High vs. High –Low

I am playing poker for past four years but when I first started playing poker I was really bad at it but now I have developed my skills but still I am unable to match my skills with the experts on the basis of my experience I am summarizing, the impact of the skill differential of experts over good players, is more financially significant in both hold ‘em and high Omaha than in high-low Omaha. Otherwise put, the expert wins over good players more consistently at hold ‘em and high Omaha than high-low (this is certainly one reason why many medium good players like high-low). Some poker “experts” have misevaluated the great skill potential in straight high Omaha — but high Omaha is clearly more complex and in some situations has a higher overall skill factor than hold ‘em. This subject will be discussed in greater detail in Chapter 14 which compares hold ‘em and Omaha.

From the foregoing it should be clear that if you are a “medium level poker player” at Omaha high-low, as long as there are several fish in the game, you rate to make money. And if there are less good players in the Omaha game than at a typical hold ‘em table, so much the better!

Taking a pounding

But be forewarned! On a bad night, not only medium players, but even experts can take a pounding at Omaha high-low. The main reason is that at high-low, there is a much lesser predictability of results with non-lock hands; thus, you have less control. In high-low it is much harder to gauge the likelihood of losing, and it can be disastrously expensive when you are unlucky. And you win less when you win (unless you are lucky and scoop).

Even the staunchest of high-low aficionados will admit that, on a bad night, even all of their best “moves” can’t save them from the unholy bath waters. One helpful observation is that it is no amazing coincidence that most of your bad nights at high-low Omaha (everyone has some bad nights at high-low Omaha) correlate somewhat with the lack of bad players in the game.

Even if you are a die-hard high-low enthusiast, you should read about and master the straight-high concepts of seizing the initiative and driving (Chapters 9 and 10), since whenever the flop contains two or more high cards (nines through kings), you are essentially playing straight high Omaha.