I still haven't an understading of hand strengths.
I had this hand which is in the top 15 percent of hands:Kh Qd Qc Ah

Against villain's hand: 3s 2s 4d 8h which is the top 48 percent of hands.

I bet out and he push all in preflop.
What puzzles me is how much equity his hand has against mine. His reraise was good because every time I fold it's pure profit and when I call he just breaks even.


Omaha Hi/Lo Simulation
1,086,008 trials (Exhaustive)
Hand Pot equity Scoops
Kh Qd Qc Ah 47.11%
3s 2s 4d 8h 52.89%

you want to avoid playing all high hands in O8 until you are a more advanced player. or if you do play them, be very cautious. try to see a cheap flop, if you get a 2 high card flop that you hit good then play it. the value of having any low draw vs a hand with none at all is big and you need to play hands that can scoop both ends

DOH! This is a split pot game and since you cannot ever win the lo half, villain gonna own your face a lot of the time and almost always have an equity edge unless the flop is 3 hi cards!

A low gets there about 60% of the time so this guy is going to win half the pot outright about that amount of the time, and even then he can still scoop you. And he can scoop you sometimes when no low comes in but he makes a better hi (flush/raggy 2pair/trips etc)

just because a hand does well against a wide range of hands doesnt mean its going to do well hot/cold against one particular hand. This is especially true with high only hands. Your hand will be much better at flopping the nuts or flopping well enough to get it in, but allin preflop its not that great.

A similar phenomenon can be seen with hands like A234 vs A299

The ProPokerTools rankings reflect hand strength vs. one 'good' hand and one random hand. I think 2348 rates near 50% because it has very poor high card strength and its low is dominated by a lot of "good" hands which contain A2 or A3. HU against a hand that can not make a low it does OK.

Don't read more into simulation results than is there.

Simulations are very useful if you understand them for what they are. If you want them to be more than they are, you're in for some sadness.

Buzz

I would advise you to completely disregard statements like "Hand xxxx is in the top N% of hands". It doesn't tell you anything useful about how to play the hand or how it does against other particular hands.

^^^^^this^^^^^

thanks for your post

Hand strength in plo8 comes in the form of making it easy to play postflop, not in it being a huge favorite over a worse hand if all in preflop.

I'd suggest reading Jeff Hwang's PLO8 section of his book....I think there are a ton of flaws in his advice overall, but I think the starting hand advice is generally pretty good and he does a good job of explaining why certain hands are good and why others aren't.

This may not be a fair question, but can you summarize the top 2 or 3 off the top of your head?

The main difference I see between Jeff Hwang's advice and 2+2 "standard" advice is that he advises passive play with hands that can't improve. For example, if you flop the second nut flush, he will check-call all streets (sometimes folding if he thinks the other guy may actually have the nut flush).

He also advises limping in a lot preflop and not playing big pots out of position, whereas standard advice here is to raise nice-looking hands like A256 from UTG or even from the blinds.

I agree with Hwang in both respects and have found better results with more passive play in these spots (red line heads for the core but blue and green lines go up!).

hes way too weak tight, and in any tough spot he focuses on making sure you don't get put in a bad spot rather than trying to maximize fold equity and make putting your opponents to tough decisions. His advice could probably beat $.5/1 and below, but I can't see it beating any decent or tough game, as he'd simply get run over.

I don't think your run of the mill 2p2 advice is to raise A256 from any position.. in fact in many games I think it would be a mistake to do so. Now, make it double suited and you have a case for raising it from any position. Bold generalizations are just poor, even moreso in O8, because of the vast differences in the games (meaning your opponents and the limits).

If you are referering to "Pot Limit Omaha Poker" by Hwang, I think you must be confused. I'm reading through it right now and I find the guy is always betting and raising on the come and bluffing constantly. I think he suggests a very aggro style of play. Perhaps I haven't gone far enough through the O8 part of the book, but everything I have read so far suggests two main ideas: play in position and be the aggressor almost always.

One problem I take with most references to books is that they are often geared toward live, full ring games. So many players are online exclusively and many of us are 6-max specialists. Because the books are written for full ring games, the "play super tight and loosen up a 'lil towards the button" is easy to employ and typically beats soft live games. I don't think his approach works super well in the aggro online community.

OK, that would have been my guess. I think the fact that he's (1)writing for beginners to PLO8 (2) writing about full-ring live games in the rest of the book, despite the fact that PLO8 is almost never spread live, probably influences his advice.

I've never played in a live PLO8 game but I can imagine that his approach would allow a relative beginner to beat it pretty soundly.

A TOP10% can be a dog to TOP25%, a good example from holdem is KQs vs A2. KQs has better equity vs any2 then A2 but is a dog to A2 head to head.