Full Steam Ahead

I think I figured out why I have never been able to make it big as a PL Omaha cash game player; it’s because I steam. And I don’t mean that I play bad when things aren’t going my way. I mean that when people suck out on me, I become a 15 ton steaming locomotive on a one-way path to destruction.

I guess one of the reasons for this is that it’s so easy to make a hand in Omaha. This lets me get away with a fair amount of aggressiveness. Even when I run into monster hands on the early betting streets, I am often getting the proper price to call my opponent’s bet. It’s just too easy to suck out in this game.

One of the reasons that this has such a diminishing effect on my profits is not so much that I am giving away all of my chips by making bad calls with weak hands. It’s because bluffing is such a huge part of this game and I lose the ability to pull off “The big bluff”. This takes away a huge edge that I would normally have over my opponents.

In the game of Omaha, there are so many scare cards that can fall on the board that a player in position will often have the opportunity to bluff a player who flopped a premium hand. When you start to steam and the table is aware of this, you begin to lose your ability to bluff in these big pots. To make matters worse… players who are steaming will usually try to bluff in these spots anyway, thus finding out the hard way that they have lost their ability to outplay their opponents.

Even when I am steaming really bad I am just below being a break-even PL Omaha player. I’m able to off-set most of the negative effects of steaming aggressively by making good decisions on the later streets. It is only a small mistake to get caught bluffing before the flop or on the flop. It’s not until the big bets start to go into the pot that players need to be concerned.

When the cards start to fall your way, you can usually exploit your opponent’s perception of you and get them to put a lot of chips in with a second best hand…one that they might have folded to most other players at the table.

Related posts:

1. Switching Gears
2. Sun Tzu and the Art of Poker
3. Omaha Hi/Low
4. My SNG Play
5. Controlling the Pot Size From Early Position

Posted by admin on November 5th, 2008
Categories: Poker Strategy