pot limit or 8-or-better?

[KillerPanda 0]

Hi everyone,I'm new to Omaha and I wanted to know your opinion on which game is best for an Omaha beginner with a Hold'em background to learn first, pot limit or 8-or-better? Thanks.Jonathan

[Kendren 1]

Well, to be honest, you can play pot limit O/8. If you're just beginning in Omaha, I suggest limit Omaha Hi only. Get a feel for the changing board, counterfeiting, that sort of thing. Have you ever played any hi-lo split game? If not, that will take some massive getting used to. I'm still trying to learn the game, I haven't graduated to hi-lo yet (tried it once, baaad ju-ju), but having alot of fun with Hi. Good luck to ya!

[KillerPanda 0]

Thanks for the advice! Good luck to you too! :-)

[JacKingOff_suit 0]

Hi everyone,I'm new to Omaha and I wanted to know your opinion on which game is best for an Omaha beginner with a Hold'em background to learn first, pot limit or 8-or-better? Thanks.Jonathan

Who do you mean by "pot limit or 8-or-better"?There are PLO, PLO8, (I don't know if limit Omaha game exists, I never played it if there is), limit Omaha HiLo, and NL O8 at some sites such as PS.Learn O8, there are different concepts to learn which will improve your holdem game.Some suggestions, read cardplayer.com's articles about O8 by authors like Lou Krieger & Michael Cappelletti. Google the web for O8 reading materials. Buy some O8 books as well, and go to 2+2 forum at the O8 sessions, there are plenty of tips and book recommendations too (do some search using their search engine).I suggest you play PLO8 $.1o/$.25 at PS or PP because many players are loose and have no clue what they are doing there.At low limit, O8 is about patience, you want to wait for hands that scoop the pot, wait for hands like A2XX, A23X ds, AA2X, AA3x, ... (google for starting hands in O8..) If the flop helps, you want to max. your winning by manipulating the pot size. If not, you should have no hesitation to throw them away.The differences between O8 and holdem are, 1. O8's good hands generally hold up after the flop if they are determined good, that means, if they are good on the flop, they will still be good on the turn and river. But think about holdem, your AA may be good with the flop at 3d7c8h, but what about if the final board is 3d7c8h6c3c? Any of those 3 of a kind, straights, flushes, and boats can break you. But in O8, your A2XX hand is guarantee to win the lo. Of course there are things deeper than that, like you want to avoid being 1/4'ed (another opponent also holding A2), but those depend on your experiences and observations. Say if you know someone is also holding A2, you want to manipulate the pot to drive out an experienced observing opponent who's also holding A2, but if you know the one who's holding A2 is a call station while someone else is holding the high, you may want to fold your A2 on the flop to avoid paying more later streets and to wait for a better spot.2. The fluctuation is much less in O8. 3. The good player's edge against bad player's edge is much bigger. In holdem you are exploiting small edges against bad players, but say you waited all day long with AKs, then some lucky sob with 27os can break you by getting lucky. Not that case in O8! It's big edges against small edges.4. As a holdem player making transition to O8, another advice I can give you is to do less bluffing! Don't do it. Wait until you have enough experiences, you will then know under what spots you can bluff, but in general, O8 offers less bluffing opportunities. When you see and understand the bluffing opportunities in O8, you will bluff better at holdem.