Oh8 -- Compare And Contrast

[hblask 1]

OK, I didn't think this belonged in the strategy section, because there are no strategy questions involved. I recently played in an Omaha Hi/Lo tournament, because it was free. Is this game way more complicated than Hold'Em? It seems to me there are 4 or more levels of thought for every level of thought in a holdem game. Or is that just because I was new to it? Once you play for a while, does it become as obvious as holdem? By obvious, I mean reading your hand, seeing the nut and whether you have it, and what your opponent could be playing.If yes, more complicated, is that why it is less popular: because there is too much information and too many combinations to make good decisions unless you hit the nut? Just curious, because it seems like a very interesting and challenging game compared to holdem, but so few people play it compared to holdem.

[phlegm 6]

I agree.

[TandtheMan88 0]

very easy game.everyone give it a try at the 3/6 and 5/10 tables on stars.

[nosoul 0]

It's less popular because it's too confusing to new players. Think about what you have to tell someone to get them started with hold'em."Ok, you get 2 cards. There will end up being 5 more on the board that everybody shares. You use the best five from the board and your hole cards to make your hand. Best poker hand wins."Now what do you have to tell them to play Omaha/8?"Ok, you get 4 cards. There will end up being 5 more on the board that everybody shares. You use exactly 2 from your hole cards and 3 from the board to make a high hand. You use exactly 2 from your hole cards and 3 from the board to make a low hand. You don't have to use the same cards for high and low. What is a low hand? Oh, take the normal poker hand rankings and flip it upside down. Now remove straights and flushes because they don't count for low hands and aces are always low. So the best hand is 5-4-3-2-A. Oh, yea, and there's an 8 qualifier for the low. So you have to make a high card 8 or lower to qualify for low. If nobody qualifies, the high hand wins the whole pot. If someone does qualify for low, the best high hand and best low hand split the pot."About 1/4 of the way through that explanation, their eyes glaze over and they go back to hold'em.Playing Omaha/8 tournaments might be more fun than cash games. In cash games, especially pot limit, skilled players utterly destroy weaker players. However, getting on an Omaha/8 table full of skilled players really sucks. It's usually heads up after the flop with the only players left being someone with the nut low and someone with the nut high. With the blinds going up in a tournament, players are forced to play more and it ends up being more interesting. The cash games are like watching paint dry.

[sealster 0]

very easy game.everyone give it a try at the 3/6 and 5/10 tables on stars.

What's ur name on stars? you probably been taking all my money!

[TandtheMan88 0]

What's ur name on stars? you probably been taking all my money!

Hint- I have a Christian symbol as my image

[dingas 0]

In the mechanics of the game, Omaha/8 is more complicated. More rules, more cards, more possibilities to consider. For example in holdem you can pretty much always calculate your outs accurately, but in Omaha it is more tricky. For example, you have a gutsthot + top pair + a nut low draw. How many outs do you have? You can't say. Your low outs will only be good for half the pot or even 1/4, you may hit your straight and lose to a flush, your 1 pair might be good now, or you may have outs by hitting trips or 2 pair. You have to try to balance all these possibilities when making your decision.But another factor is that you actually do not have enough information to make a correct decision. At some point you are guessing, much more so than in holdem, where you can often tell from the betting patterns if your hand is good or not. And this makes Omaha/8 more of a random game than holdem - there are less opportunities to use "poker" skills like hand-reading/ bluffing and so on.Basically, what was said earlier is true. Omaha/8 is a game where good players can seriously outplay bad players who do not understand the basics of the game, but where it is hard for very good players to outplay merely good ones [the level where the biggest edges come from the "people" side of the game].

[hblask 1]

Playing Omaha/8 tournaments might be more fun than cash games. In cash games, especially pot limit, skilled players utterly destroy weaker players. However, getting on an Omaha/8 table full of skilled players really sucks. It's usually heads up after the flop with the only players left being someone with the nut low and someone with the nut high. With the blinds going up in a tournament, players are forced to play more and it ends up being more interesting. The cash games are like watching paint dry.

I like to think my advantage in poker is (not to sound too egotistical) a big brain, as opposed to great bravado, which seems to be an equal if not greater factor in holdem. Do you agree with that assessment (that bravado matters as much as brainpower in Holdem)? I have the patience and ability to learn complicated tasks. Would I do better in cash OH8 games than in NL Holdem (assuming I am accurate at my self-assessment)? It seems to me if it's a more difficult challenge, I'd have an edge because of my persistence in learning difficult subjects (I play poker as much for the challenge of solving the puzzle as any other reason). Or is OH8 a self-selecting game, where only people who like the bigger challenge play it more than once, so that the overall difficulty of beating the game is similar?

[navybuttons 15]

the game is much easier. even though the mechanics are a little harder to understand at first, once you understand how to play the game you can crush a majority of the tables.less variance, less need for a big bankroll, more fish who don't understand the game.luvin it.

[hblask 1]

But another factor is that you actually do not have enough information to make a correct decision. At some point you are guessing, much more so than in holdem, where you can often tell from the betting patterns if your hand is good or not.

This is an answer to one of my main questions, which may or may not have been implied in the original post. Poker is about information, and many experts believe holdem is the game of choice because it balances the amount of information that is hidden versus what is observable at some near-ideal balance. If it is the case that OH8 increases the information necessary to play AND the amount that is available at any time, it may or may not make for a more interesting game. Certainly people who can't juggle lots of information will be at a huge disadvantage in OH8, but based on your reply, among those who can juggle the requisite information, any possible edge is smaller. So I guess that would mean table selection is more important in OH8 than in holdem -- gotta find more fish to make a profit?

[timwakefield 68]

OP try playing Pot-Limit Omaha before you try to learn H/L. I like PLO better anyways. Splitting a pot when you hold quads is just frustrating to me...

[FatBurger 0]

I love all flavors of Omaha, but lately I've been more into Limit Omaha Hi-Lo. It just seems like the maximum amount of math, and I'm apparently massochistic like that