Omaha Actually

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I am not playing much right at the moment because I want to play properly. That means good game selection at a minimum.

So, in particular, I am not playing online until I can really focus on it. However, I did visit the Gutshot on Wednesday for the always-excellent £75 Freezeout. Earlier this year I finished 3rd and 10th in it (the field is usually 70 - 100). Still looking for an outright win though.

I was slightly annoyed to finish 20th of 80. I had been just above average on about 17k chips (having come down from around 23k when repeatedly re-raised pre-flop).

By now, the blinds were beginning to bite: 600/1,200. I was out in two hands. In the first, the cut-off raised one limper on my big blind. I looked down at AK and naturally moved all-in. The limper folded, but the cut-off player called with JTo (?). Possibly he thinks my most likely holding is a small pair and fancies a race. In any case, he makes a pair of Tens to take about half my stack.

I steal a few blinds and then, exactly one round later, the same player open-raises on the cut-off. He had taken a long time to choose his exact raise and had finally settled on 5,000 leaving him with about 13k behind. My perception was that he had a minimum hand for the raise and wanted to raise as much as he dared to discourage action and not so much that he couldn't fold to an all-in. I had just slightly less chips than him.

I held 44 and, given my read, it was an obvious push I thought. The player looked like he might fold, but in the end opted for a reluctant call with A7-clubs. Two clubs on the flop and one on the river were enough to see him through. Pretty marginal call, I thought.

So, a bit irritating, but I wasn't too unhappy with my play.

It was still quite early so obviously I had to consider whether to play some cash. In the current situation, I probably wouldn't have except that someone handed me £300 - a return on a backing arrangement from last year. I wasn't expecting the money (well, not right then) so it felt like a bit of a free-roll. I decided I could give the Omaha a cautious spin.

Well it turned out to be one of those days where it all went right. I was immediately up on my starting stack and cruised on to double, then triple my buy-in in quick succession. It was a pretty lively game. Obviously I took some hits (some outdraws, which are de rigeur in Omaha, some failed bluffs) but for the most part the notable feature was that when I made a strong hands but not the nuts, it was good enough.

This was in stark contrast to the worst nights, where I have found that every time I made the second nuts, I got all my money in against the stone-cold winner.

I did modify my approach once I had built up a big stack. "Lock-down poker" would overstate it considerably but, for example, when I made it £75 to go after limp-limp-pot-call-call-call, and I was re-raised to £300 by the original raiser, I let my KQJ9-double suited hit the muck.

On another occasion I'd definitely have given it a spin. I can't be that far behind the obvious Aces.

I showed my folded hand and Nik showed his Aces-single suited. I was only about a 60/40 underdog so I had the money odds, ostensibly. However, if I had known what Jason-the-cabbie had thrown away (he was acting after Nik and had called the first raise), I'd have folded quicker. He picked KKT9 out of the muck - that didn't leave me many outs!

I did try the pot-resteal one other time - this time I did it with no hand at all so I could fold more easily to further action. (2468 rainbow - that's pretty bad you must agree). However, this time 3 people called (!!). On the Q92-flop with two diamonds, it was checked to me and I bet a threatening-looking-I-hoped £90 (1/3rd-pot approx) and everyone folded. Who says you can't bluff in Omaha ?

My Omaha game doesn't rely much on subtle betting. It's pretty much raise-the-pot or fold. Still, like I say, on this night it worked. To be fair, the money I won came mainly from those at the table who were even worse than me and when they left, I called it a night also - up a little less than £700.