True, Deppen's book is OK, but it's for beginning-intermediate players.

Just picked up a book I didn't know existed: Practical Poker Math - Basic Odds & Probabilities for Hold'em & Omaha, by Pat Dittmar. The "Omaha" means Hi-Lo, so half the book is about our game. Maybe it needs you are a bit fascinated by the underlying math, but either way you have a lot of the relevant odds listed in one place. First impression is good, will rewiew it closer here at some point.

"WILLNOTs : WILLs" is the expression that is much used for the odds . The colors really lighten things up quite a bit and clarifies.

hello everyone O8 and book enthusiasts. I really appreciate the good quality of your posts on this forum and i'm frustrated i didn't stumble across 2+2 sooner. Although it's been only 1 year since i first discovered and played this game, i've managed to read a few books and i'll write below my impressions about them.

1 Jeff Hwang - Pot Limit Omaha - I won't insist too much, it's on the top of the list of omaha books to devour and you all know it .. Too bad the PL chapter is shorter than the FL one, considering the big differences of these 2. This book was folllowed up by Jeff Hwang- Advanced Pot Limit Omaha ( Volume I - Small Ball and Short-Handed Play, Volume II - LAG Play, Volume III - The Short-Handed Workbook, Volume III). This is for more serious players, practically the first book is the cornerstone that will help you mingle easier the concepts you'll come upon the second book. Unfortunately, the second books doesn't have an Omaha 8 Chapter, or maybe i'm wrong (i didn't get to finish the book, stopped after Volume I).

2 TJ Cloutier & Tom McEvoy - Championship Omaha - This is my favourite book (i know it's out of date), but it covers all forms of omaha, stories, tournament tactics, practical hands, top-notch omaha theory.

3 Pot Limit Omaha8 by Dan Deppen - ok book for beginners. I really liked Chapter 6- Advanced Postflop Concepts, there are some good pointers here. I expected more from the SNG’s and MTT’s chapter.

Now i'm reading Winning Omaha8 Poker- Mark Tenner & Lou Krieger (2003 ) but i saw there's also Mastering omaha8 poker by the same authors (2011) and the table of contents seems different ( anyone tried the one from 2011 ?)
In the foreseeable future i want to try andy mack's omaha 8 book.

Sorry for english mistakes and good luck to all

Hi JohnnyD and welcome to the forum.

I agree you re the first Jeff Hwang book - it's a high quality piece of work and the section on FL covers a lot of ground very effectively in a short amount of space. Haven't read the Cloutier book but will look out for a copy.

On the Tenner and Krieger book, apologies to the authors if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure it's the same material as 2003, with some updates for internet poker.

From a personal point of view, I'd be very pleased if you tried my book and especially interested in any comments you may have on the contents. Note my book covers cash games rather than tourneys or SnGs. Mike Matusow's chapter in the Full Tilt Guide is the place to go for tournament coverage in my view.

Best of luck at the tables,

Andy Mack

Thanks for your input, Andy ! What caught my eye was the Player types chapter and it's the first book on my "to read soon" list, so after i have read it i'll post my impressions. Also i'm gonna give it a try to the matusow's tournament omaha chapter, didn't know it covers omaha and stud tournament play, tnx for this neat proposal.

It's nice to hear that someone has found something worthwhile in a Cloutier/McEvoy book. I read all of them 7-8 years ago and believe that all I got was confusion.

For example in Championship NL&PL Texas Hold'em there is a chapter "Timing is everything". Hero has 72 on the button. There were five limpers in front of me. I'm gonna steal this pot, I said to myself and put in a $400 raise. Much to my dismay, three of them called me. But the flop came 7-7-2. Now, how could the have put me on a hand like that?! This isn't something that you want to do very often, of course... it was just a matter of timing.

Certainly there is some decent advice in these books, but they won't go beyond truisms. That coupled up with out-dated, results-oriented or otherwise nonsensical advice makes their books worthless in my opinion.

Can't believe they wrote that. Thanks for the warning, maybe TJ uses that logic at the crap tables too

haha funny now i know from where chris ferguson got the idea of the 72 suited bluff

i said it was my favourite (not the best) because i liked its style and probably because it was the first omaha book i read, it was so fun discovering the game. BUT i think hwang's first book should be considered the best (for now). Anyhow, i don't like to say that there are worthless books about omaha (or poker in general), i think there are interesting concepts and approaches in every book, putting aside the differences and errors in strategy i like to scoop an idea and try to play with it (at my amateur level). if i find at least one thing like this in a book or something that i never thought off i'm happy with it.

Cheers

Agreed. Guess you've also got to make allowance for the way the game has moved on. As legend has it, large raises back in the 70s and early 80s meant you had at least Queens or better. Even reading classic books again like Harrington's tournament series, or Hilger's Winning Poker Tournaments One Hand at a Time, I'm struck by how much more aggressive the game has become. Personally, that's the biggest appeal for me of limit games.

It looks like this book is complete trash. The odds for making low hands on the flop are totally different from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poker_probability_(Omaha) which should be a reliable source (?). At first I thought it was some sporadic misprint, but slowly discovered there appears to be more wrong numbers that right ones! To give an example: the author says that flopping a made nut low with A2 is 3.5:1, isn't the correct number 12.51:1? This link supports that: ~7% http://www.o8poker.com/Strategy/keypercent.php

Couldn't we appromaximately calculate the probability for flopping a low like this: You have 6 ranks out of 14 left for the flop cards. 6x6x6 / (14x14x14) = ~8%. This only give us a rough picture, because the exact number has to take into account "the already used" cards as well.

Anyway I don't trust the book anymore. You make your mistakes and learn.

Thanks Plaaynde, that is useful to know, although disappointing.

By the way, I like the 08 site which you linked to. I've come across this before, but suspect it's no longer in use. At least, I emailed the author and got an error message back. Does anyone know more?

FMP.

Timed out. Because there are 4 hole cards (as many cards as one rank contains), you could divide 6x5x4 with 12x12x12 and get ~6.9%. The denominator diminishes a bit further because of the flop cards, making the probability a bit higher. The number given in the Wikipedia link for flopping a made low hand with two lows in the hole is 7.4%, looks good to me.

Have been reading Sklansky's Theory of Poker for some time. This may be the only poker book I will read in the near future in addition to books concerning PLO8 (there are none about NL ). ToP familiarizes you with every possible concept in poker, to be used when the time is right. Some of the hand examples, for example the stud ones, I take the freedom to often skip though.

are there any pros that have any written material on playing LO8 in a casino?

sorry 2plus2 moved my thread

Sure. There's lots of stuff here and there. Some of it is contained in posts on this forum. But probably your best bet is to find a book that contains material about playing LO8 in a casino.

And this is the thread where books related to Omaha-8 are discussed. Some helpful moderator (not me this time) moved your thread to where it would get the most attention.

Buzz

@Buzz
since u are retired now and 08 have u never thought about writing a book about it?
perhaps some good regs could help u with nlo8 and plo8.
i would buy it for sure

Thanks.

There's no market.

Buzz

Don't. Trust me. This is a heavy book but don't waste it's value by skipping anything. I still haven't got the grasp of everything in it and I still don't think I have managed it cover to cover yet. The book is about theory which should be applicable to all games.

Just spotted this on Amazon: Omaha 8 for Dummies.

Think it's new. No reviews yet, but assume it will be based at the entry level market. Guess anything to bring new punters in is good?

http://www.amazon.com/Omaha-8-Dummie...ywords=Omaha+8

Discuss?

http://www.amazon.com/Poker-Dead-Con...owViewpoints=1

Who needs poker when you can make money selling short essays of your personal opinion on Amazon?

To be fair, I should point out I have not read this e-article on the death of poker.

I was about to commend the guy who wrote the review 'Try Switching to Omaha 8'. Then I realised it was me.

http://http://www.amazon.com/Poker-D...owViewpoints=1

Sorry, try this link:

http://www.amazon.com/Poker-Dead-Con...owViewpoints=1