I am a serious poker player, and I play a lot of Omaha. I am anything besides an Omaha specialist though, largely because I haven't been able to find what I think is a winning strategy. I will address your specific question's about the three particular books you mentioned.

Cappeletti's book got me in some very bad habit's with starting hands, specifically suited A3 and A4 hand with little back up, as well as high hands. Perhaps I was too fast too say it was worthless, but it did introduce leaks into my game. I realize a guy such as Mike Cappeletti can probably play those hands profitably. I, on the other hand, cannot.

Berman's SSII section goes into hardly any depth and I didn't get anything out of it whatsoever.

Cloutier's book seemed to me just off, but I'll reread it on your recommendation.

Are you suggesting there is a Cloutier book that isn't a steaming pile of dog doo? I find this difficult to comprehend.

Free Your Mind.

Thanks Al Mirpuri. Knowing of a good Cloutier book is like finding a perfect, juicy raisin in a bowl of turds

A turd of a book is how I remember this one, but hey dude says it good.

Hi Jeff -

I play mid - high stakes PLO8 online full-time (2+ years altogether), generally $2/$4 through $10/$20 this includes heads-up, short-handed, and full-ring. do you think this book is most geared towards beginning, intermediate, or advanced players? i also dabble in PLO and LO8 occasionally.

i will probably skim your book eventually, especially since you're getting very positive feedback. maybe i'll review it eventually for my blog or the O8 forum.

do you play any O8 online currently? if so, what stakes?

There is something good to be said about Cloutier books. The paper is soft and thoroughly absorbent.

Definitely not for beginning poker players; I would say the book is geared towards intermediate to advanced hold'em players making the transition to Omaha, or otherwise most anyone playing Omaha today.

I haven't played much online since the end of the Party Poker days, and even then I've always played smaller stakes online than live. If I play PLO8 online it is usually $1/$2 or $2/$4 full table. I don't usually play limit O8 online because the games suck.

Live, I usually play $5/$5 or $2/$5/$10 PLO, though I've dabbled in some bigger games. My regular limit Omaha Hi/Lo game is a $10/$20 game, but I've played everything up to $50/$100 during tournament time (I did play a little $75/$150 last summer but I split the buy-in, so I'm not sure that counts). The times I've PLO Hi/Lo live, it's usually been part of a mixed PLO game, which I've played $5/$5, $2/$5, $2/$3 ($500 max), $1/$2 with a $5 bring-in ($500 max), and $1/$2. We had that mixed game going once a week off an on in St. Louis for something like a year-and-a-half, but I think it's dead now that we've finally got the $5/$5 ($1000 max) PLO game off the ground to complement the bigger $5/$10/($20) game, which once upon a time used to be played $5/$5/($10).

Truthfully, I'm not above playing in smaller games, either. I just like to play.

Jeff

jeff, this is a fantastic book. i wish someone would write one of the similar style for NLHE.

one thing that makes me feel good reading this book is that i don't think the fish will be able to improve at the same rate in omaha that they have in nlhe. just seems much more difficult.... also, and i'm not as confident about this, but will it be as easy for people to multi-table omaha and drive down the economic profits per table? i'm thinking it won't.......... i'm finding omaha very hard to pick up, but i think that's a good thing.

Really? I'm finding Omaha very natural and smooth to transition to. But I played no fold'em limit hold'em for a year before I started NL hold'em. I believe that my experience playing with drawing hands back then is helping me now.

Thanks guys for the valuable tips here in this thread. I already ordered Jeff`s book and will read it.
Since some other Omaha Books have been discussed in this thread too, I ask whether somebody knows one of the following books:

Omaha High-Low: Play to Win with the Odds by Bill Boston
Omaha High-Low Poker: How to Win at the Lower Limits by Shane Smith

I'm glad you like it.

I think the first part is true to the extent that there are such a wide range of views on Omaha. Most people think the game is exceedingly complex. I think if you start off thinking about the game correctly it will be relatively simple. Most everybody else will run through a zillion ideas on how to play the game.

As far as multi-tabling, I think PLO is probably an easier game to multi-table than NLHE because PLO is far more straight-forward, and all the information you need is on the table right in front of you. You spend far less time making reads on your opponent, wondering if he would raise UTG with 99 or 88 or 75s; in Omaha, for the most part, it does not matter what his range is. If the flop comes 7-6-5 and the small blind bets into five players, you should probably give him credit for the nut straight almost regardless of how wild a player he is.

Also, you don't spend a lot of time sizing bets in PLO, because most of the time you are just betting the pot.

I think in a lot of ways, PLO tends to play closer to limit hold'em rather than NLHE.

jeff, thanks. great comments!

Haven't seen too many (any) reviews from publications yet, but I thought I'd post this article from Howard Schwartz from the Gamblers Book Club in Las Vegas:

http://www.casinogaming.com/columnis...2007/1219.html

Funny thing, I've met Howard a few times over probably a dozen visits to the shop, and he hasn't remembered me yet. Maybe next time.

There was also this bit from Maryann Guberman:

What's With This Omaha? - 1/4/08
http://www.casinogaming.com/columnis...2008/0104.html

Bill Boston's book is primarily a compilation of full table simulations showing the EV of every different type of O8 starting hand to the river. I believe 5277 different hands. Like all of these types of studies the usefulness of the data for live play is medium at best but there are some eye-openers in terms of starting hands that might seem good but rank very low in the simulations. Probably a much more valuable text before TwoDimes.net and other widely available simulators.

Shane Smith's book is simply a mediocre entry level beginners book.

I will throw my 2 cents worth in on Hwang's book also. IMHO it is without a doubt the most thorough and comprehensive treatment of PLO yet published. Of course Slotboom's book is more thorough on the specific topic of short-stacking PLO.

The unexpected limit O8 section is probably the most useful work to date on playing LO8 after the flop. Unfortunately nearly every other book on LO8 seems to spend 3/4's of the content on starting hands/preflop play, not Hwang.

The PLO8 section is regretably too short but a welcome bonus since there simply isn't much out there on this game.

Some of the thought processes Hwang goes through in his various Omaha games analysis' are applicable to all poker games and could expand your thinking across the board. If I sound like I like this book it is because I think it is the most information-dense poker book I have come across in a long time. It won't be read it once and done. However, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that the editing job as far as typos, etc. is the among the worst of the maybe 300 poker books I have ever read. There are literally dozens of obvious editing mistakes which seem so out of kilter with the quality of the content.

Patty