That old Razz magic — Poker on Ladbrokes

No Limit Hold ’Em may be the biggest game in town but it is far from the only one, although there appears to be only one site on the web where you can play Pot Limit Razz.

Ladbrokes is a major high street bookmaker in Britain. There are two Ladbrokes betting shops in Sydenham Road, the high street of the relatively small Sydenham. Poker-wise though, Ladbrokes is a small fish; although according to one source it is Europe’s biggest poker room, it lags way behind PokerStars and Party Poker. Relatively small or not, the Ladbrokes poker site has one thing neither of these and apparently none of the others appears to have: Pot Limit Razz.

Broadly speaking, there are two types of poker – those in which the highest hand wins, and those in which the lowest wins, although there are also hi-lo games (see below).

TheDarkMan wins the $3 Stud Hi Lo on PokerStars, December 6, 2011. First prize was a modest $50.40.

Razz is a low only game. For non-players, PokerStars – the world’s largest poker site – has produced this on-line fact sheet.

At PokerStars, Razz is strictly fixed limit; there are cash games as well as tournaments for all pockets. This week, sees the start of a short mini-series of turbo poker on the site, billled as a world championship. On January 26, there is a Razz tournament with a $33 buy-in and a guaranteed prize pool of $50,000. For those with deeper pockets, there is also a weekly Razz tournament with a whopping $215 buy-in ($200 + $15). There are satellites available for this latter.

Of course, for those who are content to fish in small ponds, although the rewards are correspondingly smaller, there is less chance of being eaten by a shark. And as the screengrabs below demonstrate, small wins can be just as satisfying when all is vanity.

December 17, 2011: TheDarkMan wins the €5.00 Pot Limit Razz on Ladbrokes, a small tournament with a decent prize pool. Tonight there were 15 runners, 3 places paid. No rebuy or add-on for me.

TheDarkMan wins the €5.00 Pot Limit Razz tournament on Ladbrokes, December 30 2011. This is becoming a habit! A very good prize pool tonight, €181.00; 19 runners, 4 places paid. I had a rebuy after coming unstuck early on, but I was chip leader of 7, and never looked back.

TheDarkMan finishes runner up in the €5.00 Pot Limit Razz tournament on Ladbrokes, January 2 2012. Tonight there were 18 runners and 4 places paid. I had a rebuy but won the tournament. It had a total €150.00 prize pool.

TheDarkMan wins the €5.00 Pot Limit Razz tournament on Ladbrokes, January 12 2012. Tonight there were 18 runners, 4 places paid and a €150.00 prize pool. I had a rebuy, and the massive chip leader had lost the lot by the time we got down to 5. Heads up against the muppet, I thought I’d doubled him up, but in the end he got a bit too clever for himself.

[The above was published originally January 20, 2012 with 6 screengrabs. The sixth was not related to razz.]

---

Back To Digital Journal Index