Omaha is Serious Buisness

Just like the intertubes and I need to start treating it as such. This is my third operation thread and it's bullshit because I've been screwing around. I'm tired of seeing people progress and start making monies. There's no reason I shouldn't be also.

Problem #1 - I haven't played enough hands. I think I may have 100k hands lifetime, but that's spread over SnGs, 10NL FR games on the old Boss sites, etc. I think I have 10k hands at Omaha which is the first thing that's changing. I started a new database yesterday and starting over.

Some observations from yesterday:
1) Having the A of a potential flush draw is meaningless at microstakes. No one is folding a rag draw. Scrap this idea completely.

Closely related...
2) Don't try and bluff opponents off pots. It's impossible to tell what a random villain is c/c the flop with so just assume he likes his hand. I can likely take a couple cheep showdowns, get a read, then make better decisions.

related to #2
3) Many villains think a check behind turn, bet river line is a bluff and call with crap. Don't do this without a hand (or a read).

4) If the hand is HU going to the flop, villain is not necessarily scared of paired boards. Don't go crazy without a read.

5) I should not be afraid to c/f scare cards. Villains do not bluff a lot.

6) Don't haggle over small pots. If someone takes the lead and I completely whiffed, GTFO. I won't be giving up much.

Problems with my game:
a) Playing too many hands too aggressively. I've said this before, microstakes players do not start stacking off light just because I'm an agro maniac. They are inherently passive and I'm allowing them to play somewhat ideally. Also I'm so much looser that I'm often too far behind.

b) Double barreling with air. I took the "b/f is goot" idea too far. With position, be inclined to check behind turns and fold to a river lead. I'm often giving up ~6bb with this line which is fine. I am loosing too many 20-30bb pots.

c) BR. When I hit the downswing I had 10 buy-ins, which isn't adequate for HE, so why would it be good for Omaha.

d) Tilt. I'm a very calm reasonable person. I need to be very honest with myself. One issue has been my ISP which I think is fixed. Yesterday I lost a big pot on a paired river to a guy who called the turn with 4 pair against my obv straight. This steamed me a bit (mostly because I bet/called his min-raise), when that happens I need to take a break.

e) Table/seat selection. If there is a somewhat thinking player with position on me I will not stay at the table and try to outplay him. I'm trying to increase my BR and put in hands, not be proud at the table.

f) I need to think about my bet sizing, mostly pre. This will be another post.

I will post no stats (including bb/100) until I get to 10k hands.
I will not complain about downswings, I will not brag about upswings.
I will play all these hands at 25PLO.

Originally Posted by swiggidy

I'm tired of seeing people progress and start making monies.

very bad thinking

Originally Posted by swiggidy

6) Don't haggle over small pots. If someone takes the lead and I completely whiffed, GTFO. I won't be giving up much.

good thinking

Originally Posted by swiggidy

d) Tilt. I'm a very calm reasonable person. I need to be very honest with myself. One issue has been my ISP which I think is fixed. Yesterday I lost a big pot on a paired river to a guy who called the turn with 4 pair against my obv straight. This steamed me a bit (mostly because I bet/called his min-raise), when that happens I need to take a break.

be brutally honest to yourself
you are your own worst enemey and also your own best friend

Originally Posted by swiggidy

e) Table/seat selection. If there is a somewhat thinking player with position on me I will not stay at the table and try to outplay him. I'm trying to increase my BR and put in hands, not be proud at the table.

good thinking

Originally Posted by swiggidy

I will not complain about downswings, I will not brag about upswings.

that's the spirit!


good luck!

Originally Posted by Jack Sawyer

Originally Posted by swiggidy

I'm tired of seeing people progress and start making monies. while I'm sitting here with a stagnant game/BR

very bad thinking

If my FMP doesn't help please explain.

--------------------------

This is the shit I need to avoid. Standard cbet, but wtf am I doing. I have to push most turns having no idea where I stand. If he raises flop i let it go which is also meh. I should have c/c then see what he did on the turn. This would let me get away cheep (<10bb).

PokerStars Pot-Limit Omaha High, $0.25 BB (6 handed) Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: FlopTurnRiver)

SB ($24.90)
Hero ($47.35)
UTG ($15.35)
MP ($30.90)
CO ($24)
Button ($20.20)

Preflop: Hero is BB with K, T, Q, 3.
2 folds, CO raises to $0.85, 2 folds, Hero calls $0.60.

Flop: ($1.80) Q, 6, J (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $1.75, Hero raises to $6, CO calls $4.25.

Turn: ($13.80) K (2 players)
Hero bets $13.15,

1k hands at PS, 500 hands at AP over the last 2 days.

I played with an aggressive player who wasn't retarded and blew about a stack trying to out play him. Bad Swiggidy, Bad.

Originally Posted by swiggidy

Originally Posted by Jack Sawyer

Originally Posted by swiggidy

I'm tired of seeing people progress and start making monies. while I'm sitting here with a stagnant game/BR

very bad thinking

If my FMP doesn't help please explain.

Its your competitive spirit talking. While good in certain sports, it isn't optimal in poker.

You are prone to putting undue pressure on yourself and more bad things will follow

I don't know how else to explain it without getting all Buddhist-Monk like, but basically, its about worrying about your own path, just your own path and nothing else

I have no idea how I stumbled upon this, but I did and it proves true, at least for me

Jack is the king of Zen, but the concept of trying to maximise your own game v's trying to compete with others is valid. Then again if seeing others progress while you dont prompts you to work on your own game and try to progress, thats not a bad thing.

Good luck man, seems you have a plan and know what to do, now just knuckle down and stick to your plan.

Originally Posted by Jack Sawyer

Originally Posted by swiggidy

Originally Posted by Jack Sawyer

Originally Posted by swiggidy

I'm tired of seeing people progress and start making monies. while I'm sitting here with a stagnant game/BR

very bad thinking

If my FMP doesn't help please explain.

Its your competitive spirit talking. While good in certain sports, it isn't optimal in poker.

You are prone to putting undue pressure on yourself and more bad things will follow

I don't know how else to explain it without getting all Buddhist-Monk like, but basically, its about worrying about your own path, just your own path and nothing else

I have no idea how I stumbled upon this, but I did and it proves true, at least for me

I see your point. There's no reason to be competitive with other FTRs. I'd be happy if everyone was making money. I may be an internal competitive, me vs poker, or maybe even me vs myself (motivation). I've been waiting for it to come easily and it hasn't. =P

Wow, playing tight is actually kinda fun. I've started to enjoy folding and it's definitely the right decision for now. Key to this is "what is he betting" and except for cbets the answer at microstakes is very rarely "air". And like I said before there is no reason to haggle over small pots because there is a possibility he someone is betting air (or a weak foldable hand).

500 hands today over 2 1/2 hours or so. Break for bball, hopefully 500 more later.

A thought regarding table selection at low stakes PLO. I try to find tables with lots of limping but not much raising preflop. I'll limp a few marginal hands but I play it pretty tight when faced with a PFR. You can generally outplay most of the players postflop at those levels.

Originally Posted by Smacktard

A thought regarding table selection at low stakes PLO. I try to find tables with lots of limping but not much raising preflop. I'll limp a few marginal hands but I play it pretty tight when faced with a PFR. You can generally outplay most of the players postflop at those levels.

No reason to be scared of a 3xbb raise, especially with position.

Total, 1850 hands @ PS, 800 hands @ AP.

I lost one stack with JT on a 6794K board thinking I had the nuts, doh. All the full stack were either standard or villains playing really poorly. Lost zero medium sized pots (40-80bb).

Playing on AP is awesome. It's a shame they scared off most of their user base so it's not always possible to find tables.

K, I'm not going to count my AP hands. It's just too easy. I'm going to try and play at AP first and if I don't like the games move to PS and work on the grinding/learning.

Soon I need to get setup on UB, hopefully it plays like AP.

Originally Posted by Smacktard

A thought regarding table selection at low stakes PLO. I try to find tables with lots of limping but not much raising preflop. I'll limp a few marginal hands but I play it pretty tight when faced with a PFR. You can generally outplay most of the players postflop at those levels.

I was thinking about this again and I think it's completely wrong. If you have an edge postflop then you need to be playing for meaningful pots. So what if 4 people limped, that's 4bb in a multiway pot where best hand wins, totally ghey. Minimal post flop edge there (except for not spewing).

I'm more likely to fold a mediocre hand from the button after 3 limpers, and raise a crap hand when I'm first to act. If I raise and get one caller from the blinds I'm playing a bigger pot (6BB) vs one opponent.

Just won 2 200bb stacks. 55/45 and 65/35. Need to remember I owe sklansky $80 next time I get it in ahead and loose.

Hadn't played since sat. Got sick on Monday which killed the week and was chillaxin yesterday.

Today got 1k hands in, weeeee. Was 4 tabling, felt pretty easy. At one point one table went HU and I sat out, then thought fuck-it I'll pwn this guy. Except he was a huge passive nit so I doubled up his 40bb stack, and lost another 40bb on other tables that I couldn't think about at all.

adding new point
#) If a table gets HU, even 3way without reads and I'm multi tabling, GTFO.

Status (hands)
PS: 3k
AP: 1.9k

#) Stay away from thin value/bluffing lines without reads, especially on the weekends. Aka, value, value value.

PS: 3.5k
AP: 2.6k

For the loyal readers, here's a fun hand, pretty standard really. This villain was very agro and had shown a tendancy to bluff.

PokerStars Pot-Limit Omaha High, $0.25 BB (6 handed) Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: FlopTurnRiver)

CO ($60.80)
Button ($21.70)
SB ($21.20)
BB ($5.65)
UTG ($44.45)
Hero ($41.15)

Preflop: Hero is MP with A, 7, 6, K.
1 fold, Hero raises to $0.75, 1 fold, Button calls $0.75, SB calls $0.65, 1 fold.

Flop: ($2.50) K, 5, 4 (3 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $2.25, Button raises to $9.15, SB folds, Hero raises to $29.85, Button calls $11.80 (All-In).

Turn: ($44.40) 2 (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: ($44.40) 8 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Final Pot: $44.40

Played 1.8k hands today which is near the top all time for me. 3 1.5 hour sessions with some 6 tabling in the middle because everyone was a super calling station. Nut camping is the suxor when you don't get hands, and even worse when you get hands and miss flops.

Status:
PS: 5.5k
AP: 2.6k

i was about to say, holy bat shit you're on a huge heater, but then i realized those were hands played

This is on hold. I'm gonna go to vegas this summer so I'm going to get a couple months of FR HE in before then.

I almost made it to 10k. 6k hands at PS running -2BB/100. 3k hands at AP running 40bb/100. That makes sense right.

AP there aren't enough tables to play consistantly I'll be back later in the summer and probably play some sporadically.

Not that anyone cares...

Omaha is the wave of the future. It will truly be the most popular game in the poker world one day.

I think it's a great game, and more fun than NL.

Good luck in your endeavors.