Omaha 8/b Is Such a Great Game

When Geoff sent an email that he was having an Omaha 8/b tournament this Friday, I was all over it. I love Geoff's tournaments. Usually some sort of limit game, and usually mixed. I love mixed games, because I play all of the games to a degree. Maybe stud a little less than the others, but I play the crap out of Razz and Omaha 8/b online (as well as Hold 'Em), so I feel pretty confidnet playing it.

What I love about Omaha 8/b tournaments is that the format usually allows for a lot of play at the beginning. You can play pretty loose and portray an image of a wild and crazy player, and then when the tournament gets into the later stages, if you pick your times right, you can win huge pots from those who portray you as loose. In all actuality, you should play even tighter in O8OB than you do in Hold 'Em. It is so easy to get in bad trouble playing mediocre hands in any Omaha game, but especially in O8OB. You always seem to be drawing to something, and it is easy to get caught up in the drawing game. But the one rule I have read and heard from everyone I think knows what they are doing is that if you are drawing to either a high, low, or both, you better be drawing to the nuts. Betting and calling with anything less than the nuts on the river is usually a recipe for disaster. And usually, even if you end up winning a hand with something mediocre, it only seems to warp your perception, making you think that what just happened was some sort of correct play, when in all liklihood it would cost you a lot of chips 9 out of 10 times.

While I am far from perfect, I think I usually have a pretty good grip on the game. I'll never say never, but I rarely raise on the end with just a lo hand. I have seen so many times when someone holding a nut lo with no high hand at all keeps raising the pot. I saw it several times last night. And almost every single time that happened, the winner was the high hand winner, because there was usually 2 identical lo hands out there. You see two lo hands quartering the pot quite frequently - it is much more rare to see someone quartering the high pot while you are collecting your lo. It is a dangerous gamble to make. You really should have no worse than 2 pair with no flush potential on the board to be justifying raising on the river with a nut lo. Unless you know for certain that all of your other opponents are going for a high, the only time you should be raising with a nut lo on the river is when you are thinking you have a chance to scoop.

Anyway - back to last night. I started off slow - made a little headway in the middle, exploded towards the end, and then fizzled at the very end to finish 3rd out of 11. When we got 3 handed and played for a bit - we all ended up fairly close in chips. So we split $180 of the $220 prize pool by 3 and each took $60 (Third paid $30 and 2nd paid $70, so this pretty much a good deal). Then we finished the tournament out with the winner taking the last $40. Worked out pretty good, and I went out on the next hand.

I then went to the cash game and made another $50 or so. All in all, it was a good night for me. I have aspirations of playing the O8OB tournament at the WSOP Circuit Event in Tunica in January. I am looking forward to playing that quite a bit, and last night just whet my appetite even more.

Steak