Bear
I see guys working just the hi end and not caring for the lo.Have you seen this ?
Ya, usually by inexperienced spillover HE players. High-only hands can be speculated, for example if you can see a cheap flop, but otherwise I don't recommend playing high-only, especially for beginners.
The very best hands in O8 are balanced, and at all times, you should be gunning for scooping, or at least winning 3/4 of, the pot.
Chasing the low or the high only is usually a costly mistake.
I also noticed what love that omaha said and that sometimes you can lose even if you win because you only get 25% of the pot.
I checked the two USA rooms I play on and sadly nobody plays this game of poker so I might only get to play with play-chips.
Quartering happens a lot to beginning O8 players who play this game like HE or who read a few tips and think they've mastered the game.
O8 is a complex game and to play it well, you have to understand the mechanics which separate this game drastically from HE.
A few quick ones would be:
Don't raise the nut low (in most cases). Doing so, especially when you don't have a Hi balance in your hand, is setting yourself up for being quartered. In a full ring table, almost always, someone else is holding that A2.
O8 is a game of the nuts. You should be holding the nuts, or a very strong draw to the nuts, when betting/calling/raising.
Stop preflop raising. It really is ok, and preferred, to limp in. O8 is a POSTFLOP game, not a PREFLOP game.
There are no monster hands in O8. There is no equivalent to the AA in HE. Most hand equities in O8 are very close to one another.
A made hand on the flop means very little in O8. This game changes on a dime, almost always on the turn, and very often on the river.
Pocket pairs mean little, unless combined with something else in your hand to balance them. Most HE players overvalue PP and get stacked for it.
The best starting hands in O8 are AA23 ds and AKA2 ds.
Middle cards are your worst nightmare.
Stop playing so many hands. You should be folding more often. The liability with 4 hole cards, instead of 2, is that it is easy to mentally talk yourself into thinking that a mediocre hand is a good one.
Your best hands always have a backup plan to something else.
Position is crucial in O8, even more so than in HE.
There are a lot of other quick tips I can offer, but if you have specific questions, go ahead.
As far as places to play, are you talking about cash or tournaments? I'm not a cash player, but you can find O8 tournaments many times a day at ACR or BCP, as well as Carbon and Bovada.
Wish you the best.
Bear