Good find on the wikipedia page. To tell you the truth, I don't remember too many occasions where having three of a suit in my hand stopped me from playing a hand that I would have played with two of a suit. I won't play with four of a suit, however.

Obviously having three of a suit in your hand makes it a little more difficult to make a flush, but it also makes it more difficult to flop a multi-way hand to begin with. Three isn't so bad, but four is total trash. Because with a hand like JT98, it is physically impossible to flop two pair with a flush draw. And of course it is even less likely both to flop a flush draw and then to make a flush once you flop one.

I hate it when I catch JQKA and have to muck.

What?

Not your thread.

in situation #5 in the hand examples. we have KKxx ( good xx) and call a raise in pos in a multi way pot flop is ak6 2 hearts. its checked to the pfr who pots it and he says insta fold.


im in no pos to argue but this seems crazy. too much holdem on the brain i guess. i dont even know what villian would bet here let alone what i need to make the call. is this standard.

is their anything in this book that needs a disclaimer on it???

basically we have plenty of holdem books where we would feel safe having someone with no discretion read it. like hoh vol 1 and 2 or something like sshe. but certain texts come with the " this book is geared for high stakes games, or short handed aggro games" * attached.


does this book have any of that. are any general ideas or situations debatable for like of a better term?

I think the disclaimer is that this is geared towards full ring games and games where a lot of people see the flop. Hwang observes a couple of times that being HU with position is a great place to be, and that he will raise with any 4 halfway decent cards if he thinks he will end up HU with position, but he does not really go into that scenario very greatly iirc. Playing in 6-max games, you see a lot more pots being contested HU and 3-way.

Having said that, I think that there is not too much general advice you can give for those situations since your decisions are going to be so player/stack dependent. Also, I think a lot of the advice is still quite valid in 6 max games. I still see a lot of the same exploitable opportunities in shorthanded games, and I certainly have changed how I value a lot of hands pre and post flop based on this book.

For instance, I still see people who will give just tons of action on the flop and turn with sucker wraps and mini-wraps, even if there is a two flush on the board and they don't have that flush draw. (And I am not talking about people who call with these sorts of hands, but people who try to get all their money in as quick as possible). They are choosing bad starting hands (usually hands with major defects) and way over playing them post flop. If one is coming from a HE background, there is a good chance that they wont recognize these as errors. Experienced PLO players are just going to roast them over an open pit, though. These are they types of thing this book really brings to light.

The whole reason I play PLO (and PLO/8, which is even better) is because people are really willing to give way too much action with inferior hands and don't even realize it after the fact. It's just great: the fish think you suck and are lucky when they lose; in reality, they are usually big equity dogs when the money went in. Those situations where it is easy to delude oneself into thinking they were ahead in a hand (or at least about even) are rare in HE, but very common in omaha.

Nice post. Yesterday alone, I got it all in twice with top set against top 2 pair. That happens maybe once a quarter to me in Holdem.

Two days ago, I played live with some guys that play a lot of Omaha. One is complete donkey who thinks he is an Omaha master. Another considers himself a tight player.

I asked both players if they would rather have T876 or T975 as a starting hand. They both picked T876! LMAO. Not that T975 is the nuts. But it can flop a 16 out nut straight draw. T876 can flop a 13 out nut straight draw (45x, 96x), a 11 out nut straight draw (97x), a 9 out nut straight draw (95x), a 7 out nut straight draw (98x), a 3 out nut straight draw (T9x) and a zero out nut straight draw (J9x, Q9x).

Well, I didn't actually say "insta" fold. But in retrospect, I think it is probably close between folding and calling and seeing what he does on the turn. This is a pretty marginal situation either way. The worst play is raising, as if you get any action you will be in a small favorite (against something like wrap plus flush draw)/big dog (AA) situation.


I think the general principles apply to any full ring game. The main difference between penny stakes games online and some of the bigger games live (such as $5/$5/$10 or $5/$10/$25) is in how aggressive the players are pre-flop. Any adjustments you might make are discussed in the pre-flop concepts section.

The general principles -- such as the straight draw physics -- also apply to short-handed games as well, though short-handed play does require making some adjustments, which I've touched on at a couple of points in this thread (I think somewhere between pages 6 and 8, and maybe page 11 to 13 or so). I will flesh this out more fully at some point in the near future, as my first article for Card Player will appear in the March 26 issue.

Jeff

Upto what buyin would the book be most suited for (i.e at what level do players start getting aggressive pre-flop?)

thanks.

Well, I haven't played in a game yet where the general pre-flop principles don't apply. What I mean is that a $2/$5 game with $500 stacks will tend to be fairly loose and passive, but a $2/$5 game with $2000 stacks will tend to be fairly loose and aggressive, probably with a $10 straddle making it $2/$5/$10 and frequent pre-flop raising. In the more aggressive game, you might choose not to play the speculative wrap hands such as J-T-8-6 up front; yet at the same time, you can still get away with it for the most part so long as the stacks are deep and the pots are frequently contested multiway (as usually is the case).

So in general, I will play as prescribed in both games, though I might loosen up even more in the passive game.

I think the online games up to about $0.50/$1 or $1/$2 and sometimes $2/$4 will play like a live $2/$5 game with $500 stacks. Just about the only game I've ever played where I would fold J-T-8-6 suited in early position was the old $3/$6 game on Party Poker, which was a tight game with a lot of shortstackers and a 100BB max buy-in. I think at that point you are better off looking for a game either with a deeper buy-in or 6-max, or otherwise just playing live where the games are almost always good.

Jeff

hi jeff,

i proclaimed this book #1 poker book ever in another thread!!!

one thing i've been meaning to ask... you seem to think that straights have great significance in omaha. is that correct? or is it just the complexity of them? am i correct in paraphrasing that you think straights are the "workhorse" hand of omaha. probably a bad description but hopefully you know what i mean.

here are my two reasons why i wouldn't have considered straights so important:

large percentage of boards are flushed or paired, meaning that higher level hand is possible, and reasonably likely. BTW, what % of boards are flushed or paired? actually, what % of boards are straight candidates?? i guess you have to be really worried about straights with most two pair or sets.

straights don't seem like sneaky hands in omaha like they are in hold-em. i'm on guard in omaha for any hand that beats me (not always the case in hold-em... i'm assuming no one has 3-7 in hold-em). in omaha, i'm assuming there's a good chance almost any 3 cards are out. so on a board with 456 out, i'm assuming 37 could easily be in a hand, even though it's a ridiculous hand to play just based on those two cards (unless double-suited ace or cheap position call with AA)

BTW, omaha-8 is very mechanical and very easy to catch on fast. and i remember when i tried it for the first time, i didn't even really know the rules, and i suspect there are many out there playing who don't really know the rules.

jeff, thanks in advance!!

I think that nlh is a great game, but agree w you to some extent.

Plo and plo 8 are also great games. one thing that YOU (and others) can do to help this situation is at tournaments be vocal (but polite) about the fact that almost every tournament is nlh. many don't play the plo tournaments when they do run bc they are not comfortable in the game, because it is not run in tournaments enough. also, many players are scared of the rebuy aspect (they have told me).

Also, MANY have told me that they would have played in this or that PLO if the stakes were more reasonable.

For example, the recent deep stacks at the Venetian, to its credit, once a week ran a game other than nlh. the PLO was about 540; their thinking was "plo players want to play a tournament w enough cash to matter." but they had 340 nlh tournaments, and anyone wanting to play plo likely would have played, and many others who would have liked to have given it a try, just didnt feel comfortable for 500 (340 was "okay, I can take a chance).

the fact is dealers don't like dealing it bc it is slightly more complicated, and poker rooms LOVE that they can push nlh, because it is so easy in every respect. but these are not good reasons to almost exclusively deal nlh. but players have to let this be known. particularly for tournament structures. it is ridiculous that 99 percent of the tourneys are nlh. 75 percent would be more than enough to give to one poker game alone out of the many.

also, you may want to tell poker rooms that continue to advertise multi event tournaments as "poker [events]" yet that only have nlh as the game played in ALL of the tournaments (such as the Bellagio) that they are being misleading, as well as technically incorrect. they are not hosting "poker tournaments." They are hosting a tournament consisting of only one type of poker, exclusively. more accurately, they are holding a nl limit hold em poker tourney. and it is fair to repeatedly point it out -- to stop equating nlh with all of poker. (not mention ask them to run some plo and, particularly, though it is slightly harder to deal it is a great game -- plo 8.)

this latter point might seem picky, but it is part of what makes nlh often almost solely synomous with poker, as opposed to simply (and quite reasonably) the most popular form of it.

WOW!!!!!! 15600 hits on this thread. Geez maybe the donks are finally ready to expand thier tunnel vision.
Hopefully this game will begin to spread.
Yes the book is part of my arsenal.

I think a few posters here may be being a bit overly picky about inconsequential things. the title is fine. pot limit omaha eight or better is still plo limit omaha. and the additional limit section is good. the idea that it "detracts" from the book is sort of silly. it's a separate section that makes the book more appealing, and if someone has no interest in omaha limit they can skip it.

the book is tight, and concise, and it doesnt make it any bulkier or harder to read. I also agree with you that it helps with an understanding of Omaha in general. if your eight or better sections detracted from the omaha high bulk of the book, or the latter was skimpy, maybe those points would have some merit. but since it was not, and your book was reasonably priced (too reasonably some posters suggested, and I agree) they don't.

your idea of having it say somewhere that the book includes pot limit omaha eight and omaha eight limit seems like a good (and accurate) one, but if the publisher nixxed it, then, well, oh well.

as far as you saying that you wrote it with 2/5 games in mind on here, and someone then (because there are much bigger stakes "games") saying that your title caption - big play strategy - was therefore misleading, was one of the most ridiculous criticisms/complaints I have ever read.