Switching Race - Papa's got a brand new bag
I've been playing Pot-limit Omaha hi for the last month or so now. Aside from a handful of Holdem and hi-lo sessions. First and foremost, I have to say that Omaha has been great for my poker play in general. I've started to take my thinking to the third level (where I think about what my opponents puts me on) in much more hands than I've got a chance to do it in Holdem (NL from now on). Then, I've grown a lot more balls, being able to make moves I'd never consider doing at those call station NL tables. I've repopped with complete air, I've checkraise bluffed on the river, I've made obvious second-best hands fold by represending the stonecold nuts, and so forth.
I think the main reason for this is that most Omaha players fear the nuts, and they give you respect for represending the nuts if they don't have it. At least some of the players do, you just have to bluff the ones who try to nit the nuts themselves. The second reason being it's pot-limit. This is because in pot-limit, you have to build the pot by constantly firing and growing it. You have to nurture it like a child, and feed it constantly. When you fire a pot-sized bet, that pretty much means business in this game - while in NL you aren't restrained to building the pot in a way, you can shove at any given minute when the circumstances are right. Pot limit is like a juggernaught - it just keeps coming and coming, and you can't stop it. In NL you can afford to check and give free cards, because you can get your stack in later when you want to - you can keep the strength of your hand concealed until the last possible moment.
Ok so, the main reason for moving to Omaha was (asides downswing in NL) was because of rate of income. Now, a few IRC friends of mine are only-Omaha players, thought with a profitable history in NL. However they all told me that they have a much higher winning rate in Omaha, even thought they were consistently beating their "current NL limit". When I started poker, I was determined to stick to NL holdem and don't waste time fooling around with other games. This was because when I was still actively playing Warcraft 3, I would sometimes waste valuable practice time fooling around with non-cookiecutter strats (which looked nice and worked in theory... but you know) and DOTA (which was very fun to play, but made me lose Wc3 micro). Thus with the strong majority of poker players focusing on NL holdem, the other games would become the "fifa of esports", right? The majority of poker players, and thus all the fishes are playing NL holdem - so that's where the money is right?
- Wrong. I came to a realization that the size of the field doesn't utterly dictate the softness and profitness of games. After all, if tomorrow the pool on NL players would double, can you see your BB/100 also double? Can you see Green Plastic winning 25 buyins in his next Cardrunners video? Nope, because the fundamental simplicity of NL Holdem doesn't allow the semi-stupid fishes perform utterly self-destructive actions so that he keeps losing stack after stack (unless he's tilting). The sheer fact that if you teach a monkey to play ATo+, PP's, SC's and two strong broadway cards - waiting to hit the flop well - there's just not much value to be won. The newbie can't go THAT wrong with AK hitting top pair. Omaha has a nice pool of utterly stupid monkeys, who try to play Omaha like holdem, but only choosing to play two out of four cards - instead of trying to realize that THERE IS NO SPOON and you should play all four cards! They get a pack of virgin schoolgirls in their beds and... jerk off.
Brief example: http://www.pokerhand.org/?461582
Since AA is so unbeatable and high-equity hand in NL, the noobs think that it's great idea to instacallSHIPITHOLLA! with AAxx on straightflush board to instapush. To tell you the truth, I make more money cracking AAxx that I can negate the party badbeat-killswitch. The next GTA game will have crack-AAxx income location you can buy, such as the moneyprinting shop in Vice City.
Another example: http://www.pokerhand.org/?461597
The donks continue to play two cards, and since flushdraw is so hawt in holdem, they're ready to call a push with a draw any day of the week, and twice on sunday. Look at that donk, he calls a reraise in a sandwitch, with a non-nutflushdraw on a paired board. I think party software bugged since this guy didn't get a straightflush. Came close tho!
So in a way, I consider Omaha an upgraded version of Holdem. Sure, there are countless of differences and strategic considerations, but ultimate it's like adding tier2 to a strategy game. Adding that expansion pack so that marines get sexy white spacesuit chicks to play with. Whole new level, a lot of new possibilities. I'm currently improving at a nice speed, and my 'feel' for the game is improving a lot - like I mentioned above with the new moves I make. I've been a bit lazy with ordering my Omaha books (especially hi-lo books so I can start farming the sweet party $7Kgt hi-lo rebuy I raped a few weeks ago) but I've been taking the traditional way of plugging my leaks - learning from my errors and making an effort to think about my butchered hands. I'm quite happy that I got to use my Wc3 training experience here, since that mostly revolved around cutting the errors from your play and optimizing your timings.
So far, I've had a blast playing Omaha. The best thing about it is, you mostly know where you're at in a hand. You don't crap your pants like every time you flop TPTK in NL and someone reraises you. You don't get those "that fucktard couldn't have flopped a set AGAIN, I'm gonna call his push!" -kodak moments. The game plays just like I choose it to play - on some days I can just wait for top set/wraparound/nfd flops and put money in only with the nuts - on other days I can play half my hands and just keep fighting with light boards. The worst thing about Omaha is the variance. I've finally felt it. Variance is probably the thing I hate the most about poker. Instead of having +500 -500 +500 days, I'd like to show a little profit every day. But when you get allin on the flop with 60% equity six times in a row and lose them all - you kinda lose your sanity along with it. I've experienced the best and the worst. It's made me stronger as well.
I think the main reason for this is that most Omaha players fear the nuts, and they give you respect for represending the nuts if they don't have it. At least some of the players do, you just have to bluff the ones who try to nit the nuts themselves. The second reason being it's pot-limit. This is because in pot-limit, you have to build the pot by constantly firing and growing it. You have to nurture it like a child, and feed it constantly. When you fire a pot-sized bet, that pretty much means business in this game - while in NL you aren't restrained to building the pot in a way, you can shove at any given minute when the circumstances are right. Pot limit is like a juggernaught - it just keeps coming and coming, and you can't stop it. In NL you can afford to check and give free cards, because you can get your stack in later when you want to - you can keep the strength of your hand concealed until the last possible moment.
Ok so, the main reason for moving to Omaha was (asides downswing in NL) was because of rate of income. Now, a few IRC friends of mine are only-Omaha players, thought with a profitable history in NL. However they all told me that they have a much higher winning rate in Omaha, even thought they were consistently beating their "current NL limit". When I started poker, I was determined to stick to NL holdem and don't waste time fooling around with other games. This was because when I was still actively playing Warcraft 3, I would sometimes waste valuable practice time fooling around with non-cookiecutter strats (which looked nice and worked in theory... but you know) and DOTA (which was very fun to play, but made me lose Wc3 micro). Thus with the strong majority of poker players focusing on NL holdem, the other games would become the "fifa of esports", right? The majority of poker players, and thus all the fishes are playing NL holdem - so that's where the money is right?
- Wrong. I came to a realization that the size of the field doesn't utterly dictate the softness and profitness of games. After all, if tomorrow the pool on NL players would double, can you see your BB/100 also double? Can you see Green Plastic winning 25 buyins in his next Cardrunners video? Nope, because the fundamental simplicity of NL Holdem doesn't allow the semi-stupid fishes perform utterly self-destructive actions so that he keeps losing stack after stack (unless he's tilting). The sheer fact that if you teach a monkey to play ATo+, PP's, SC's and two strong broadway cards - waiting to hit the flop well - there's just not much value to be won. The newbie can't go THAT wrong with AK hitting top pair. Omaha has a nice pool of utterly stupid monkeys, who try to play Omaha like holdem, but only choosing to play two out of four cards - instead of trying to realize that THERE IS NO SPOON and you should play all four cards! They get a pack of virgin schoolgirls in their beds and... jerk off.
Brief example: http://www.pokerhand.org/?461582
Since AA is so unbeatable and high-equity hand in NL, the noobs think that it's great idea to instacallSHIPITHOLLA! with AAxx on straightflush board to instapush. To tell you the truth, I make more money cracking AAxx that I can negate the party badbeat-killswitch. The next GTA game will have crack-AAxx income location you can buy, such as the moneyprinting shop in Vice City.
Another example: http://www.pokerhand.org/?461597
The donks continue to play two cards, and since flushdraw is so hawt in holdem, they're ready to call a push with a draw any day of the week, and twice on sunday. Look at that donk, he calls a reraise in a sandwitch, with a non-nutflushdraw on a paired board. I think party software bugged since this guy didn't get a straightflush. Came close tho!
So in a way, I consider Omaha an upgraded version of Holdem. Sure, there are countless of differences and strategic considerations, but ultimate it's like adding tier2 to a strategy game. Adding that expansion pack so that marines get sexy white spacesuit chicks to play with. Whole new level, a lot of new possibilities. I'm currently improving at a nice speed, and my 'feel' for the game is improving a lot - like I mentioned above with the new moves I make. I've been a bit lazy with ordering my Omaha books (especially hi-lo books so I can start farming the sweet party $7Kgt hi-lo rebuy I raped a few weeks ago) but I've been taking the traditional way of plugging my leaks - learning from my errors and making an effort to think about my butchered hands. I'm quite happy that I got to use my Wc3 training experience here, since that mostly revolved around cutting the errors from your play and optimizing your timings.
So far, I've had a blast playing Omaha. The best thing about it is, you mostly know where you're at in a hand. You don't crap your pants like every time you flop TPTK in NL and someone reraises you. You don't get those "that fucktard couldn't have flopped a set AGAIN, I'm gonna call his push!" -kodak moments. The game plays just like I choose it to play - on some days I can just wait for top set/wraparound/nfd flops and put money in only with the nuts - on other days I can play half my hands and just keep fighting with light boards. The worst thing about Omaha is the variance. I've finally felt it. Variance is probably the thing I hate the most about poker. Instead of having +500 -500 +500 days, I'd like to show a little profit every day. But when you get allin on the flop with 60% equity six times in a row and lose them all - you kinda lose your sanity along with it. I've experienced the best and the worst. It's made me stronger as well.
posted by Durandal at 7:38 PM
1 Comments:
And yet, it can always get even worse!
Actually Omaha was very popular in europe before the Hold'em boom so it's not like it's a new thing. Omaha and Omaha Hi/Lo emphasize the importance of postflop play, but also on the hands you choose or choose not to play. As you mentioned, people do play it like Hold'em, which is why making money at it is so easy in the low and early mid-stakes, but once you get higher, I doubt it's that much different from Hold'em. Hold'em sets a lot more importance on reading and playing your opponent instead of your cards and there aren't that huge laydowns in low stakes Omaha.
Either ways, I can see where you're going with this and I think knowing all games can help you become a more complete player. So go deposit money at stars and come play Razz some day :D
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