From Texas to Omaha

I grew up playing 5 card draw, but then went off to college and a career and didn't play for years. In the last few years my friends got me interested in Texas Hold'em, which I learned to play well enough to win consistently. Before yesterday, I had never played Omaha and had only a vague idea of how to play. The rest of this post will show why one basic poker concept is so important, and how they apply to most any form of poker.

Early Thanksgiving morning, I was just waking up and decided to play a bit of poker to wake up. There is always a game available online, so I pulled up my laptop and logged into Full Tilt. A tournament caught my eye: A freeroll (free to play) tournament with a $100 prize pool. 2700 people can play for free and the top 9 split the prize money. Groggy from just waking up, I figured a free tournament was just the right thing for me. There was a catch though: After signing up, I noticed the tournament was for Omaha Hold'em (did I mention I was groggy? :-)

With 25 minutes to go before he start, I googled the rules and basic strategy. Since I had only a short time to prepare, and had never played before, I only played the very best starting hands.

And I kept rising in the standings.

Many hands came along that I could not decide whether or not to play.

And I kept rising in the standings.

Some hands came along that were clearly excellent hands. I played them very aggressively.

And I kept rising in the standings.

A few hours into the tournament, only 81 of the original 2700 players were still in the tournament.

And I had the chip lead!

Ignorance of all but the most basic points of strategy forced me to play very tightly, and very aggressively. It's certainly not the most fun way to play, after all I watched many hands play out without me. But it was a very effective way to play.

This experience reinforced for me the importance of one of the most important rules of winning poker: Play only the very best hands, and take no prisoners when you do.

The tournament encouraged me to experiment with other forms of poker. Even if I do play mostly my traditional Texas variety, playing other games gives insight into poker that you would not otherwise gain. In Omaha, you get four cards in your pocket and must play the board with exactly two of those cards. Playing Omaha, you basically see every flop with the equivalent of six different pocket pairs each hand (since there are six ways to combine four cards). That gives great insight into how different pocket pairs can play the same flop.

Why do four cards make six pockets?

Call the cards A, B, C and D. The ways you can combine them are:
AB, AC, AD, BC, BD, and CD.

So how well did I place in the tournament? I came in 30th. However, I'll never know how well I could have done. Thanksgiving dinner was served when the tournament was down to 30 players, so I withdrew. After all, family is more important than poker. Right?