Posted by Dr Fro 12:06 PM

What a concept, I could use a little fuel myself and we could all use a little change...

I started out my the serious part of my poker life playing $5-$10 Limit Omaha 8. Only later did I transition to limit Holdem, then to PL Holdem, and then to NL Holdem. This is backward from most people that start out learning Holdem and then later pick up Omaha 8. I haven't played much Omaha in the past six years. This is partially due to lack of availability of the game but more due to my personal observation that I am not very good at Omaha. Not only am I not good, the people that play Omaha usually are very good. Contrast that with NLHE, where I consider myself fairly good and the competition to be, on average, not very good. It simply makes bad business sense for me to play Omaha.

Yet, I have always recommended cross-training in poker. I think that mixing up what you play can yield unanticipated benefits in your play in each game. Mix up tournaments with cash games, online with B&M, limit with PL and NL, etc. Of course, mixing up the game helps, too, but there just isn't as much Stud, Draw, Omaha or Razz being spread as there is Holdem. So for this reason and due to my suckitude, I rarely get away from Holdem.

ARH loaned me Hellmuth's book a year ago. I didn't find the Holdem advice to be all that insightful, but I was fascinated by his PL O/8 advice. His advice was similar to Harrington on Holdem, as it was more of a framework for making decisions rather than specific advice on specific hands. Prior to this book, all of my Omaha advice was based on 1) Steve Badger's articles (good) 2) Rolf Slotboom's articles (good) 3) applying Holdem strategy to Omaha (very, very bad). I have been applying Phil's advice on Party Poker a bit and have made a real breakthrough in my game (from suck to functional). So, on Thursday night I took my new found skills to test.

I went to Mfield for the Thursday night $2-$5 Pot Limit "Dealer's Choice" which ends up being about 75% Omaha 8 and 25% Omaha Hi-only. For the first time in my Omaha life, I really felt like I knew what I was doing. Whenever I laid down a hand because I put my opponent on a hand, I was right about their holdings (typically, the nuts). But I don't want to harp on what I did well; there is a hand that I played terribly, and I want to discuss it here.

* * *

I may get a couple facts wrong, but this is the gist of it. I hold A245. The flop comes 789 and a guy in early position bets pot ($40). He gets a call from me and Jeff. The turn brought a King and made a flush. Same guy bets pot $160 and is all-in. Jeff and I both call. The river brought a 3. Jeff checks and I bet $100 with my nut low, which he calls. He shows A27J to take 3/4 of the side-pot, and I get quartered on the side pot. Jeff and I each take a quarter of the main pot and Bettor gets half of it with his flush (he flopped the straight to the Jack.)

The $100 bet was absolutely terrible on my part. It could only cost me money ($50 to be exact) and could not result in any reasonably possible benefit. Keep in mind that my high was the lowest possible high-card hand, so I could not win the high outright. Consider these possibilities:

Jeff does not have A2, but has a decent high. If he calls, I get my $100 back (no benefit). If he folds, I get my $100 back (no benefit)

Jeff has A2 and a horrible high (which he did). He will never fold here, so it is basically automatic that I get quartered.

Jeff has neither A2 nor a high. He folds and I get my $100 back (no benefit, as this is the same value to me as if I check). I can't conceive of a low hand that he would call with and even if he did and conceded the low to me, he would still get his money back on the high.

So that was a terrible play. Jeff, who is a very nice guy who knew that Omaha was not my bread-and-butter asked me after the hand if I wanted his advice. I said, "If your advice is that I shouldn't give away $50 on a bonehead bet, then there is no need." He laughed.

* * *

Despite that hand, I turned a $600 buy-in into $680. That isn't exactly bringing down the house, but it is better than I usually do at Omaha. That, and watching the Stros finish a mini-sweep of the Cards had me feeling pretty chipper when I went to bed.

Last night, I had an Omaha itch that needed to be scratched, so I played 50c-$1.00 PL O/8 for a couple hours on Party Poker and turned $40 into $110. Since I went to be before the Rockies got their fifth walk-off-win of the season to beat the Stros, I went to bed pretty chipper again.

p.s. Although my move did not involve a bluff, Kid Poker's article on bluffing into dry side pots sheds some light on betting into dry side pots.

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