bluandbrneyes

"She's got everything I need. Takes the steering wheel when I'm seeing double. Pays my ticket when I speed"

I originally was going ot post about the preflop raising maniacs in omaha and started thinking on how they got there and why, hence a two part post. In holdem playing "preflop" is more so than Omaha. Say you have pocket aces in holdem preflop. You have the nuts. You can raise, you can slow play (not advisable). You can bet every street and you can win without improving your hand. Not so for Omaha. Omaha hands are made post flop, even a made hand on the flop may not hold up alot of times. I recently folded my flopped straight to heavy action. This was a first for me and actually shows an improvement in my game.

Naked aces in omaha is a speculative hand (without help that is). In Omaha we do have Premium and speculative hands like holdem but not usually worthy of a raise preflop. I do get not raising preflop in omaha as missing the flop happens quite alot. You have a premium hand like JT98 or KKOQ double suited and the flop comes 246 all diamonds and you have black cards. 70% of the time you raise preflop in Omaha you lose on the flop and must fold as you dont stand a chance. Raisers in Omaha are building pots for the other players. I do get not becoming predictable in your raises, so raising occaisionally with different types of hands is the way to go. So many times its so obvious as bad player almost always raise with naked aces or naked kings, so basically if you flop a shitty two pair just check and call and you will take down a nice pot if its heads up.

Remember that girl I told you about, well we become pretty friendly and I thought I would help her out. She's never read an Omaha book in her life. She's a table dealer at the Aria dealing black jack, other table games, roulette (not poker). She plays Omaha like holdem. A great hand for her is like AK56, as she looks at this as two hands and a way to win with either her high cards or her low cards. Most holdem players look at their 4 cards this way instead of the correct way which would be all 4 cards working together. Her hand for instance, the K5 have nothing in common as with her ace six. Shes strictly playing AK or 56. Where as a hand like A876 with suited ace has all the cards working together as in JT98 too.

Her and I have discussed this along with starting hands. In the last two days she has lost over 600 dollars and may not be able to play anymore. She is not capable of playing good starting hands, she just wants to gamble (please note that this girl never ever raises preflop). So now we have two types of players, gamblers and poker players. I consider myself a poker player and not a gambler. I would consider anyone a gambler who consistenly plays and/or raises mostly with speculative hands instead of looking to play with an edge via premium hands over speculative hands. I think you get my point. Next post, part 2 will be about the preflop raise capping maniacs.