Hey guys I haven't posted much in the past years however I think this is a problem that we need to discuss as a community. The past few years have seen significant decrease in number in the Omaha8, O/E, and HORSE events at least on the east coast. More specifically Atlantic City casinos and Parx.

O8 community is very fragile and unfortunately growing older. This past year has seen 4 key people in the game passed away. They were o8 regulars that were welcoming to new players and made the game enjoyable for all to play. I am concerned that in the next few years that the game will completely die in New Jersey. The 10/20 FLO8 game at Borgata that used to go 4/5 days a week is now down to 1 day. I believe the 6/12 OE at Parx and the 10/20 OE at Ballys still go a decent amount.

I have tried to get younger kids in the game and always promoted the game however, the casinos are not helping. Specifically, Tab the tournament director at Borgata and whoever runs the tournaments at Parx. Tab was asked why they were not having any HORSE or O/E events during the September series and his response to the 10/20 reg was that there is no reason to hold a tournament that will get 70 entries when he can have a nlhe rebuy and get 4x as many. Pretty much the same has been said by Parx employees. This is awful for poker because they are showing exactly what their companies care about. I am sure everyone already knows they just want to take as much money from us as possible. It's their job to show profit however its awful for us. I discussed this with the Borgata poker room manager and he agreed that they should have the mixed games in the event series. They ended up putting in a HORSE and O/E event. Tab created the schedule and I think he purposely put the O/E on the same day as the Eagles opening day, Ladies event, and the Seniors event. Keeping the numbers extremely low, they got 51 entries, and I believe they used this as an excuse to not have these events in the October series. Parx tournament was key in bringing new players in with a $230 buy in, 140 entries, and 7k+ to first, it was one of the first I ever played. Then 2 years ago they changed the structure and made the buy in $360 entries dropped to 60 and now they just refuse to have one. We have to keep asking, on social media and in person, for these mtts to be scheduled and they refuse.

The only company I see actually helping promote the games is Pokerstars. They recently had a Pokerstars festival with multiple mixed low buy in events but the numbers were ridiculously low with the average entrants around 20 the 8 game getting the most at 56 (I believe this was mostly due to their awful marketing strategy for the series).

Jason Somerville has been a tremendous help by streaming his 8 game sessions, especially when he is in Jersey playing. Multiple players have told me that they are playing because they watch his stream. I've even had a very good nlhe mtt player ask me to coach him in the games. Jason is doing more than anyone to help keep the games alive. We need to do more.

I think that all of us should be concerned about the state of this game especially with the community growing older and the casinos killing the game. We need to come up with some ideas on what could be done. As for myself I do realize that I have not contributed much in this forum but I hope putting this out there will make you all acknowledge that something needs to be done.

I am personally a big fan of 8 game and horse. I don't think that I would ever play 8 game live account the bankroll involved there but I played a lot of it online. The problem as I see it is that the inclusion of the stud games is labor/time intensive as far as rake is concerned. That one is a hard one to solve. But how hard is devoting one dealer/table if it can be filled? Raising the tourney fee is tough when casino's are trying to maximize $ per sq ft and chases away players. Don't have the answer except to say that the customer is always right so that should mean something.

Online there is no excuse for running any game. I especially liked nlsd 2-7. Played it a ton before black Friday. Cruel sick expensive game but very profitable if things go your what a bit.

online there has been an increase in the volume of 08 (mtts)
They changed most 9 handed games to 6 handed games, and recently they have been adding 9 handed games again


these are currently the biggest mtt's on stars.

https://gyazo.com/ed2506989505cf387e035924d6743aae


Tonkaa has been recently promoting the 82 hyper (with bounty's) and even became 2nd in one of them.


They have also added a new blind structure with ante's in them.




Stars reps are not listening to any mtt's players as u can clearly see from the micro millions Marathon this year. (it used to be 150 event now its only 25) they removed all the mixed games except for 2 omaha events.

This hurts us HARD because new players (or hold em players) play these events pure for fun and they dont care what the game is the buy ins are so low they play everything. And this is how they try omaha 8 for the first time.

They have also increased the rake on low stake SNG's which is absurd since this is where most new players start. For a 1.50$ Sng the buy in is 1.29$+0.21$(rake)

the o8 community will not do anything to grow the game they only looking to things why o8 can not grow.
And the people who want to try to grow the game in the community are or to stupid to do it in good way or do not get the support that is needed to reach there goals

The fact that a nl 2-7 sd game has been voted as the player's choice wcoop event vs a nlo8 tells pretty much everything about the potential of growing the game with the support of the o8 community.

Sounds like kind of a cop out to me. What are YOUR suggestions to "grow the game in (a) good way"?

OP is specifically asking for ideas and help to keep the game alive and grow it so effectively calling him "to(o) stupid" isn't productive. Obviously he and others need support, a one man movement isn't going to get anything done and this is exactly why he posted in the first place!

OP's statements are true, there are less live o8 mtts being run on the east coast and the cash games aren't running as often either. The reality is there's no quick fix here. Having many individuals continually ask the tournament directors like Tab to schedule o8 and other mixed game mtts is something that takes 30 seconds and can be done online right now via Twitter etc. When you are in a poker room for either cash games or a tourney, talk to the appropriate person about it as well.

Meanwhile, everyone needs to encourage their friends to try/play this game. You can introduce it at your home game, start a list for the game at your local casino, and just talk about it in a glowingly positive way with whoever you discuss poker with. Talk about "how many bad players there are"; "how easy the game is to learn"; how you enjoy the different strategy you are forced to consider in a split pot game; how the pots can get huge in pot limit format (alternatively, how the limit games can reduce your swings while learning if person you are talking to is concerned with getting stacked while trying it out).

This takes time and a concerted effort, but it creates favorable money making opportunities for you! You have to plants the seeds in order for the flower to grow, so to speak.

-TvB

At foxwoods, last weekend, there was a full 1-2 PLO8 game with a 10 person waiting list, and also 10 person interest-lists for 5/10 and 10/20 HORSE, so things aren't all bad everywhere.

Nothing new here, I and others have brought it up ages ago. Tbh probably best thing you can do now is feed off of whatever decent action remains and know when to gtfo and switch to plan B. Honestly OP save your time and don't even bother with it, the o8 community as a whole is fairly short-sighted and constantly gets caught up in the whole ego and pride bs if you haven't noticed already.

Kinda funny to see bike chime in though, since he pretty much said I was just a stupid american when I brought this up months ago. Yet he has the nerve to ask the community for their support when there's something he wants, like high stakes o8 cash games on pstars. He truly seems to think high stakes o8 players are just gonna pop out of nowhere and spew huge money around right away without any kind of a solid foundation in place

Edit - The person who's honestly been in the best position to grow the game over the past 6 months or so is Hero Value. But all he seems to have done so far is a well lol...congrats I guess?

im in NV... im constantly starting plo8 games on wsop, playing short etc. I still see new players I havent seen before. It's a small pool so I have notes on everyone, spotting a new players is easy. Still get ppl coming over from plo and even stud8 occasionally. bovada had a decent amount of plo8 players, and that is less than the whole US (it is like 44 or 45 states). There was enough plo8 on bovada for a player to make a living of it. So at least online it isnt doing bad...Live in vegas, there are less than a handful of places that get a regular limit o8 game going.

How is a 10-person interest list for a game that doesn't run a sign that things aren't bad? That seems like a sign that the casino is actively resistant to spreading the game, which is even worse than a lack of interest.

Wow, I didn't realize things were that bad over there. Nearly 20% rake is just disgusting and almost unbeatable for an sng. Gl getting new people to try o8 on pstars with **** like that lol. Thats straight up price gouging and with so many countries fenced off now anyway, most people are honestly better off taking their chances on some of the unregulated sites.

Just checked and the rake on acr for a 6 or 9 max plo8 sng is 1.50+.12 before rakeback even, which is also at a better rate than stars.

/thread

Nkeyno/K.Ichnose kept tweeting about it whereas o8 had no outside support. That is why the lobby containing voters was predominantly Japanese players. Not sure any o8 player has that sort of social media following.

Probably wouldn't hurt if regs weren't nit bitches and would battle occasionally, instead of snap sitting out when the rec leaves. Just sayin.

i guess you did not see the numbers if you talk about social media and stuff you probabaly think thousands of people voted. Last time when i looked it was below 100 and o8 players included me did even try a lot to make people vote (some even in table chat i in my blog and some other peopl) but this community is ****.

funny you not following it i guess but there is i think most reg battles in o8 relativly speaking to other formats for sure.
And if you cry that the regs mostly battle highstakes then go cry by stars that regs sitout on 2/4 3/6 5/10 is rake is 1.5-2$ a hand without rakeback that just ridicilous

I think this is the most important thing. 6-max games just don't run well enough.

It's the same on the west coast, specifically in the Los Angeles area.

I think the problem is Texas hold 'em is more profitable to casinos than Omaha-8 (or any other common poker game). And it's simpler and easier to deal. Thus casinos naturally prefer any poker to be Texas hold 'em.

The only way that would change would be for Omaha-8 players to refuse to play Texas hold 'em. But I don't see that happening.

I think that's true.

I know that's true.

Exactly.

That would be good. I'm following this thread with interest, hoping for an idea that would turn things around.

The first step in solving a problem is to become aware of the problem.

Thanks to all who have contributed to this thread.

Buzz
a rec player

What I've never quite been able to understand is that the $1500 LO8 tournament at the WSOP consistently draws 900-1000 players. I believe in 2016 it was THE most popular non-NLHE $1.5, including outdrawing PLO and PLO8. So clearly LO8 can be a successful tournament game.

But I think most tournament directors simply don't want to or aren't able to design a competent limit tournament stucture. In particular, most limit tournaments I've played in start way too deep, creating meaningless play at the beginning and forcing the blinds to go up too quickly later on in the structure. The WSOP in Vegas is one of the few places that gets this more or less right.

Some of the extra entries could be because all of the wsop circuit events for o8 are fl. Idk why even lol

I assume it is because LO8 is still a much more popular game than PLO8 in B&M casinos.

It's a pretty popular game here in the southwest. Here in AZ we have 4-8 o8, 8-16 oe and 20-40 oe every day. In Vegas, the 20-40 O8 at Bellagio is steady and the Orleans runs lower limit o8 games around the clock. In LA, I'm pretty sure the 40-80 O8 at hollywood park is steady along with the 20-40 oe there and the 12-24 oe at the bike.

I have played 12 or so live O8 tournaments in the last year between Phoenix, tucson, Vegas and LA. I'm playing a couple more in the next couple weeks. So I think one reason the wsop tournament does so well is the game's popularity in this region where people don't have far to travel to play at wsop.

Yeah for sure more popular live. But OP was also concerned about the older crowd passing away and who would replace them. I can pretty safely say the younger crowd wants more plo8/nlo8 and maybe some big O. And most of them are gonna be kinda put off by the casino environment, it is fun every now and then though. But then most will see online as far cheaper to get into and also easier to play when you don't have to travel.

A lot of the things that originally got people into o8 is now gone. There used to be o8 freerolls on the big sites, mix-games were more common, and now many regions' player pools are fenced off from each other. Unless they take the bitcoin route of course

I think one thing we could do right away is sponsor some small o8 freerolls on a decent site or two. Even a small daily/weekly $10 gtd freeroll will attract hundreds of players each time, the majority of which probably never tried o8 before. I might try a small weekly thing myself on wpn. The big o8 ballers are welcome to join in too Maybe make it a freebuy and we'll put up bounties on ourselves for some fun.

There are quite a few younger o8 players out there, I'm one myself kinda. I play o8 online often at pretty decent stakes against many others who are like me and there are quite a few things that discourage younger people from playing poker in a casino. Especially discouraging if it's o8...split-pot, slow hands, absurd rake, tipping often incompetent dealers making mistakes who make a ****load of money per/hr to do their job right and a few still have the nerve to act douchey and over-entitled most of the time anyway. Not to mention the fact that many of the live o8 formats are just terrible. With all of the overhead involved, it would take some absolutely terrible players to make up for an effective rake that high. As rakeback, they might send you $10 free play in lol slots and maybe even a free night in what's really just a slightly glorified motel room.

Unless you or others happen to have close ties with some tournament directors or others with some control over the casino poker environment and would actually listen, nothing much will change for o8 in casinos in the short term. I didn't even get a chance to defend my HPO St. Louis PLO/PLO8 mix-game event title this year because it got cancelled for 2016. My second live event ever played, first live mtt win, a pretty sweet trophy with some decent moneys...aaand cancelled the next year lol. **** casinos and their 7 dollar shots of mid-grade tequila lol

In a slightly more positive note, my area might be getting a casino very near to me. It's mainly a winery/resort/spa/outdoor concert thing/etc currently until they can get the gaming license stuff approved and finalized but it sounds like it would be super soft + low cost and maybe an awesome place to try and get a lil o8 going since it's a kinda popular form of poker in this area