Tell Me About it, Bob: $847 in 3.25 hours of Omaha

Bob Ciaffone's first book on Omaha was called Omaha Hold'Em Poker: The Action Game. He was certainly correct about that. I had been lately playing mostly short-handed limit HE along with "Sit-and-Go" one-table tournaments (I may write about some of those experiences later). However, recently PL and NL have been piquing my interest more and more. I had always preferred live-action PL/NL to the online equivalents, since reads are so central to the game. In limit, you often "have to call", even if you read is right 80% or more of the time, because the pot odds demand it in big pots. In PL/NL, you have to be much more sure of yourself.

However, the primary "reading" you can do online is detecting betting patterns and time people take to act. That's not much information to go on, even if such information is pretty adequate for limit. I guess I always assumed that PL/NL would be more difficult online. I was used to soft NL tournament fields, but I was worried about the larger cash games ($200 buy-in and up), as the math-focused "push and hope" strategy that becomes part of late tourney strategy is useless in cash games.

Well, I finally figured those cash games were worth a try. Plus, in my constant endeavor to be a poker generalist, I always try to find some of my poker time to work on other games besides limit HE. Sometimes, it hurts my short term EV to "catch up" in my skills, but I think it's worth it in the long term. And, online is a great way to practice the basics so they are well honed for live games, when more factors come into play. Fortunately, I've found that just understanding basic principles and strong general poker skills can be very profitable in both NL HE and PL Omaha. The PL Omaha games I played this weekend gave me a great context to think about some PL Omaha problems. ( In this entry, I focus on those recent PL Omaha online experiences. )