Whats the story behind omaha and why isnt it (getting) more popular? It was announced as the next big thing, most pros have left nlhe for it, i tried it and followed happily, but still it seems to stagnate.

Because the low limit NLHE doesn't take much effort. Low hanging fruit rule.

Omaha takes considerable skill, balls and money. Online is a great way to learn Omaha cause you can play micro stakes and get the learning experience of 10's of thousands of hands without taking discouraging losses.

Other reasons -- dealers don't like it, floor could care less. It's a slower more deliberative game, players won't start or play short handed. I've seen games go an hour then break up at 6 handed. The stack sizes after the game goes for a while can be intimidating.

Did I mention that dealer hate spills over and makes everybody mean?

isn't omaha that is staganate, the game is still getting more and more popular imo. i think nowadays are terrible days for poker in general, online or live, some laws in few countrys, ftp going down fcked it, and europe going broke... when your family has less money , you stop w your expensive hobbys.

I dont know why i thought omaha would surpass holdem. Thats the impression i got, like it was holdem but better and fresher, thats how it was presented, and thats how it felt...but its not catching on even online, no difficulty more gambling just positives

You make it sound as if Omaha is this brand new game, which it isn't. Maybe be fairly new to you but its not some new game.

The reason it isn't as popular is for quite a few reasons.

The first reason being that most people don't know about it. All they ever see on TV is holdem and most people are ignorant to the fact that there are other games out there. All they see is the tv pros playing it so thats what they play.

Second point ties into the first point, that they are ignorant to any other games. This is because all they show in TV is NL. They do this because it is much easier to televise and keep track of. Thats why all they show is NL which is why the only game the majority of players play is NL. They see it as the most skillful game because thats all thats televised.

Lastly the people that do know about it are just too lazy/don't care to learn it. Most people just play for fun so they play hold'em because they know how to play it and thats what they want to do with their spare time and extra entertainment money. They just don't want to learn it.

JEP and others got it pretty right.

Fishes usually think there's "more play" to holdem since it's what they see on TV (omaha will never be on TV for the masses) and you get to bluff more often, especially in live games.

The mid to high stakes NLHE fishes that try omaha usually get destroyed with a couple of weeks/months and swear off the game pretty fast. That's what happened to the higher live PLO games in here in Montreal.

Lastly, the game is simply too complicated for most people. PLO will always be the poker players game, while NLHE is the masses' game.


FWIW, it's not like it's hard to get PLO action online but it can be live

Who presented it to you like that?

PLO has been called the 'next big thing' for literally 30 years. It will never catch up to holdem, but it's a lot more popular than when I started playing ~ 7 years ago, both on the internet and in the US. In europe my guess would be that holdem has become relatively more popular and played than plo.

On top of the reasons given above, it's also a more complicated game than holdem, which is simple to learn and play (not necessarily well). It also presents itself as more tied to skill than luck than PLO which is viewed as a gambling game, stopping 'serious' players from wanting to play it (lol).

'2

Yea, it's way to complecated to play it with total newbies in homegames etc, so it spreads WAY slower than NL did. I'm actually surprised how big of a game it got so fast, but don't expect it to ever catch up on NL.

Are there a lot of players that managed to build a BR from PLO (from micro/low stakes) those last couple of years ? I'm asking cause, as most people here, I built my BR through NLHE at the time... And never played low stakes PLO. But the rake there seems so huge (bb/100 wise) that, even if it might still be possible now, I think it won't be (except because of variance) soon...

interested in this also

^ Ive built around 10k starting from pl2 thru pl50, taking some money off here and there for driving license (expensive in Finland) and travels. Soon playing pl100 I guess. Ive only ever deposited 70€ and burned them up straight. Then got a free €10 on Entraction which I now sit on still.

Same as above, except I didn't spend much of it and I play 100-400 now.

The trick is to have good RB and to play a solid non FPS game when at the microstakes. Exploit all the terrible regs for being retarded or retardedly nitty and let the fish donate their money to you.

What are optimal stats for micros?

What? who says PLO hasn't caught on? Its the 2nd most popular form of poker, and ranks 1st in terms of HS action