antes and bets ($500) and was able to chip away and coast into the win.

Ugh hate playing againt IHateToGamble. He's super tight so the razz sit and go lasts forever and I always end up losing the coin flip hands when the bets are so big one hand will break you.