Hi. Total noob here.
Plan on playing live 4/8 08 soon. Game running semi regular at casino
Used to play online about 9 to 10 years ago.

Question

If we have multiple limpers or callers in front of us, is it profitable to call with a high only hand?

My thought process being, everyone will probably be playing hands like AAxx
A2xx
23xx
Meaning, they'll all be blocking each other, making a low unlikely.
Meaning, I'll have a big advantage(except AAxx of course) to sweep with a hand like say,
KKJT
QJ T8


Is this a valid strategy or am I just a donk

I wouldn't try to draw too many conclusions about card removal from the preflop action in O8. Remember that in a full-ring game, -most- of the cards are dealt preflop. So drawing conclusions that most of the low cards are already in people's hands isn't that useful, because most of the high cards are also in people's hands. The one exception is that may players will never raise or call a raise without an Ace in their hand, so you can sometimes get a sense of the number of Aces remaining in a raised pot.

With respect to your specific examples, KKJT is a pretty good hand especially if suited, and can certainly be played in a limped pot. If folded to you in MP or later, I would raise it. QJT8 is junk and should almost always be folded except in the blinds. I guess I would probably end up limping along on the button if double suited, but I wouldn't feel good about it after.

FWIW, just like for your LHE questions, study, study, study. Seriously, many games and sports simply come down to who wants it more. Poker is the same. If you want to win badly enough to buy and read books, post hands, lather rinse repeat and work on constantly refining your game, and everyone else just wants to gamble, it gives you a huge advantage. Of course it doesn't guarantee that you will win - if you sit down and run bad you're going to lose your shorts now matter how well you play, but why not give yourself an advantage/opportunity?

Specific examples here:
60% of all boards will have a low possible. NickMPK probably has more experience than I do but I would NOT raise KKJT in late position even if it was suited - you just don't have an equity advantage - it's a speculative hand that requires implied odds. I would limp in late position in a multiway pot, pray for no more than 1 low card on the flop (which only happens 37% of the time), and curse and fold if I don't NAIL the flop.

Jeff Hwang says, "In a shorthanded pot, you want position and a 2-way hand. In a multiway pot, you want to make the nut low." That makes sense to me because because even if you "only" win half of the pot, half of a 3-way pot still makes you money, half of a 4-way pot DOUBLES your money etc etc etc. Even if you get quartered, getting quartered in a 3-way pot isn't horrible, and getting quartered in a 4-way pot just means you split the rake LOL.

Hope that helped.

Oh see, my inexperienced shows when you say KKJT is a playable hand.
The only literature I read on the game is Hwang.
I remember him saying only high only hands are unplayable.
I should re read the book asap I guess!

Remember many hands where a similar high hand would scoop and I'd be standing there empty handed with A2x thinking how lucky can these donkeys be!

Don't remember if I used this line myself.
Many moons ago.

Looking forward to more feedback!

Dal, your thoughts are always welcome.

Above average kkxx and qqxx are quite playable in later position, and i favor raising before overlimp.

Would consider overlimping the weakest qqxx and kkxx. Though just to be clear, many kk/qq should just be folded.. and you should be strict about how you disqualify hands

Postflop skill is crucial for these hands, and as always, should start with rigorous hand selection. Also definately don't consider kkxx and qqxx as equivalent, kk is much stronger, and its quite easy to bleed money with qqxx without a firm foundation.

Jeff is my friend. He is...not good at LO8. Love you buddy if you're reading this :-D

Michael Cappelitti wrote the best book about low limit Omaha. HIs strategy is based on a game where there is a bunch of limping and multi way pots pre flop. Generally, you can play:

Play all A-2 Hands
All A-3 Hands
All A-4-5 Hands
Some Ace Four hands (depends if Ace is suited and other two cards are broadway cards)
4 cards over a 9

Very few anything else. Seems nitty to me to fold Aces before the flop, but if not suited, without a low card, tough way to go in multi way pot.

Sticking to that strategy, you won't be bored and will still be tighter than 90% of people that play 4-8 Omaha Hi Low

High only hands can be profitable in O8 in that they can scoop on high boards.

The best advice might be to be prepared to dump your hand OTF when a low is possible and your high draw is not to the nuts.

IIRC I think the semi-regular 4/8 you mention is Encore Boston Harbor. I played in that game last Thursday and it was pretty good. Too many people playing too many hands preflop.

I'm 68 and there were at least 3 players older at the table.

Like the saying goes "What do you call a 60 year old playing Omaha?" "Kid."

I prefer Ray Zee's High-Low Split Book. Stud8 is fun too!

Ray Zee probably has better all around advice.

Cappelitti's is more geared to low limit games where you get 4-5 way plus action on most hands with lots of limpers.

It is really an interesting book for people that play the 8-16 at Orleans, or the 6-12 at Parx, or the 5-10 at Chester.

The 10-20 at Borgata is usually pretty tough, and would suggest reading beyond Cappellitti's book if you want to take that game on.

In Colorado we have spread limit 5-100 ( bet) game thus you can bet reraise 100$ max anytime. It plays very aggressive preflop, sometimes 4 ways with several 100+ bets and we regualarly have huge pots 800-1000$.
It appears that some players play lots of high hands only.

My question does such a strange format makes high hands more valuable?

Lowers the value tremendously.

You want two way hands.

If you have read on your players where you effectively close the action, go for it. But, if a blind is likely to make it $100 you should fold 4 high cards pre flop.

High hands you want volume for when you make the one way nuts. I mean, sometimes you get K-K-Q-9, double suited and will take a flop for massive scoop, but you must be disciplined post flop to play it

Forget the preflop math for a minute. What hand is more playable? On a variety of flops?

Would you rather A-K suite or 6's in holdem heads up with moderate stacks?

I would take the A-K. Playability on how you handle a range of flops is important. Although the 6's are the favorite, the money doesn't go in preflop.

Now take that concept to Omaha Hi Low.

More playable flops with a-2-5-k, multi way than kk-q-j double suited.

Not that either hands are bad.

The word he used was "overrated," not "unplayable." There's a big difference. Moreover, his discussion of high-only hands in limit Omaha 8 is more nuanced than a single adjective.

A PDF of his book is already online, so I'll quote from it here. Everything that follows comes from Pot-Limit Omaha Poker: The Big Play Strategy, by Jeff Hwang.

High-Only Hands

In my opinion, high-only hands are overrated in limit Omaha hi/lo. By definition, a high hand consists entirely of cards nine and higher. In practice, you'd like to have all four cards be ten and higher, at least single suited. The reason you want all four cards to be ten and higher is to lessen the possibility that catching a flop you like involves having two or three low cards on the board.

The problem is that any time two or three low cards flop—which, according to Cappelletti, occurs about 63 percent of the time—the high-only hands are significantly devalued by the probability of a split when two low cards flop, and the fact that you are probably getting freerolled when three low cards flop. It is also a costly mistake to draw at the non-nut flush. Big pairs and non-nut flush draws are extremely weak in these spots.

Let's say you hold QQJT and the flop comes 984, giving you a 12-card nut straight draw with a flush draw and a back-door flush draw. Consider that somebody holding a hand such as A23K can be drawing at the low (never mind the nut flush draw) and spike an Ace or a King to beat your pair. A low card on the turn by itself leaves the nut low hand freerolling you. Meanwhile, your non-nut flush draws are more likely to cost you money than make you money—and in this case, it will cost you money.

The drawback to these hands before the flop is that there are high flops that a low hand can like (A-2-K-Q on a J-T-9 flop, for example), but there aren't any low flops that a high hand can like. As a result, a good low hand with multiway potential (such as A-2-3-K or A-2-K-Q) is vastly superior to any high-only hand.

The benefit to the high-only hands is that most players enter the pot before the flop with good low hands. When the flop comes with three high cards and thus no low can come, the result is that the low hands leave dead money behind.

That said, playing the high-only hands—which include A-K-Q-J, K-Q-J-T, and big pairs with connectors such as K-K-Q-J, K-Q-J-J, or A-A-K-T, and all with at least a single suit—requires that you play well after the flop. And playing well after the flop usually requires having the advantage of being in late position.

For those who may be interested, there is a book containment thread here: https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/4...thread-737104/

My recollection is that the consensus in that thread is that the three best books on LO8 strategy are, in no particular order, Ray Zee's book on high-low split games, the chapter on LO8 in Super System 2, by Bobby Baldwin with help from Mark Gregorich, and the chapter on LO8 in Jeff Hwang's book already mentioned in this thread.

I think I read Cappelletti's book How to Win at High-Low Omaha Poker many years ago (it was published in 2003), but I don't remember much about it. Smudger, your comments make me want to take a look at it again, so thank you.

I also read Cappelletti's book in the mid-2000s and was not impressed.

I don't remember that many details, but I definitely recall that almost all of the examples involved him playing super-premium hands where he flopped exceptionally well.

There was basically no information about playing marginal hands out of the blinds, or playing in spots where you flop slim but playable equity.

The Cappelliti book is about giving you a sound strategy to beat a table of spewtards, at a rate of 1.5 to 2BB's an hour.

In tougher games, I would want to be armed with better analytics and information on the things you suggested.

This type of hand is very speculative so it's best to try to get in for 1 bet, preferably multiway. I don't think it's best to call raises from anywhere besides the big blind and definitely not for more than 1 bet more from the BB unless maybe it was apparent the whole table will go to the flop.

It doesn't matter who is raising either because you have to hit, especially in fixed limit. It's all about the showdown in limit - you cannot run without the ball barrelling off with air unlike sometimes in NL/PL, even vs 1 opponent.

In my experience most times the hand will flop badly, and even when connecting with a high board, it's possible to get scooped if the board flushes or pairs up, even if you have a boat yourself.

So that's why it's important to have a multiway pot, so the pot pays you enough for all the many other times the hand goes badly.