Hi-Lo in Stud vs. Omaha

I've been thinking a lot this week about how much fun I had playing HORSE with the bloggers last Friday night at the MGM in Las Vegas. As you know I've even played $1-$2 hi-lo on stars, party or full tilt every night this week since my return the the online realm. Last night btw makes three out of four winning sessions for me at 1-2 stud hilo. I really love that game. Which got me wondering....

Why is it that I love playing stud hilo so much, but really can't stand playing Omaha hilo? One would think, if I enjoy hilo split games, then why wouldn't I enjoy Omaha hilo the same way I like stud hilo? Well, I've been thinking about it all week, and I have the answer.

In Stud, I enjoy a good hilo game because, among other things, I feel like there is a lot of opportunity to play at least through a card or two, in stark contrast to proper holdem play, say, where I tend to fold roughly 80% of my hands preflop. Sure, sure, I can get dealt something like 9JK in stud hilo and I will happily fold that hand regardless of how many bets it is to call and see 4th street. But in general, you can certainly play a hand with three low cards, and I am willing as well to see at least 4th street most of the time when I have a big pocket pair among my three starting cards. Say, for example, if I have KK4 to start in stud hilo, I will most likely be willing to at least take one more card with that hand, unless if multiple Aces are out and raising it up preflop or something like that. I will also play a hand like A29 if I think I have the proper amount of deception running at the time, and there are several other drawing-type of hands as well that I'm willing to at least call one bet with on third street. This creates a much higher level of involvement and interest than proper play at most of the other common forms of poker out there, and that in itself helps make stud hilo such a fun variation for me. I like many other more advanced aspects of hilo as well, as detailed earlier this week in the blog, but the number of playable starting hands is a major factor for a guy who is otherwise used to playing a lot of Holdem.

Since being able to go high or low in stud creates so many more options for playable starting hands, one might reason that the same would be true in Omaha games: that Omaha high allows you to start with x starting hands, so Omaha hilo should let you start with some number of starting hands that is clearly higher than x. In reality, however, Omaha's nature as a nuts type of game (meaning that it often takes the nuts or very close to it to win, especially on the low side), actually requires you to be even more selective with starting hands in Omaha hilo than you have to be in straight Omaha high. Let me give an example. If we're playing Omaha high, and I look down to find a hand like JJ88, I will be likely to stick around to see a flop. Why? Because if either an 8 or a Jack comes on the board, I am likely (obviously not definitely, with all the straights and flushes that win in Omaha, but likely nonetheless) to be in a very good position to take down a nice-sized pot. However, in Omaha hilo, playing with JJ88 preflop is a really, really bad idea. Now, you're playing for the longshot that one of the four remaining Jacks or 8s will hit the board (really, on the flop since you will likely be bet out of the pot on the flop by the straight or flush draws, or top pair players, if you don't hit your set on the flop), but the problem with hilo is that your longshot that another Jack or 8 hits the flop will still only get you half the pot even when it does hit. So suddenly, your JJ88 goes from a decent shot at winning a nice-sized pot, becomes a decent shot to win only half of a pot, and thus hands with two middle pairs like this tend to be throwaways for the most part. In fact, in Omaha hilo, I generally won't play any hand that doesn't have at least a suited Ace, along with another low card (there are exceptions of course, but still).

For example, in Omaha hilo I will play a hand like Ac2c3dQd, or probably AcAh9h4s, but I'm probably not going to play 7c8c9d10h, and I wouldn't want to pay to see a flop with a holding like TdTcJcAs either, both hands I would surely likely to see a cheap flop with in straight Omaha high. In fact, if you play Omaha hilo according to proper strategy, most high-only hands become largely unplayable preflop unless it is a very strong hand, and hopefully it contains at least one or two potential low cards as well. Playing for only half the pot is just so unprofitable unless three or four or more players are sticking through to the river, that you basically have to know that you have good odds of winning the high end in order to stick around with a bunch of high cards preflop. So, while stud hilo creates many more options for starting hands to play with, in Omaha the hilo aspect actually ends up limiting the amount of starting hands you can play, even below that which you would play in straight Omaha high. That's one of the big reasons I like hilo so much in stud games, but am really uninterested in Omaha hilo as a general rule. I'll still play Omaha 08 in HORSE or other mixed games, but in the end, if I want to sit around and fold fold fold all day, I can just play Holdem for that.

OK so tonight I am hoping to play some online, though it's unclear just now if that will happen or not. If so, come and find me on the stud hilo $1-$2 tables on pokerstars, as I'd love some company while I tool around winning $40 and $50 at a time from the fish who play there. You think online holdem players are fish? I don't know what it is -- maybe there are always a bunch of holdem players who think they can make it happen in the other poker variations as well, I don't know -- but for the most part I find in the vast majority of cases these people really don't even know the most basic strategy points, let alone the nuances and finer points of non-holdem games. I'd love to get some guys together to play limit stud hilo if anyone is interested. I could also probably be talked tonight into playing some holdem cash, but that would be lower limit than the $1-$2 I play in stud hilo since the holdem would be no-limit, and since I seem to like getting stacked regularly whenever I play cash nlh online.