We have added a little Omaha Hi to our normal NLH orbits. We don't play Hi Lo splits and other PLO stuff cause each hand would take 10 minutes for us. Still I have seen some really outrageous plays and results from the few hands we deal. How can folks play that game for serious money unless they have a **** load of experience and skills. It's kinda fun for very low stakes however.

You have to have a bankroll than can deal with the swings in PLO. There's a very juicy $5-15 button straddle Big O game locally that I'd love to play. Unfortunately, I don't have a bankroll that can take swings of $3K+ on a given night.

Headed down to tunica for daytime poker. Its my last day of vacation before going back to work tomorrow. Gotta squeeze a session. Haven't been playing much lately. Gonna (try) and play solid poker today with little to no FPS. Send some daytime rungoot. I'll TR after. I'm going to try and take notes on any key hands.

First read my recent TR above before reading this, so you will know to ignore the rest of this. But really, I do win at Omaha!

It is a crazy game, but your players will adjust over time. For a while, they will get AAxx and think they have been dealt two nuclear missiles. After they miss a few flops and see some QJ9x hand make a straight they will adjust their expectations. Unless you have an insane crowd, preflop re-raises will become less common.

If the preflop action remains wild, you need to tighten up. Have a good hand where all of your cards work together to make several possible draws. Get a good hand, see the flop, and be prepared to fold if you are not delighted with it. If you're not delighted, someone else probably is.

In a game where players can be loose passive and want to see a lot of flops, expect the nuts. If the board pairs, your flush or straight is probably no good. If the flush gets there on an unpaired board, you'd better have the nut flush. With any other hand, proceed with caution. You can represent the nuts, and if you get raised, you are screwed.

We like to play 3 orbits of holdem then 1 orbit of Omaha.

I am going to host next week, and I want to take a break from our usual cash game and hold a tournament. I recall some interesting tournament ideas here but I can't find them. Does anyone have suggestions or remember those threads?

It seems one was about a tournament where you play for a while, then write down the results and reset everyone's chips and play again. Then there is a final round where everyone's starting stack is based on the results from the first two rounds. I can probably come up with something based on that, but why re-invent the wheel?

This sounds like the multi-life mixed tournament from Top Pair episode 210. Here's how it works:

Rounds 1-8 (mixed games):

• Players start with a fresh stack at the beginning of each round.
• Each round is a different game, drawn randomly from a predetermined list.
• Blinds/antes are fixed.
• If a player busts, they may optionally rebuy once per round.
• At the end of the round, record stack sizes and reset. Any players who busted will return to the game.

Rounds 9+ (NLHE):

• Each player starts with a stack equal to the total of all their chips at the ends of rounds 1-8.
• Standard freezeout structure.

I think this sounds like a fantastic idea to get NLHE tourney players interested in mixed games, and I'd love to run it sometime. You could certainly shorten the game by reducing the number of mixed-game rounds up front - I'd probably do 5-6.

Here's my standard starting advice for someone playing Omaha:

In your starting hand, fold if you do not have any nut draws or your cards are coordinated too little (four different suits, no connectors, no high pairs) or too much (3+ of the same suit or 3+ of the same card). Once you're in the hand, proceed with caution if a draw gets there that you don't have or the board coordinates in a way where you have have no redraws if a bad card hits. Even more important than in Hold 'em, it's damned important to know how to get away from a hand in Omaha. I've seen a lot of new players get married to the fact they have a big pair in their hand and can't get away from it no matter what.

I think of a big pocket pair in Omaha like a big ace in Holdem. It's probably a favorite preflop, but it rarely wins a hand unimproved.

Thanks for this. I thought we'd have some mix of NLHE, PLO and PLO8. But I am tempted to get my group out of their 3 game rut with some version of this structure.

That is good advice. At a loose, passive table, I'll play hands with 3 good cards, like a big pair and a flush and straight draw. In late position, I'll play a wider range. If there are likely raisers after me left to act, I will tighten up even more.

And yeah, the nut draw is the best advice. Though I've won plenty of hands with K high or Q high flushes, you have to be wary.

A pretty good comparison, but it is a lot easier to hit an ace in Holdem, of course.

We have a couple of players who like to deal Omaha Hi during an orbit. We allow 2 hands of Omaha (dealers choice) and the rest NLH per orbit. Works for us. Funny thing, both these guys also almost always (95%) raise
about 6bb pre flop or more while on the button and the other usually calls. Pots get large quickly because some of the guys who should know better by now continue to call pre.

I think they may do this to insure big pots that they don't mind winning only 1 of 3 times or so. I seldom play these hands because I want to see a flop before I put much money on an Omaha hand. Sometimes because of being card dead and the "large" pre flop bets I don't play a hand all session. Don't care too much really because I am still pretty unsure of stuff in Omaha compared to NLH.

Thanks for the comments E and bull and others. They make good sense and re enforce of the concepts I have developed on my own.

I don't like that dealer's choice option. I know it is a friendly game, but I would hate playing out of position every time Omaha is called. I don't know, I like full orbits.

I can certainly see why folks who are skilled at Omaha would prefer that. But anyone can call it, not just the two raisers, but they still raise whatever position they are in. I just put it in for variety to get a few guys to shut up about Omaha being something they would like. It turns out they barely knew the rules let alone knowing any game skills. LOL! Now that we have been doing it for a lot of sessions I may suggest that whole orbit structure. Actully if the two aggro boys keep making large pre flop raises and are getting called by the donators , I might miss a whole orbit LOL Kind of like missing getting hit by a bus for me.

Absolutely. Situational variables always have to be taken into account. There are some folks I play with who have learned by now in Hi/Lo, I'll jam the pot like Jordan on a break away with the nut low to drive out any weak high draws and hopefully scoop without a showdown.

For the average player, though, that doesn't play a lot of Omaha, the key is nut peddling and knowing when to let go of a hand.

Augh.

I got a speeding ticket in April (first one in many years), and I elected a four-hour driving course to keep the points off my license. The good news is that I can take the course online for about $25. The bad news is that state law requires the course to be a minimum of four hours. So it goes something like this: start a module with a 5-15 minute timer, finish the module in 3-5 minutes, surf until the timer expires, repeat ad nauseum.

It's going to be a long four hours.

Current section timer: 25 minutes.
Time required to read section material and answer the mini-quiz: 4 minutes.

<sigh>

At least you can finish it easily and surf inbetween. Major points for that.

I had to do some administrator training last year mandated by the state. Each module (there were 5) took many hours to complete because you had to watch each video, take quizzes etc. What made it even more cumbersome was the sound quality was crap and each video was taken using a fisheye lens camera. They would ask questions like what did the boy in the blue shirt say to his partner during the middle of the reading lesson. You'd be like "Wtf that was a boy?" and all I heard was the noises that Charlie Browns teacher made.... Answer must be C...

Don't skip the part about speed limit signs!

I'm finishing up some work for today and annoying you guys with my whining about a situation that, to be truthful, I created for myself.

Multitasking FTW!

Yuck.

My company does a lot of training systems, and my current project at work is a "serious game." It's a training application that plays like a 3D video game, and it's used to teach important-but-somewhat-boring material in a more interactive and fun way than the old package of slides, video, and multiple-choice quizzes. So it bugs me to see this old POS driving course that's obviously the cheapest way to satisfy the legal requirements while not actually giving me or the State anything of value.

And for the record: current module is 40 minutes, I finished in six.

Because if you're not careful, you might learn something.

Same sentiment, smaller 'fro.

the way people drive makes me absolutely livid lately. I could go on, but it would be one of those pig singing lesson things. Part of what pisses me off so much though is that the authorities are clearly obsessed with speeding. Surely it's because "driving like an aggromonkey" is hard to prove in court but ">65" is pretty open-and-shut. Never mind that "aggromonkey" is far more likely to kill someone, and >65 can be arbitrarily enforced, especially in a place like florida where I understand <65 is confined to farm equipment and mister magoo.

As someone who lives minutes away from the nation's second largest university, I concur. Speeding tickets are quick and easy to write, and are often (unfortunately) used as revenue generators rather than as a means to improve driver safety.

I was pulled over in a half-mile-long 55 MPH zone that falls at the end of a long 65 MPH toll road and exits to a 65 MPH interstate. I had cruise control set and simply didn't slow down before the state trooper sitting right behind the transition hit me with radar.

While I take full responsibility for my speeding, I'm certain that the speed trap in which I was caught had little to do with keeping the roads safe.