Hey all!

I'm a 50NL hold'em cash game player and I'm thinking of making the move to pot limit Omaha. When I start to play I'll probably play 10PLO on Stars.

I've printed out Troll_Inc's 25PLO thread, as well as several Cardplayer articles by Caffonie, Slotboom and Cappelletti from the Cardplayer on-line archive. I plan to raid Rolf's site later for PLO articles.

I'm planning on reading the following books:

Pot-Limit Omaha Poker by Jeff Hwang
Secrets of Professional Pot-Limit Omaha by Rolf Slotboom
Omaha Poker by Bob Ciaffone
How Good Is Your Pot-Limit Omaha by Stewart Reuben

Is there a particular order I should read them in, or will that order do? Are there any glairing omitions from my list? I've got PL&NL, but IIRC it doesn't include PLO.

What is the consensus opinion on Cappelletti's point system for evaluating Omaha starting hands? You may notice I left the Cappelletti & Caro Omaha book off my reading list. This isn't a slight against Mr. Cappelletti. I don't know the man. I've just never read anything by Caro and said afterward, "Boy, I'm glad I read that!"

I'll be D/L'ing the Omaha vertion of PT. Does the PAHUD work with that?

Thanks in advance for the help, and please try not to win too much of my roll,

phy

Fudge Lumps!

Rolf doesn't have any articles on PLO that aren't also in the Cardplayer on-line archive.

Oh, well.

PaHud works with that. You'll probably find that most of those books say the same thing, so I'd just read Slotboom and then spend the hours you would be reading playing. You'll learn the lessons in half the time. Good luck.

use this
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/forumdisplay.php?f=38

Championship Omaha is the worst poker book I ever read - and I read many of those.

About the books, I would read Ciaffone first, Slotboom second and Reuben last.

Ciaffone does a good job of covering the basics, Slotboom covers some more advanced topics and Reuben is a collection of hand that you work thru.

What's the consensus on the Farha Omaha book? Looked through it at B&N and thought it had some good stuff, but haven't read everything else listed.

I flipped through Farhas book at B&N also and thought it was a joke.

Note I did not actually read it, but wow, the parts I did read were awful. (but good for poker)

imo the problem with too many omaha books is that they cover stuff like limit omaha high or o8 which kinda sucks since u often get 1/3 of a book for the whole price

Lucky for me Championship Omaha wasn't on my reading list...

Flipped through my library at home. There is a section on PLO in PL&NL, and a section on PLO in Improve Your Poker as well. I'll be reading those along with the articles I printed out tomorrow.

I can' t disagree with illdonk about the Farha Omaha book. My wife bought if for me for Christmas. It is a bit like listening to Sammy talk. It ambles a bit and lacks focus. There is a lot of good information in there but you may wish to make many notes in the margins for future refrence.

I notice no one has commented on Cappelletti's point system for evaluating Omaha starting hands. Any input here?

I'm trying to stay out of these types of conversations, but I had to comment on the point count. All a point count does is make the game seem more complicated than it actually is. What's more important in Omaha is how you think about the game -- if you think about it correctly, then you will understand what you are trying to accomplish and figure out what kinds of starting hands meet your objectives.

As far as books, I like to read everything, and if you are serious about the game then you probably do too, and I think that's good. Just keep an open mind and stay objective about what you read, and I suspect that at some point everything will click for you.

I will say that everything Bob Ciaffone writes is golden, and so Ciaffone is always a good place to start.

Jeff

I think Rolf's book is best, but a little more advanced, so I'd end with that, as you want a solid background before you get to it. His short stack is amazing, but it's mostly academic for me; I would probably only use it if I was uncomfortable moving up, and then switch to deep stack when I was comfortable.

You should read Omaha Poker first, as it was the first book out there and sets a good grounding for the game. There's not a ton of information, but it's all solid. I believe Reuben says in no/pot-limit poker that it'd be a crime not to read it (which, by the way, is another excellent book that I'd recommend, and probably read after this one, or Hwang's. You could save it until then since you're a NL player. If you weren't I'd recommend it after Omaha Poker for sure.)

Then, go with Hwang's book. I just got done finishing it, and I liked it pretty well. It really gets you in the mind set of what the point of the game is: to win your opponents entire stack. He illustrates the importance of good starting hands to do this, and why constructing the good hands puts you in an excellent spot to accomplish your goal, while also avoiding marginal situations where /you/ could be the one dominated by a better [drawing] hand.

The only bad thing about the book is it's geared towards FR, and it seems PLO is moving drastically towards 6max. But, again, it's an excellent book for grounding.

Which brings us back to Rolf's book. Again, I don't use his short stack approach very much (except now I know how to beat good short stackers). But, his deep stack approach is very helpful for how to use loose aggressive play to win (I'm reading that section for about the fourth time, now). After you have Hwang's grounding, Rolf will show you how to loosen up to take your weak opponent's stack. He shows that with deep stacks, you don't need 9TJQds to go to war with a weak opponent with a deep stack. After reading the other books and getting a couple thousand hands under your belt, you should be ready for this aggressive style.

Finally, "How Good" isn't the best book for learning the game, which is why I put it last (not to say it's horrible, just not really a strategic book). Reuben also plays a LAG game (like Rolf's deep stack strategy), so at this point, the quizzes might be a help to see the game through a different set of eyes.


I'm by no means an expert, but I hope this helps. And, this forum is a tremendous help, ldo.

What's the link to Troll_Inc's 25PLO thread?

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...transition+plo


Take a look at this thread. I wrote a little bit in it and others did as well about moving from nlhe to plo. I think theres a lot of good stuff in here that should at least give someone starting the game a decent understanding of how to think about developing your game.

I picked up Jeff's book at Borders yesterday. I'll likely order Bob's book from his site so that when I get it, it arrives autographed.

Found http://www.pokerlistings.com/pot-limit-omaha. I'm sure it's better than nothing.

Troll_Inc said to play only the top 20% of hands or better. Well, in hold'em there are only 169 possible hands, so top 20% os just ~30 hands.

How many possible Omaha hands are there?

try checking out some of the cardrunner videos. They're mostly 6-max and there are some videos at the microstakes level.

They don't cover many hands, but they do illustrate the aggressiveness and position plays that the books don't really emphasize.

Can someone maybe comment how good are these articles:

http://www.bet-the-pot.com/pot-limit-omaha-page35.html

http://www.bet-the-pot.com/pot-limit...wo-page42.html

http://www.bet-the-pot.com/omaha-poi...ms-page62.html

http://www.bet-the-pot.com/pot-limit...ys-page81.html

AB vs AB/AC/AD/BC/BD/CD