Omaha at the Micros

I haven't been playing much poker lately--work and home stuff have pretty much been consuming my waking hours--but the little I have played hasn't been Hold'em. Instead, I've been TAgging it up down at the microstakes ($0.02/$0.05) at the 6max Omaha tables on Bovada. And boy is it a hoot.

I literally isolated a couple of bucks in my online bankroll to see if I could build it up in Omaha. Because of the work Le Monsieur and I have been doing on the Hold'em lessons, I wanted to see if a beginner at Omaha could achieve the same types of results achievable in Hold'em by applying the same types of tactics and strategies-- modified of course for the vagaries (read: variance) of Omaha.

Specifically, I'm using all the types of things that work at Hold'em, but I'm doubling down on them at the Omaha tables. Chief among these tactics are, of course, position. Probably more than any other factor, playing positionally-aware in Omaha is the key to success. Got a hand like J-T-9-3 single suit in EP? Throw it away. Got it on the button and you're facing some limps? You're gonna come in, baby, and come in hard.

Pot control vs. position is also another key factor. Got Aces in the blinds and there are more than a couple of active players already in? Don't raise, as it's only going to bloat the pot in a situation where you're OOP, and will probably be called only by better on flops when you have to donk lead and/or check-call.

And tight-aggressive works just as well at PLO as it does in Hold'em.  As does REDi....

And so on.

See folks, poker is poker. It's about hand reading and exploiting edges. It's about encouraging your opponents to make mistakes-- while you minimize your own. It's about position. And reading board textures. And calculating equities. And folding. And folding some more. And then folding even more. And then hammering with balanced 3bet bluffs and value bets.

While PLO is wonderfully different than Hold'em, and Hold'em is wonderfully different than Stud, and Stud is wonderfully different than Razz.... they're all the same, too.  Poker be poker.

I've been telling Mr. Multi for years that he should learn Omaha, as I think it would help his Hold'em game. I suggest you do the same. What have you got to lose?

Oh, and did I mention it's a hoot to play, too?

All-in for now...
-Bug