Some time ago I tried to sign up for PokerStars.com but could not because I'm a US resident. Recently they sent out a free $5 credit to people who signed up but never funded their accounts, so I decided to use the credit to try my hand at Omaha.
In preparation I purchased Ken Warren's great book Winner's Guide to Omaha Poker
. It provides all of the basic strategy you need to blow away low-limit competition. To put that to the test, I decided to take the $5 and hit the $0.01/$0.02 pot limit Omaha High/Low table.So far I sat down to 5 play sessions with only $2 of my bankroll. All of the sessions were winning sessions, and my total is now up over $17.
In Texas Hold'em, starting card selection is important but there's much more to the game than that. In Omaha, the game is structurally different - starting card selection accounts for 90% of winning, while knowing when to bet hard or fold after the flop makes up most of the remaining 10%. Bluffing is almost impossible, so it's all about knowing what the best possible hand is for a given board and either having (or drawing) to it, or folding.
Best of all (if you're in it for the money), most Omaha players are in the game because they CAN play quite a few hands. Since Winner's Guide to Omaha Poker
teaches you which hands you SHOULD play, you will have quite a large winning expectation each hand you play.If you're looking for a straight forward game with little finesse and great winning potentials, Omaha is for you.
