Coby Wright

Interesting comments in this thread! Was fun to read. Some folks nailed it - while others were more than willing to give a stack away, lol. Well Played!

Hey Nick, yeah it was a huge time to be away from the game. At the time I was playing mostly live - although having moderate results online. Then I moved to Tennessee and they didn't have any casinos there...

I remember when I came back to poker (after black friday) and started playing online again and thought all the "min raisers" were fish and kept 3 bet bluffing them, lol.

I laugh at how I played then with my huge raises and bad sizing. Plus I was still in the "old school" mindset that hands like ATs, AJ, AQ, KQs and similar "trouble" hands had no value and I couldn't figure out why the "fish" kept three betting me with those type of hands...

This is the third membership site  I've been a part of since returning to the game (the first was Bluefire when Phil was still there). Only been at RIO for a few days but I've already watched several of your videos and they are helping improve my MTT game. (cash game play still sucks - I still have the "old school live player" mentality at times still and it hurts my online cash play).

Thanks for the vids - look forward to the next one.

Cheers,

Coby

This is a good video Nick! I was big into poker around this time - but then took a break from the game for 3 years and when I came back I realized my "old" winning ways made me a fish, lol.

It helps to see how the game has transformed since I was "disconnected" from the sport during most of the growth and thus missed the transition.

Cheers,

Coby

Not to mention the live action is incredible for Omaha 8. In my experience anyways. :-)

Most people these days are playing O8 the wrong way. Even "good" regs have some bad habits that can easily be exploited. O8 is at heart a gambler's game, even more so than PLO high as folks often play any hand with the thought that they can "win at least half"...

Plus folks highly over-value their one way hands and put in way too much money in the pot with hands like 789T (which is the worst starting hand possible in O8 btw). I even see "winning" regs playing this way and also with small run downs like 4567 which are in reality terrible hands when lots of money goes in. It's very hard to make a nut/nut hand with these types of holdings.

People play too loose in all variants of 08 - especially chasing low draws (as mentioned above by w34znl).

If playing limit I would stick to suited A2 type hands. I prefer something like A23Kss or A24Qss. These type of hands will give you a good change to scoop and you can also value bet/semi bluff/call on high only boards. Often you'll find "good" players attacking high only boards with very marginal hands simply because the texture is not "good" for the hands that should be calling...

With that said - in Limit I think your value comes from value betting rather than trying to represent hands or push people off one way hands as folks rarely fold in limit.

However, if you are playing PLO8 or NLO8 then you can be a little bit looser in your pre-flop hand selection. I still like to stick to the same basic type of hands that I would be playing in LO8 but you can also play one way hands and marginal 2 ways hands much stronger. As mentioned above by Abu Nazir you will gain lots of equity by locking up half of the pot with a nut low (or better yet an uncounterfeitable nut low) and then pushing hard when "obvious" draws come in and also the not so obvious but scary cards like the board pairing or straightening out.

Also, you can gain lots of equity in PL/NL O8 by identifying the players who are willing to call big bets on the river with one way hands and those that are willing to fold. You'd be surprised how often someone will call you down with a bare low like 2nd or 3rd nut low (or worse) thinking they will get "at least half" and you will scoop them with a hand like A238 that has a pair and a nut low.

What hands can we go to war with? My favorite hands to get stacks in are made nut lows with flush draws/straight draws/sets/2 pair/pair + draw. Example is Ah2h3c4c on an 5h2c8h flop. Almost impossible to not get at least 3/4 of this pot if not the whole thing by the river.

Just remember - just like in PLO you always want a back up when the bets get big. It's not usually a good play to get stacks in with just a bare nut low or high only hand on a low board. Also, the same holds true in multi-way pots. It's very easy to get quartered when there is a lot of action and you have a one way only hand. But this is mostly for PL/NL O8 games as getting quartered in a limit game is normally just for a few BBs whereas in PL/NL it can be for your whole stack.

Cheers,

Coby Wright