I have often found myself in such a midst of bad luck and bad plays in NL hold’em that I force myself to either switch sites, go to lower limits or take a clean break from playing. If the latter is as hard for you to do as it is me, then the solution may be a
different game. Omaha High-Low is a different game from NL hold’em for sure, but the skills you have developed in hold’em can pay off much more consistently in Omaha Hi-Lo.
With the help of a book like Bill Boston’s Omaha High-Low, you can be proficient at this game in a matter of a few sessions. After reading this book, I started playing the 10 buck Omaha Hi-Lo sit and go tournaments at Party Poker, and with no experience at all had a 50%+ win rate after 12 games for a nice $220 profit. Well worth the 20 bucks for the book which had been in publication for years as in independently produced manual, but now picked up by Cardoza Publishing and presented in soft cover version.
Bill Boston used the very popular program called Turbo Omaha High Low Split by Wilson Software, testing numerous Omaha Hi-Lo hands against random flops. (Same programmers of the software called Turbo Texas Hold’em, used by Sklansky, Ferguson, Raymer among other pros) Combine this research with his years of experience in that game and this book makes for a solid foundation to profitable play.
What hold’em players need to realize with this game, even with pot limit betting, is that it is generally not a bluffing game. So your good hands do pay off, especially when scooping the high and low hands. Boston stresses this throughout, and has played this way with success for years. This kind of strategic showdown play, could be a welcome relief for hold’em players at their wits end, over getting pushed around. You really can’t do that in Omaha Hi-Lo, save for rare specific conditions being meant.
Unfortunately, Boston doesn’t get into tournament play with this book, mainly focusing on $10/20 ring games, which leaves a lot of explaining for us tournament players. On the good side, the hand analysis for strength will give any player the power of knowing when to get in a hand or not. This is truly vital information and will save you enormous amounts of stress, in effect avoiding tough decisions during the hand.
A good portion of this book is a table of values associated with each and every Omaha hand combination. It is quite scientific looking, but if you peruse through some of the hand combinations and look at how they can lose you money, it is very alarming. In this game, many hands you are dealt look good, but are simply money losers. This is what separates the winners from losers, amateurs from professionals. The ability to throw strong hands away is stressed here in the balance of knowing that even if you win, your pot is likely split several ways. Certainly a good read and if you combine it with Lou Krieger's poker bible which has an extensive chapter on Omaha Hi-Lo, you on your way to professional play.
Sit and Go Omaha Bankroll Building
If you know what you are doing the competition is softer in Omaha.
There has been much discussion in the Omaha Poker Forums abouts using the game to build up your bankroll as a quicker road to success as compared with playing holdem strictly.
This thinking is derived from the fact that Omaha Hi-Lo is a difficult game for online players to grasp, and can thus be feeding grounds for experienced players taking advantage of opponents who just aren't willing to spend the time learning the game, but rather jump right in thinking it couldn't be that much different from hold'em.
They make common mistakes like playing too many hands, chasing for parts of a split pot, and misunderstadning the true strength of thier hole cards. There is also a different betting conudrum with Omaha Hi-Lo as well becuase of the tendancy of aggression from the low side of the pot when it is locked up, effectively making extremely expensive to draw on the high side alone. Internet players have a tendency to overplay, and expereinced Omaha* players can chop them up when the blinds get significant.
The biggest challenge is finding enough sit and go strategy Omaha action. You will run into the same players over and over again at familiar levels where in hold'em you can go months without running into the same opponent. Outside of Full Tilt and Poker Stars you just can't be picky about Omaha tables for sit and go action.
