Forumites,

I'm worried that I might be playing a wee bit TOO tight before the flop. Assume this is a Limit table with 5 to 7 people seeing every flop, rare preflop raises and generally subpar postflop play.

I will almost always play A2xx hands. Whether or not to raise depends on their strength (i.e. do they have another wheel card, a suited ace, a broadway card or some good combination of the above) and whether or not I want a multiway pot.

I will play most A3xx hands in late position, but only play them in early position when they have some strength, like those listed for A2. I will only raise the strongest A3 hands in late position.

Trash AA hands I will only play when I can get heads up with dead money, strong AA hands I will try to build a pot with.

Those are really the only hands I'll even consider playing in early position. In later positions not facing a raise I'll add:
- 23 hands with either a 3rd wheel card or a big pair,
- ace with two wheels and a broadway or two broadways and a wheel, or
- high-only hands - four cards all at least a 9 or a big pair with 2 broadways.
Obviously a big suited card makes all of those hands better.

That's less than 9% of all hands.

Are there other playable hands in early position?

Are there other hands to limp along with in late position after a number of limpers?

Hope the question made sense,
DTXCF

9% is definitely too tight especially for described game.
I think there are good advices in the nearest thread:

See the Sticky: Newb Thread above. In comment #51, our former moderator Buzz provides these starting hand guidelines for a beginner:

A beginner's list of starting hands:

Probably only about fifteen or sixteen per cent of Omaha-8 starting hands are profitable against competent opponents, if you let the cards more or less play themselves.

If you don’t know which starting hands belong to this elite 15% of starting hands group, you’re not alone. Start by choosing any hands belonging to the following three groups:

• all hands with an ace and a deuce (but not trips),
• all hands with an ace and a trey where the ace is suited to one or more cards in the hand (but not trips),
• all hands with a pair of aces (but not trips) where at least one of the aces is suited to one or two cards in the hand.

These three groups of hands make up about 13.7% of the hands dealt, approximately one out of seven hands dealt, including some hands that are borderline and probably not profitable, but also including most of the safely profitable hands.

That's a beginner's list of playable starting hands. In a real money game, you probably won't get in too much trouble playing those hands, you'll practice discipline and learn how to play tightly, and if you keep your eyes open and stay focused on the game, you'll survive while learning and enjoying the game.

Buzz's list is more restrictive than yours, yet he says it comprises about 13.7% of all hands.

Your list definitely includes more than 9% of starting hands. Consider a hand like 235T. According to ProPokerTools, that has a rank of 46.0. Or consider a hand like 9TQK rainbow—that has a rank of 78.0. And you said you'd play both of these hands in an unraised pot from late position.

Buzz's list might be too tight for a player who's confident in his postflop decisions. But it will keep you out of trouble. If you want to expand that list, consider Hutchison's point count system for starting hands, which you can find here: http://ehutchison.homestead.com/omahasystem.html.

Per Hutchison, the 235T is worth 20 points and therefore qualifies as playable, but the 9TQK rainbow does not meet his rules for high-only hands.

I think one of the dangers of this game is that far more hands look playable than actually are. But one way to beat the loose low-limit live games is simply to play a tighter preflop strategy than anyone else. As an added benefit, you'll limit your variance, which will help you avoid tilt.

I recommend you check out that Newb Thread if you haven't already.

In o8 the difference between a 12th percentile hand and a 30th percentile hand is just not that much compared to some other games. This is why some people can win playing 15% vpip and others can win playing 30% at the same table. Postflop matters a lot. The main difference between a 12th% hand and a 30th% hand is judgment and facing tough decisions on later streets.

Solvers that exist play way way looser in o8 than you guys recommend.

Lol about bringing up solvers in a discussion about a loose game where 5-7 players are seeing a flop

And in such games there is quite a difference between a 12th and a 30th hand if we are talking about low oriented hands. It’s going just to be drip drip of your preflop calls as playing well postflop means you are often going to be folding. Really no white magic you can pull in a 5-7 handed pot with a third nut low draw and a six high flush draw.

I believe it is correct in regards to high only hands though. Those are not ranked highly when punched into PPT or other places that ranks hands. But they are profitable imo because the flops you hit well are quite evident.

So just to clarify your contention is that when sitting in a loose passive game we should play tighter than optimal?

I don’t know why I simulated hundreds of billions of hands when I could have just asked for your theories and beliefs! Btw did you ever decide if QJT4 is better than A79T or are you still working on that one?

Well, I mean if you are going to say that playing a hand like A(47)9 is optimal early position in a full ring game I'm going to have to disagree. Throw another billion hands into that black box.

The script is flipped this time buddy, I have the experience in this type of game, probably a million hands, and you have a theoretical :-)

Great post. I share your sentiment that pre-flop strategy in o8 is widely misunderstood, though i have not had the chance to test many of my assumptions with a solver.

And there is a tremendous amount of bad pre-flop advice.

I don't remember where I got the 9% figure, but it was completely wrong.

I was also wrong about the statement "23 hands with either a 3rd wheel card or a big pair" - Hwang recommends 23 hands with either a 4, 2 broadways or a big pair.

Here's what I ended up putting into PPTOO:
(AA,A2,A3,234,23$R$R,23QQ,23KK,23JJ,A$W$W$R!RR,A$W $R$R,$R$R$R$R)!RRR
- AA, A2 and A3 hands
- 23 hands with either a 4, 2 broadways or a big pair
- ace with two wheels (not paired) and a broadway or two broadways and a wheel
- 4 broadways
and remove all hands with trips from that lot.

Came out to 18.31% of all hands.

Couple more posts coming before I attempt to draw a conclusion.

Here's how I did:

• all hands with an ace and a deuce (but not trips),
• all hands with an ace and a trey where the ace is suited to one or more cards in the hand (but not trips),
• all hands with a pair of aces (but not trips) where at least one of the aces is suited to one or two cards in the hand.

(A2,Axx**:3,AxAyx)!RRR

That only came out to 10.87% for me. I don't immediately see anything wrong with my syntax.

Not going to attempt to draw a conclusion yet, still too much to think through.

The original question was, "Am I playing too tight preflop?". I think the answer is no for now. That 18% of hands a couple posts up, as long as I'm only playing the marginal and high-only hands in late position and as long as I'm raising before the flop when I clearly want to build a pot, is fine for now, especially since I'm still somewhat of an O8 novice and will ideally only be playing in games where 5 to 7 people are seeing every flop.

I'm sure that as gain more experience and postflop skill that the 18% will grow.

i'll confirm that you have the correct count and therefore your syntax is fine(it isn't wrong).

i'll share for fwiw the way i write that same range
(A2,A3:Axx,AA:Axxy)!rrr


with regard to the previous post and range expression.

23$R$R already includes 23KK, 23QQ, and 23JJ so it is redundant/unneccassary to include them separately.
it also makes me want to make explicit to you that 23TT is also included in 23$R$R.
if you wanted 23$R$R to only include 2 unpaired $R's an easy way is to write it as 23{$R$R}
then also include 23[KK-JJ] and you will have 23TT excluded.

also,
A$W$W$R!RR is fine, it can also be written {A$W$W$R}
yet in the context of the range you are constructing and the hands previously included it is probably best written for clarity as A[4,5][K-T] since you don't need this range to duplicate the ranges AA, A2 or A3.

intent is helpful, not critical, please take it that way

It was VERY helpful and was never taken any other way. Thank you.

1. I'm not ready to play either of those hands yet, not even in a small-stakes games.
2. If a guy about 6'4" with glasses and a Colts cap sees you in Vegas and says "Thanks double D!" as he's walking by, it's me. Your participation on these forums, not just for my game but just your willingness to "give back" in general, is appreciated.