My "New" Direction in Poker

Hello,

I have never been much of a no-limit hold 'em player. In fact, I don't really like no-limit hold 'em all that much and when I do play it, I prefer to play limit at the low-stakes ($.25/$.50-$5/$10) online and higher ($5/$10-$20/$40) live. However, my much preferred games are stud games, particularly razz and stud hi (with some eight-or-better mixed in). I also like variations of stud that are often found in home games such as the one described here. Lately, however, I have found a lot of enjoyment, not to mention boatloads of profit, in Omaha games, particularly pot-limit Omaha (PLO) and limit Omaha hi/lo.

I starting playing PLO (or rather, an interesting variation of PLO called Omaha 32 in which you play three in the hand and two on the board) in the late 1990s and jumped head first into the PLO games spread online at Party Poker the moment they instituted them some years back. While I was not a great PLO player at the time, I found that ninety-nine percent of the players (OK, maybe ninety-eight percent) then were just simply terrible. I mean absolutely horrible. This was how I built my first online poker bankroll. I made a reasonably small deposit to play no-limit hold 'em for fun (the obvious game of choice then) and after some time I just got plain bored. One day I decided to play some PLO as I knew that I had reasonable knowledge of the game and that the other players most likely did not. From that moment on I don't remember playing another hand of no-limit hold 'em until Party Poker went bust. When Full Tilt Poker launched I was eager to sign up as I knew the no-limit hold 'em players would gravitate to the site and occasionally throw some dead money into the PLO games. I did the same when PokerStars was offering $600 deposit bonuses with no expiration date. Overall I was cashing out a very nice amount of money on the regular basis. (For some higher limit PLO games with five fish at a 6-max table, try sitting down with the sports gamblers at Bodog who are looking to quickly make back their loses on the night's hockey game.)

There is now another "poker boom" and its name is pot-limit Omaha. Many no-limit hold 'em players are seeing the huge pots that are being played and the constant all-in-and-call hands that result in multiple players re-buying. They are watching the high stakes PLO games on Full Tilt Poker and have decided to "take a shot" at the game that seems to be the new hold 'em. But the game isn't new. It isn't new at all. In fact, it is the game of choice in Europe and other parts of the world outside the United States. So now, even good no-limit hold 'em players are finding that, although the money seems to be moving around quickly, they don't seem to be getting any of it. Their edge, the one that they have expertly crafted through years of tedious no-limit hold 'em study, doesn't seem to be there.

The big reason for this is that they are taking a hold 'em attitude to PLO and that is a recipe for disaster. While experience in hold 'em is probably very important to making the transition to PLO since the blind structure and flop aspects are the same, the game is deceptively different. An A-A-x-x, while usually a good starting hand depending on the side cards, suit, position and a host of other factors, simply does not have nearly the same value as it does in PLO (few hands are greater than 3-2 heads-up unlike like in hold 'em where a player can conceivably be a greater than 90% favorite heads-up. Ks-Kd is 94% over Kh-2d). They hear that you need to play four cards that "work together" but don't really know what that means. For example, a hand like Ac 2c 9d 9h, while speculative, has the chance to flop big if it hits a set and the nut flush draw. So "work together" can mean a lot of things. They hear that a four card rundown is a big hand but, as is usually the case, they don't have a solid understanding of the different rundowns. For example, while J-10-9-8 double suited is a premium starting hand and can flop huge wraps, J-9-8-7, even when double suited is not nearly as strong and is borderline garbage. A gap at the top can end up flopping a sucker-wrap and can easily be dominated. On a 10-9-2 rainbow flop, the aforementioned hand is dominated by K-Q-J-9 and is better than a 3-1 favorite. On a flop of 9-8-2 rainbow, J-10-9-8 significantly dominates J-9-8-7. While both players have two pair, the no-gap rundown is in a better freeroll spot and is about a 2.25-1 favorite to win the pot outright.

So, using my years of knowledge and experience in PLO (I am by no means an expert), I have been tearing up the low-stakes PLO games for the past few months. While there are plenty of players who are better than me, I feel that I am, on many levels, considerably better than a good portion of the players and probably better than the majority of no-limit hold 'em players who are first learning the game. So once again I am trying to seek out a new set of fish. When fishermen over fish in a particular part of the ocean they seek out new waters teeming with fish. These new waters are the many PLO games both online and live. So, if you are a no-limit hold 'em player making the transition to PLO, you need to be aware of the great differences in the two games. But once you do, the profits are excellent.

So for now, my new direction is PLO. And until the rest of the players catch up to me and realize that they need to learn the game I will have a significant edge. And isn't that what poker is all about? The edge? Even if that edge is just a few percent, and I suspect (OK, more like know) it's a bit greater, then you are no longer just gambling it up. You are playing profitable poker. The difference between this "boom" is that, unlike the hold 'em explosion, I actually enjoy playing this game. Whereas I really never enjoyed hold 'em as much as other poker variations, and therefore let the edge I had when the boom began slip away, I will keep this edge for a long time. I actually welcome the challenge. So please, go learn the game. It's fun. It's profitable and in my opinion it is a much more sophisticated game and a much better game than hold 'em. Next time, I will discuss this sophistication in detail and talk about what it is that makes me thoroughly enjoy pot-limit Omaha. I will also discuss some limit Omaha hi/lo, another intriguing game that has very much piqued my curiosity.

See you on the felt,