Razz - Seventh Street
There are two different ways to approach writing this article. The first would be to assume that you are generally playing against opponents who know what they’re doing; the second would be to assume that most of your opponents are fairly weak players. Since you will probably find yourself playing against far more bad players then good players we will approach this article from the second perspective. With that in mind, it can be said that the play on seventh street can be distilled into two simple but distinct concepts. First, you should do very little check-raising. And second, you should be aggressively value betting your hands.
Let’s look at the issue of check-raising. As mentioned in previous articles, most bad razz players feature a loose, passive playing style. They do a lot of checking and calling, but they don’t do much betting and raising - unless, of course, they have a very big hand. With this in mind, it should be clear that the check raise should be utilized sparingly on seventh street, since frequently your opponent will simply check behind you. Further, even if he does be there’s no guarantee that he’ll call when you raise him. For check raising on seventh to be correct you usually a) want to have a better hand then your opponent, b) would like your opponent to be the type who’s aggressive enough to make some thin value bets when you show weakness, and c) someone who knows you’re capable of making the occasional ‘play’ on seventh, and will call in hopes that this is one of those times. All three of these conditions rarely apply when you’re up against bad players, which means you should usually shelve the check-raise in favour of a more conventional betting strategy.
Along the same lines, however, you should be making lots of marginal value bets yourself. If, for example, your opponent has a board like 8c 6h Qd 7h, and you had an eight five showing, that your opponent will only call you with a smooth seven or better. You will get calls from all kinds of rough nines and tens on seventh street, and you want to make sure you collect these bets. While it can be hard to accurately read your opponent’s hand on seventh, remember that your opponent is also experiencing the same difficulty. And when bad players get confused, or unsure of where they stand, their first reaction is to call - not fold. So long as you think you have the best hand 55% of the time on seventh you should be betting; you’ll be amazed at some of the hands that will call you down.
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