Omaha Beach

Played some at the Guru's house this morning. We got into four separate $26 tournaments, including a couple of 45-man SnGs, a 90-man, and a satellite into a bigger tournament. In all the games we played very well, which I feel really good about. We only went deep in one of the tourneys, which essentially made the three hour session a net gain of zero dollars, but I really can't complain. In essentially every instance, we got our money in with the best of it, but simply got sucked out on. Hands like AQ getting beat by A7 (even though we spiked a Q!) were the norm for us. But, like I said, I actually feel pretty good about the session. The poker gods are gonna throw variance at you whether you want it or not; the trick is not being results oriented and just playing the best you possibly can. Today, the Guru and I played very good poker, but the we just ran a little unlucky.

Besides Operation Hindenburg (more on that in a moment), I spent a few hours watching some PLO videos. I'm (slowly) trying to teach myself how to play Omaha hi, and the videos are a good start. Following the vids, I jumped into a couple of $10PL 6-max games and made $3 in about half an hour of play. So far, the big lessons learned are: 1) position, position, position; and 2) starting hand strength. Hard to believe, but position in PLO is said to be even more important than in hold'em. The starting hand strength is also key to success; your VPIP should be lower in PLO than in hold'em (at least according to the videos I'm watching). Hands with two low pairs, hands with danglers, etc. fall into the "shiny-bright" category and should be folded PF in most cases. In contrast, non-made hands with running straight cards and double-suited hands seem to be very strong and should be played hard. It's a little counter-intuitive at first, but drawing hands are often ahead of made hands on the flop. I'm also still learning the whole pot-control thing, too, as pot-limit betting is a tougher beast to master than no-limit.

Over on 'Stars, Operation Hindenburg continues chugging along, as the following chart demonstrates. Not much to say. I've had a few bad beats today (had a set of sixes shot down, plus KK cracked by QQ). Otherwise, I'm just playing my ABC game, getting off marginal situations, and getting very aggro when I think I'm ahead. I do think I'm still cold-calling a bit too much, which continues to be a leak that I'm having a tough time actually plugging. I'm working on it, tho, but it's an old-habit-is-hard-to-break kind of thing.


All-in for now...
-Bug