Quote:
Originally Posted by waynimus
One session is defined as four hours at a 4/8 limit O8 table.
Is it within the realm of "normal" to drop 10 big bets? 20 big bets? 50 big bets? I genuinely have no idea and it's a hard question to google.
It's very hard to generalize, as so many variables come into play. Is this game played with a half-kill? Is it 9-handed or 10-handed? Is there a lot of raising preflop? How many players see the flop on average? Are you yourself loose or tight preflop?
The conventional wisdom is that the swings in Omaha are less extreme than the swings in Hold'em because you're picking up half pots and quarter pots more often. But this reasoning only applies if you're playing very tight preflop. I have seen players who play nearly every single hand they are dealt, and their swings within a single session are huge.
That said, in my experience, it's within the realm of normal for a winning or break-even player to drop 10 or 20 big bets
in an hour—and it's certainly within the realm of normal to drop 40–50 big bets in a session (though my average session length is probably twice yours), especially if the table is loose and aggressive.
Many years ago Annie Duke wrote that you should never let yourself lose more than 30 big bets in a single session of LHE. So I'm conscious of that boundary, but I find it's unrealistic for loose, aggressive games. I think 40–50 big bets is a more realistic boundary for the Omaha games I play in—and I will occasionally rebuy to the point that I'm in for 60–80 big bets total.
Many of the players I play against are unwilling or unable to go anywhere near this deep. Some of them will buy in for only 6.7 big bets, and then rebuy for 3.3 big bets if they go broke (which they almost certainly will). Or maybe they'll buy in for 16.7 or 20 big bets, but when they lose that, they're done for the night. These players tend to go all in a lot, so I see a lot of side pots—and whenever I win a side pot with a second-best hand, I benefit from the fact that my opponents are under-rolled and/or don't fully understand variance in limit poker.
Quote:
Originally Posted by waynimus
I ask because my four hour session yesterday went from up $80 to down $150 and ended the session down only $40, and I have no idea if this is reasonable or not. I'd like to know what the upper bounds could (or should) be for a session.
This sounds typical. Last weekend I played an 8-hour session of $6/$12 Omaha with a one-third kill. I bought in for $300 (25 big bets). Most players buy in for $120 or $200, but I don't like to play with a short stack. After 3 or 4 hours I was up $360 (30 big bets); after a couple more hours I had lost most of my winnings and actually topped off for another $100, so I was now in the game $400 (33.3 big bets). By the end of the session I was up $679 (56.5 big bets).
Good luck.