moving from NLHE to Omaha

Hi Guys,

I played a few SnGs Omaha Hi and H/L

I placed in all three winning 2... but it seems according to some of the posts here it was probably more luck than skill.

So what would you say are the top tips when moving from HE to Omaha? I have been reading some of the posts and they seem to be more general strategy, but what would you say are most important to understand when starting out?

Also... what books are recommended for Omaha?

It seems PL is the main game... why is that?

Finally... what sites have the best games... ie most profitable?

gl!

4 cards that work together > 4 cards that don't. Learn to fold postflop, because they have it.

Who reads books when there's infinite information available on the internet for free? But if you insist, I hear Hwang is good.

Pot limit requires a lot of skill because there's the most amount of pot management involved. Understanding how to manage the pot to get your stack in, or limit the amount that your opponent can bloat the pot so that you still have implied odds is yet another skill to learn. Pot limit also makes it more difficult to get it all in pre, and since there isn't much edge in getting all in preflop in Omaha Hi, pot limit forces the game to go postflop.

The big two (FTP & Pokerstars). Other sites will have some game selection for omaha games at the smaller stakes, but you're lucky if you get 1 table running above $0.50/$0.25 PLO8.

[quote=c9h13no3;1355035]

Who reads books when there's infinite information available on the internet for free? But if you insist, I hear Hwang is good.



^^ A caution on Hwang...

His first book advocates an uber-nitty style that I really think is more aimed at FR than 6M and it may even be too tight for that.

His second book is much better, but also he sorta assumes you've read his first book in his second...

His first book is pretty good for getting a handle on good preflop hands and flops but just use a little caution when reading it.


C9's advice is good.

And, you will get sick of hearing this but the #1, #2, #3 and #4 and #10 things you should know about PLO can be summed up with: POSITION, POSITION, POSITION.

Seriously, position is important in hold em, but it's even more so in PLO.

I've seen this criticism of that book a lot, and read a thread at the other forum between Hwang and members of the small stakes PLO forum where they really take him to town for being nitty - this was before his second book was published.

The main criticism that was voiced involved whether or not 4 card rundowns (with or without a single gap) needed to be suited or not - not incredibly helpful to this noob (though not unhelpful either).

I don't post often there, so I'm uncomfortable asking the question there - but can you suggest other places where Hwang may be too nitty in hand selection in the first book? I know I'm too nitty in general (I'm up to about 20/9, 29/8 on btn, big improvement over the 16/2 I started at, working on not open limping, stealing from BTN, and on 3betting more), but can't figure out what I should be opening differently. I see players w 40/25, or higher, stats that appear to know what they're doing, but I'm baffled how they could be raising 25% of their hands pf when I won't voluntarily put money in the pot w more than 20% of my hands...

I have a tough time getting new books here in the Philippines, customs duties are outrageous, so I have to wait until my next trip to the US to buy his second book (probably May-ish)...

c9 and Tygran - I've found a couple of interesting websites for Omaha discussion/information, but not a lot of good strategy content collections like c9's required reading sticky, it's a bunch of unrelated threads - if you have any favs, could you pm me pls?

One funny thing about PLO is that there really isn't any "standard" way to play preflop.... it's a postflop game. Tight styles can work so can uberlaggy ones preflop... so don't put a ton of weight into your preflop stats cause there isn't an "optimal". It's ALL about your postflop play....

having said that I think 16/2 is way too limp happy...and the biggest thing about your btn play that should change is your raise % should go way up.... just limping in with marginal hands isn't going to do you any favors.

Also..PLO has far more utterly clueless players running around than the micro NLHE tables do.

Biggest thing is that if there isn't a massive disparity between your positional stats then something is wrong. ie..I don't care what your style is, if you are opening about the same UTG as you are on the btn your style is wrong.




Maybe C9 knows a couple good free places, I'd be interested as well... other than the obvious "other forum" as least (more PLO stuff just by virtue of being larger than here)

Other than that the most common places I go are either to a guy I've gotten some coaching from (he's a deucescracked coach) and the messages boards at the paysites (dc and stox mainly)