Wrap, bare nut straight heads up - It's a 50¢-$1 pot-limit Omaha (PLO) game on the electronic poker tables at Excalibur in Las Vegas, and you are playing heads up.
The software at PokerStars is among the best in the online industry. Truly seamless, problem-free graphics and site architecture allow the player to concentrate on playing rather than peripheral problems that might arise at some other sites.
To continuation-bet or not to continuation-bet - Editor’s note: What follows is an edited excerpt from Jeff Hwang’s book, Advanced Pot-Limit Omaha: Small Ball and Short-Handed Play.
Big Straight Draws - Before I discuss shorthanded play in a future column, I should first write a bit about big straight draws and the top drawing-hand structures used to flop them.
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At college I played on the football team. Now this isn’t exactly a bragging right in England where football is not nearly as big as it is over in the US, but nevertheless I loved the game and was fairly good at it.
Some decisions, both game and non-game, are relatively easy to make while others are more difficult. Everyone makes bad decisions from time to time, but the key to being successful is to make as few as possible.
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Pot-limit Omaha players are getting shortchanged - A few issues ago in my column on the bankroll schedule for pot-limit Omaha, I mentioned that while a typical buy-in for no-limit hold'em might be 100 big blinds, in order to be reasonably deep in pot-limit Omaha, you should buy in for more like 150 times the big blind.
Table chat is a long-standing and accepted part of poker, both online and in live card rooms. When playing online, the amount of chatter varies greatly from table to table.
Back in the late 90’s, before he became sidetracked with writing songs about Michael Jackson, George Bush and vomit, Eminem released a catchy song entitled ‘Guilty Conscience’. It was a song about the two voices that talk to you, one ‘bad voice’ (played by Eminem) representing temptation to commit crime or do what is wrong and one ‘good voice’ (played by Dr Dre) representing logic, reason and morality.
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Categorizing starting hands by playability Editor's note: What follows are edited excerpts from Jeff Hwang's book Pot-Limit Omaha Poker: The Big Play Strategy.
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So you’ve mastered the basics. You understand the nature of the game, starting hand qualities, the importance of position, how high and low possibilities affect your pot odds, why a dry A2 is not the second coming…etc.
As I sift through the ITH forums, it seems there is a recurring theme, whereby beginning to intermediate players make play errors due to misunderstanding certain concepts. After a long time noticing this, I thought it was time to compile an explanation for some of the most commonly misunderstood concepts in poker.
Floating back at a floater Occasionally, when you bet from late position, a player who suspects a steal may try to float you from out of position by calling your bet and then betting out on the turn.
The pot-limit Omaha revolution has begun Toward the end of October, I got a call from Lou White - vice chairman, co-founder, and former CEO of PokerTek, makers of the PokerPro electronic poker table.
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It is not a comfortable thought, but every poker player might one day have to deal with the possibility of losing their entire bankroll. There are a number of ways that this might happen, but essentially it will boil down to one of the following:
Every player at some point has the experience of playing with a maniac. Nothing changes a poker game quite as much as a loose aggressive player sitting down and taking charge of the game.
Some of the most important decisions you will make during a session are made at the outset, before a single card is dealt to you. In this month’s article I am going to look at those decisions and the thought processes you should go through when making them.
For some reason, poker players love to debate the question of whether or not playing winning poker counts as gambling. Intuitively the answer is yes, but winning poker players often don’t see it that way.
The betting machine - Editor’s note: What follows is an edited excerpt from Jeff Hwang’s book, Advanced Pot-Limit Omaha: Small Ball and Short-Handed Play.
I have spent a lot of time in these columns talking about bad beats, downswings and tilt, which are all related to luck, but sometimes it pays to take a step back and look at the more fundamental question. What exactly constitutes luck in poker?
Beware the Short Stack Much has been written on the impact of stack size in no-limit hold’em, including how to play both with and against a short stack.
Anyway, something that really stood out to me was a subject that had nothing to do with actual trading: most of these rare extremely successful traders (including the ones who had families) were completely immersed in the world of the markets. A lot of them were into currencies or foreign markets and would often be in and out of bed during the middle of the night as they glued themselves to their monitors.
I am a big advocate of reviewing hands in order to improve your poker game. In fact, as internet players, it is one of the most powerful tools we have.
Across different poker games, there is one thing that can be counted on: there will be players going on tilt. One often hears hold’em players complaining about losing large pots on the river (“oh man, another suckout, I can’t believe this”).
When stacks are deep, the drawing hand has all of the power Editor's note: What follows is an edited excerpt from Jeff Hwang's recently released book Pot-Limit Omaha Poker: The Big Play Strategy.
The possibility of becoming a professional poker player is an alluring one for most players. Let’s face it, who wouldn’t want to sit at home playing poker all day?
The five biggest mistakes that average players make Editor's note: What follows is a special excerpt from Jeff Hwang's upcoming book, tentatively titled Pot-Limit Omaha Poker: Advanced Play Vol.
We all have an idea of the archetypical bad limit hold’em player or ‘fish’ as they are often called. They are very loose, very passive, chase terrible draws, don’t value bet or protect their hand enough etc.
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“Your upswing was obviously pure luck (variance) and the downswing was obviously mostly caused by terrible play... at least that's the opinion I've been reading in other threads around here.
One of the most important things to keep in mind while playing an R&A tournament is that the first hour offers a very different style of play than just about any other possible Hold ‘em table. Typically, you’ll have a fair share of opponents playing a loose/super-aggressive style (LAGs).
The bluff-raise Here are two hands that I played in heads-up post-flop confrontations against my buddy "TT" in my weekly 50¢-$1 ($100 minimum/$200 maximum) pot-limit Omaha (PLO) game on the electronic tables in the poker room at Excalibur in Las Vegas.
