Grinding at its Greatest

Good Afternoon Everyone,
I'm fairly new to posting, though I've been reading this forum for several years. I just wanted to share something with the grinders in the forum.

Get over to the 10/25 Omaha 8 games on pokerstars. It's ridiculous. Everyone plays tight. I'm stealing blinds from first position. There are a lot of huge pots, but I'm grabbing .35 a go. It's kind of nice.

Anyway, I play under LineProducer. I'm usually watching the chatbox, so if anyone shows, say 'hello'.

If you haven't played Omaha before, I can post a general idea for starting hands in this thread if someone asks.

In Perspective,
-Wil

Lets here the starting hand Ideas, PL or FL?

The Basics

As Omaha is a drawing game, I recommend a slightly loose/aggressive playing style. I only play PL or NL.

Here are some basic premises that you are looking for to come into a pot.

1. Any hand with A/2 is worth a min raise.
2. The best hand in Hi/Lo is AA23 double suited. [that way you're not counterfeited]
3. The most averaged winning hand in Hold 'em is 2 pair. In Omaha, it's at least a straight.
4. If you flop the nuts, odds are that a better hand will come on the turn/river.
5. The second nuts is worth a bet if you have a chance of scooping the Hi and the Lo.
6. Three of a kind in your hand is almost an auto fold unless you have position and it's aces with a 2.
7. Strong bets can knock out someone with a low, but very rarely will it knock out the hi.
8. Tight players wait until they have A2 to come into a pot. If there is no lo possible, you can usually get them to fold with bets on the turn/river.
9. Suited connectors are extremely strong.
10. I'd rather have a double suited hand than a hand with two non connected pair.
11. More than three of a suit in your hand, proceed carefully. You better have something else going for it, connectors or a pair.


Lo Hands.
1. A,2,3,4,8 is a better hand than 2,3,4,5,6.
2. The hand is ranked according to the lowest card, not the highest. That's why A2 is so valuable.
3. The wheel has a chance to scoop the high and the low.
4. I love to play a hand like A2,3,4 A,2,4,5. etc etc. A,3,4,5.


Random thoughts.
1. AKAK double suited is the best hand in Omaha Hi. It's also a strong hand in Hi/Lo though you better hope that the board doesn't have three cards below 8.
2. Don't fold to a value bet on the River. The bettor might only be betting for the hi or the lo. It's up to you to watch betting patterns.
3. Continuation bets aren't as effective in O8.
4. Small bets to increase pot size when you have the nut low are extremely effective.
5. Getting quartered is not something that you have to be extremely worried about at low limits, but something you need to factor in when people go all in.
6. This is for the .10/.25 game. Some people have the bad habit of pushing all in for their entire stack [$25]. Ignore them. It's not worth losing yours unless you have an extremely strong hand. I'll almost guarantee that they have AA2J or something of that ilk.

I'll try to post again in a little while with some more notes.

betting patterns

something else I've noticed. I always seem to bet if I have a draw to the best hand. Keep adding money.

If I have high suited connectors, I'd prefer not to have my other two cards of that suit.

I only played Omaha at the freerolls and play money table. For the longest time, I though AKAK suited was the best hand. I guess I over valued my trips.

LineProducer said:

Lo Hands.
1. A,2,3,4,8 is a better hand than 2,3,4,5,6.
2. The hand is ranked according to the lowest card, not the highest. That's why A2 is so valuable.

Click to expand...

Ummm.... False. The wheel A2345 is the nut low. Doesn't get lower. The low is assessed from the top card down, ace always counting as a low card.

http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/games/rules/hand-rankings/

About 1/3 of the way down is the low hand rankings.

IveGot0uts said:

Ummm.... False. The wheel A2345 is the nut low. Doesn't get lower. The low is assessed from the top card down, ace always counting as a low card.

http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/games/rules/hand-rankings/

About 1/3 of the way down is the low hand rankings.

Click to expand...

I think he's just proving a point of how the a hand can have high numbers in it, it depends on the lowest start number. I don't know, I'm a complete noob at Omaha.

Nope, point one is flat out wrong 23456 is a better low hand than a2348.

And point two is similarly plain wrong, the hand is ranked by the highest card, not the lowest.

I just fixed a HUGE leak in his game. Signing up for the forum was a +EV move for him.

IveGot0uts said:

Nope, point one is flat out wrong 23456 is a better low hand than a2348.

And point two is similarly plain wrong, the hand is ranked by the highest card, not the lowest.

Click to expand...

^ this. I can't believe there's even a discussion on this point.

JEP this thread is talking about Omaha8 (aka Omaha High-Low or Omaha Eight-or-better). It's a split pot game where half the pot goes to the best hand at showdown and half the pot goes to the "worst" hand and it's not the same as regular Omaha.

Starting hand values in Omaha8 are different compared to standard Omaha because the best hands are the ones with the potential to "scoop" the pot - ones that play well for both the high and the low pots.

A low hand needs to have five unpaired cards, none of which can be higher than eight. So a hand like AAKK, which is a very strong starting hand in regular Omaha, loses some value in Omaha8 because it's impossible to make a low hand with it and often you'll be playing for half the pot at best.

IveGot0uts said:

Ummm.... False. The wheel A2345 is the nut low. Doesn't get lower. The low is assessed from the top card down, ace always counting as a low card.

http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/games/rules/hand-rankings/

About 1/3 of the way down is the low hand rankings.

Click to expand...

You sir, are correct. The wheel is the nut low. I was trying to explain that and got it backwards, I'm gonna go edit.

the two hands should be A3456 and 23456.

Thanks for the corrections, fellas. Is it possible to edit the initial dyslexic post? lmfao.