Hey guys, new to the forums, but been a lurker for a while. I'm starting to get back into Omaha again from Hold'em. Several casinos near me run a live 3/6 Omaha H/L game with a kill. There is a 10% rake up to $3, plus $1 to drop into the BBJ.

My question is how beatable are these games factoring in the rake and bbj? I would say half the players are good, and half are decent/bad gamblers.

If it is beatable, what kind of rates are to be expected per hour or per 100 hands? Do any of you have insight or have logged reasonable live hours around this limit?

Also, there is a $4/$8 H/L Kill Game with I believe a $4 + $1. Is that any better or about the same. Let me know. Thanks everyone I appreciate it.

you are not supposed to have good (or even decent) players in your 3/6 live game.
i say - definitely unbeatable!
oh... welcome to the forum!

Hey str8, thanks for quick answer. Yeah, honestly, they really aren't good. I just figured I'd round up their skill level to get a tighter answer on the profit margin. Any idea what kind of win rates are sustainable? Thanks also for the welcoming.

if the game is really good, you should be making some money, but probably not much more than min wage. think about it this way: 1BB/hour is a lot!

When I was 19 I had to get a job for the summer to pay for college and necessities(textbooks, Jäger bombs, etc.). Obviously, the only jobs open to a 19 year old w/ no experience and no college degree=minimum wage (which is about $8 in CA). So thats what I set out to beat, $8/hour.

I kept decent records of my sessions and win/losses for the first 800 hours. I've played 1 or 2 thousand additional hours live, but mixed in Stud/NL Holdem and didnt keep consistent records.

Hourly: Approximately $14 +about $1-2 w/ "casino rakeback"

Hourly doesn't include:
--Transportation time or costs
-- $1,000-$2,000 in tips

Thankfully, this poker room had AC and was no smoking. I enjoyed listening to audio books, sitting down playing a game, and interacting with people who wen't yelling at me to make their Big Mac faster. Frequently, most other 3/6 O8 players were senior citizens, so I got to hear about a bunch of interesting life stories (like growing up in the great depression, fighting in WW2, or what it was like going to Woodstock).

In my opinion, live O8 hourly isn't possible to calculate with great certainty. Dealers make a HUGE difference when it comes to Omaha 8. You could have a dealer like I had at the WSOP and be dealt 10 hands an hour (and on top of that split incorrectly and push your chips to villain) or you could have someone with average IQ and get 20-30 hands/hour. Also, I've played more hands in one session online than I did over 800 hours live - so live sample size is still small.

Other notes:
-I don't think you're going to find someone that has counted their hands over a sample size in 3/6 O8. So giving BB/100 would be little more than a guess.

-I had the advantage of being the best 3/6 Kill O8 player at the table, at all times. This may or may not be true for you.

-I spent many hours improving my game not at the table. One could think of this time spent as an "unpaid internship" -it isn't included in my hourly/salary.

-To answer your last question, I would make the reasonable assumption that by playing a 4/8+ game my hourly would be higher than 3/6. In my case, LO8 3/6 Kill was the only level than ran.

-Lastly, their is an unquantifiable $ worth that you should attribute to your time. Your not getting "work experience" or positioning yourself to move up in a company and obtain a higher salary, when your playing 3/6. It may or may not be + or - a significant amount in "Life EV" depending on your particular circumstances. I'd wager than playing 3/6 as a job, is negative life EV for the majority.

probably close to unbeatable with that rake. if the kill is on a giant majority of the time i suppose 5 dollars an hour might be attainable.

No kidding. How many to the flop? How many postflop rounds get checked through?


Right, I think this game is probably marginally profitable but a commodity part time job would pay more if you can find one you can stand. That would give you funds to improve your game, move to CA or Vegas, etc.

$3 rake isn't much compared to other places in the US. Everyone wants to count the $1 BBJ as rake but it's really coming back to you in the form of jackpots. Therefore, a game could be "beatable" including all that extra jackpot equity but extremely high variance -- you could go a lifetime and not hit a BBJ, or hit several.

If the kill threshold is standard -- 5 big bets, $30 -- then the game plays more like $4.50 - $9 so that should help.

same question...
I just dont wanna start a new tread
sitting in a loose 4/8 omaha hi/lo
4+1 rake (last dollar drop at showdown)
about 20% of the time is family pot
50% of the time 6 way to see flop
30% less than 6 way see flop
Is that beatable??

I think so. But it depends on your skill level relative to your opponents.

That's a standard rake.

Buzz

Is 3/6 HE beatable??

If not I doubt a 3/6 split pot game w/same rake is beatable

This isn't a good analogy. There are other significant differences between 4/8 LHE and LO8 at my local casino which have convinced me that O8 is far more profitable/beatable compared to LHE. I think the single biggest being that O8 fish are significantly fisher than their HE counterparts, on average. This includes fishier regs, who are often calling stations unable to identify their major leaks. But they pale compared to the O8 donks who can sit down and blow through three buy-ins in two hours. This is one of my favorite things about O8: it's really hard for a solid player to lose much money in a moderately juicy game but donators can still donate a lot of money relatively fast without realizing that they're making egregious mistakes. IME, anyone who can blow through a BI in an hour at O8 either got horrendously cold-decked or (far more likely) has some major leaks to patch. I think the proof is in the pudding: watch your local O8 table over time and you'll notice the same few people have pretty impressive stacks in front of them 2/3s of the times they play.

At least where I play too, the rake is 2 dollars less in O8 than HE because O8 doesn't qualify for any of the BBJ promos. This obviously reduces variance even more.

so you are saying that 4/8 lo8 is beatable and so is 3/6 lo8? equities run too close for me personally.. you can have a good session, or week playing 4/8 lo8 but the variance from 60-70% seeing flop and 4 handed showdowns will eventually catch up to you .. what I saw in the 4/8 lo8 game was fish sitting down busting and eventually leaving.. for good. After a month they couldn't get the game to run and when it did it was all nitty 10/20 regs who didn't want to play in the 10/20... I won't even go into how much slower the h/hr in the LO8 game is vs Hold'em which further reduces your hourly


Also the rake and promo isn't the same.. true the drop is the rake + promo .. but the gross rake in split games is going to be higher unless management reduces it but most rooms do not differentiate between split game and non-split that I have seen.

I've known plenty of people that beat 3/6 kill. They're different types of players or just people who run lucky their whole lives. They don't make a living doing it, they're just very good recreational players and a few casino proposition players at the lower stakes.

You can have some pretty lucrative runs in brick and mortar Casinos. Online? I wouldn't trust the game unless its a private server and you know everybody well.

Once again, I think variance is less in O8 because the fish are fisher. Pots get pretty big in O8 due to the number of calling stations chasing with trash hands. Most streets are one bet and it's rarely capped. In a pot that's contested five ways without any raises in 3/6, a player is risking 18 dollars to win 90. So, a decent player is going to be playing hands with about 30-40% equity. And he won't really be investing 18$ all the time because he'll be able to recognize when it's -EV to continue. He'll also be able to better able to build pots when he's ahead because he'll be better able to recognize it than an O8 fish. Point being, I think part of what makes O8 beatable is the low risk relative to reward. In HE, I by contrast, I find it's harder for bad players to find reasons to continue on the flop unless it's a pretty wild game, and since people are generally better able to read their hands, fish have a relatively better understanding when they are ahead. Betting also gets capped more. In my experience, 90 dollar pots in your average 3/6 game will likely involve more bets and raises, and will generally be contested less ways than O8. So the risk is higher relative to the reward. All in getting at is that in my experience O8 has a more significant discrepancy between solid and incompetent player compared to HE, and the competent player usually is risking much less money relative to the pot in O8 which will cut down on variance and increase his winrate.

I think your point about fish leaving is a good one. I haven't seen it too much here because some of the regs are definitely lifetime losing O8 players who can't identify their leaks. However, the glass tapping in O8 can get really bad when OMC is having a bad day.. and it really grinds my gears.

can you show me a sim/example where you have 40% Eq 5 ways in an unraised (aka removing top 5% hands) Omaha 8 pot??

I just don't think that this is a situation which skill can dictate enough to be a long term winner.. can someone beat the game for 6 months?? Yeah sure.. 12 months.. possibly ... 2-4 years?? Close to impossible imo... sure you might find home game with bunch of super duper mini-whale fish... but in casino with regs?? I would put my money on the holdem counterpart here

As far as lo8 being lower variance .. could you explain if you mean br swings or hands holding up?

Sure. I said 30-40% because I think most of the playable hands in O8 fall into this range. I will see a flop on occasion with less, but that's very position, action and hand dependent. I also think it's fair to include top 5% hands because, in my experience, raises don't make a huge impact on the number of players to the flop in juicy O8 games... especially when money has already been invested. That said, here's the equity of some playable hands in a 6-way contested pot:

http://www.propokertools.com/simulat...Xxxx&s=generic

http://www.propokertools.com/simulat...Xxxx&s=generic

http://www.propokertools.com/simulat...Xxxx&s=generic

http://www.propokertools.com/simulat...Xxxx&s=generic

Sorry for the links, my iPad isn't cooperating. As for variance, I mean both because I think they're related. Obviously, in a split pot game it's easier for hands to hold up for at least 1/2 the pot. When a hand is contested as many ways as it is in O8, this means that winning the low or hi is usually moderately profitable, and is comparable to a smaller pot in LHE. A hand like an A245 only has 29% equity, but it will rarely make it past the flop without winning anything:
http://www.propokertools.com/simulat...Xxxx&s=generic

Thus, good hands generally hold up to some extent in O8 even if they don't realize their full potential (i.e. scoop) as much as one would like. This, in turn, cuts down on br swings and makes O8 a lower variance game for competent players compared to HE.

As for the less variance in O8, it's the same idea as running it twice: while you'll win all the money less often, you'll get half the pot one way or the other a much greater percentage of the time, and there's still a lot of profit to be made without scooping in fishy O8 games. Hence, you need to run much worse comparatively for a good, solid player to have a significant downswing.

8d7c6h flop
AdTd9cJc opponent
As2h3h4d you

Opponent equity is 47.26%. Do you really care if this equity is close?
Think about things that matter in high low poker not things that don't.

1. No way I dont raise this hand.. if I am not raising this hand table must be aggro so someone is raising weaker than this

2. We were talking about 5 way flops not heads up.. hope this makes sense

Hey my friend .. I don't want to argue this anymore.. you are welcome to take it as a sign of weakness, defeat, or me being wrong np... but this is so clear to me and after I explain myself it makes no sense repeating over and over ... if you can't beat low limit limit HE beating low LO8 with a kill is going to be close to impossible.. could someone do it? Sure... humans are capable of anything.. but if the question is: is it 'beatable' .. I'd say no.. not very beatable at all

I don't think any of those hands should be limped .. but if that is what is happening your game then fine I'm not going to call you a liar ...

Let me ask you in a game "A" where equities are closer than game "B" .. what game will the player with the biggest edge have the highest ROI?
No exceptions.. all things being equal.. Which is better for the skilled player.. game A or B?


running it twice is not the same as a split pot structured game... for one RIT will usually be at mid-high stakes big bet games and only in all in pots... H/L games however split all qualifying hands at all stakes and for all pot sizes... I mean if you ever played a huge HU pot you may have noticed something 'missing' when you raked your half in..

You're fine. I don't take it as you capitulating and I don't really want to belabor the point anymore anyway. Our local O8 games may be completely different too, which is obviously going to affect our perceptions of the game. I don't really have a large enough sample size to universalize, because I've only played O8 live cash games at the Orleans and here. Anyway, I have appreciated the discussion. Discussing O8 is a nice change of pace for me...

mee too and tbh you have given me something to think about

your point was not lost on me at all

I play in a very beatable 4-8 game almost everyday. Granted most players are pretty bad and play for the bbj and weekly rake back.

you need to add up all of the factors that raise a game's ev. not just how soft your opponents are, but how much the rake is and how good you are.

How bad is the rake at 4/8 limit Omaha hi lo at a standard casino in vegas? Is it beatable?