Speaking of Omaha

Been playing O8 cash tables on UB and Tilt the last week or so and doing so-so. Couple nights ago while searching thru the tourney list on Tilt I saw a $5 PLO game so thought I’d give it a try. Either a stroke of genius or the worst thing I could have done depending how you want to look at it. It was the craziest PLO game I had ever played. Now I’m used to having a crazy man or two in the game, ones that raise up preflop with mediocre hands because they have a pair that would be good in a hold ‘em game. but in this game you would have 2-3 guys popping it up pot preflop and 4-5 callers. As far as I’m concerned Omaha is a post flop game and there are damned few hands I play to a raise so I was doing a lot of folding. As it was I tripled up when I caught a straight flush and got paid off but by then it was really too late as there were some fairly large stacks at the table and for he most part I was card dead My chips got whittled down when the few starting hands I was able to call the outrageous bets with didn’t pan out. All in all a fairly quick game. The whole time I was at the table though I prayed like hell for just a couple of hands to pan out because the way these peckerwoods were playing one could chip up easily. The way things went it could be considered, as stated earlier, the worst thing I did.

OTOH, there is that stroke of genius thing. Why? Well it was obvious that most of these guys hadn’t the foggiest about the game. Some were just playing almost every flop, the old hell I got 4 cards so anything is possible strategy. Others seemed like they were playing hold ‘em as not only were pots being raised with any pair of aces, regardless of what the other two cards were but kings and queens were bringing reraises and low to middle pairs were following right along. Occasionally I saw a revealed hand that showed that the person had some idea of what they were doing but not a whole lot. These guys were also chasers and I don’t mean in the sense of someone bets and you have 20 some outs but in the sense they’ll chase the 3 outer. To a pot bet. Hell some would call with top pair and no draw for that matter. In fact I probably could have done much better if I was willing to gamble with these maniacs as I folded a winning hand a number of times but when a guy pots a paired or suited board I have to assume my straight is useless, not that the guy is betting his aces up or trips. So where does the genius thing come in? Well watching this one has to assume that if they are all like this these games are takable with a modicum of luck. I say luck because, in my game at least, my starting hand selection consists of drawing hands and with all that preflop raising I’m going to need for them to hit since just playing is going to put a hit to the stack. Playing these could be profitable if they usually run like this.

So last night I’m looking for a game and I spot a $3 PLO and decide I have to give it a try. Well not quite as bad with the preflop raises but it is very loosey goosey with guys who tend to rate their hands in NLHE terms as opposed to PLO terms. Even better. It enabled me to play the post flop game with out needing the preflop commitment but didn’t really change the pot size at the end. Game started out slow for me but I did pick up a few pots to give me a few chips to weather a bad spell if need be. I didn’t. All of a sudden I started racking. Started catching hi spreads with at least one suited A or K, double suited spreads and hi pairs, double suited and if I didn’t smack the flop on the get go I hit it enough to have a ton of outs. I was so damned hot that after took the chip lead I couldn’t get action. I wasn’t even potting. I’d get a flop with outs but nothing made, hit ½ pot and collect. Got it up to 30K, bogged down a bit, got it up to a bit over 50K and went into the bubble with over double the second place guy. Just gotta love being the huge stack coming up to he bubble. Now I’m not a big believer in trying to steal in Omaha mainly because, preflop you usually can’t do it due to the I got 4 cards syndrome and post flop you got the chasers. But when you are near the bubble and you have that many chips and some shorties at the table you just gotta try. It worked. Didn’t add significantly to the stack but kept me from losing blinds and when the bubble broke I was still up over twice second place. Here’s where things started to slow down. Hole cards were still good and even the flops weren’t bad but the shorties started to suck out on me. I wasn’t losing great amounts at any one time I bled off about 20% of my chips and lost my chip lead. Right before we hit the final however one of the mid stacks thought his trips was worth pushing against my nut straight and I went into the final as chip leader with a healthy lead.

As much as I would like to say the streak kept on and I took the thing down but reality is I finished fourth. About an $80 payout for a $3 investment so I’m not complaining but it should have been better. I gave up almost all my chips to one guy at the final table. I hope he went on to win because when I left he had over ¾ of the chips in play. I just couldn’t beat this guy. While I was getting good hole cards I wasn’t hitting the outs the way I had earlier so started bleeding chips. I then took a big hit from one of the smaller stacks when I flopped nut straight, forced him to go all in and he called it off with J hi flush draw. He hit the river. BTW CK, it was crubs. Three more suckouts and I was gone and by suckout I’m not talking guys calling the pot bet with tons of outs to multiple draws but guys looking that gutshot straight, or two fill the two pair. Even that late they were still playing 4 card hold ‘em.

I could say it was all my fault. While I was still chip leader I caught A-A-x-x with both x’s being hangers. The shorty went all in for about 10K. I figured if he got callers I was going to try and isolate. While I don’t like the just aces with hangers I figured that playing heads up with them against the shorty wasn’t that bad a play. Before it got to me however the second stack made the same move and potted. If just one of those aces had been suited I might have gone to war but there were still 8 at the table, I had a decent stack and I wasn’t comfortable taking on the one guy at the table who could hurt me with nothing more than top pair. To play I would probably had to force him in with a pot bet and as he wasn’t folding much once he was in the pot I wasn’t sure I could do it so I laid it down. Worst move of the night. Both of those guys were playing nothing but naked pairs so the as were good and would have held but to make matters worse I would have filled up. Even better, the guy who bet me off was the guy who I gave most of my chips to. Could have taken him out there and saved myself a lot of grief.

Now that I’ve bored you to death you should be able to drop right off to sleep. Thanks for reading the idle ramblings of a delusional mind.