Omaha vs. Hold 'em

[morgant]

So i have been playing hold em with a passion for about 8 months, reading books, picking through this site, playing analyzing and trying to improve my game...could i be overanalyzing my play???? Along the way i have played omaha and O/8 to increase my poker depth and add games to my aresenal....I learned the basic rules and just played trial by fire without any studying of theory. When i am comparing my play in the two games i am talking about tournament play for the most part cause i figured that to be the cheapest most effective way to learn Omaha. Back to my point. What skills are more important in each game and how do they differ. I found myself playing Omaha 1/10 of the time as Hold'em but my tournament results were astoundingly better in Omaha. Is the game less popular and understood thereby enabling me to get to a significantly higher proportion of final tables? Or are there innate abilities that can make one a better player in Omaha vs. other Poker games....also since my results have been so much better in Omaha i should pursue that game with more energy but i still find myself playing hold em, a game where i have a broader depth of knowledge. So after a long winded post i am asking about game selection, traits that make one better in different games, and can one get too caught up in reading and analyzing to the point they are spinning in circles??? thanks for any replies
-morg

[Copernicus]

I'm a little bit surprised you have better results in O8 tourneys than HE, unless you play too loose in HE or your samples are too small. I don't play much O8 but it seems that the two key aspects to strategy are playing tight, and only drawing to the nuts. Since these are also key tournament strategies, a tournament setting is less of a change for an experienced ring O8 player than it is for a ring HE player, and the competition should be better as a result. The variance would seem higher in O8 tourneys as well, even though it is lower in O8 ring games. The reason I say that is while the split pots reduce variance in ring games where stacks are "infinite", a scoop or two builds a dominant stack in a tourney very quickly. Which brings you to the donts of O8 strategy...don't get scooped and don't get quartered.

[GoSox]

I've started playing the party sng's hi/lo and have had similar results. I'm almost embaressed to admit that the first time I played I didn't know the rules for the low and still took first. I find that I am in the money much more than playing in the NL/PL texas games.

I am finding that being tight aggressive is a much bigger advantage in Omaha since many more players are loose passive than in HE. I also find that it is easier to get a solid low hand, and when you bet aggressively everyone assumes you're going for high and will start to fold. I am also seeing players who have the nuts low and just call instead of raising.

I don't have enough games yet to be too conclusive, but am going to start playing the Omaha ring games as well to see if my "luck" works there also.

[Copernicus]

Checking the nut low may be a response to fear of getting quartered. If the betting indicates that there is another nut low out with greater than 2/3 probability then betting more is wrong. Its especially risky when the low cards on board dont include the A, since loose players will often see the flop with any 2 cards to a wheel that include an A in a passive table.

[GoSox]

Thanks Copernicus, good point, I guess I was just happy to win and didn't think through it. Last night I flopped the nut straight in a ring game, 4 checks to me, I check and the button checks. Turns doesn't matter and everyone starts betting again and just assume there is no flush out there. I called two raises on the turn, and on the river raised to make the third and people still call or raise.

I am sure there are some great Omaha players, but there sure seems to be a lot of fish. They just keep calling and calling till suddenly you panic and double check your hand to see if you really read it right. And then you raise again.

[morgant]

although i have not played enough of either game to be make a clear decision but my omaha results are so much better despite my lack of knowledge. played about 15 online multi table tourn. this week at UB. tournaments were no limit, limit, and pot limit for both games, except nl omaha(do they offer that? never heard of it? if not how come?) 5 omaha, 3 final table, 1 first place...10 holdem, no final tables, 1 money
finish.....
so what makes a better hold em player vs. a better omaha player,

just read this....a quick deduction, i suck at hold'em and am getting beginners luck at omaha?

[crockpot]

tournament play is so different from ring game play that you will not learn a whole lot by playing them, even though it will be cheap.

why not try out a .01/.02 table on UB or stars? those are a lot looser than the tables at higher limits, but they are much more realistic than tournaments (and in omaha, your strategy should be virtually the same whether there are five or eight people per flop.)

as for a comparison of the games in general, i think omaha/8 is definitely the easiest game for beginners to make money at, since all it requires is a little knowledge of how to play and a lot of discipline. far fewer unique situations come up in o/8 than in hold 'em (you'll notice that it is not very often when a limit o/8 hand is posted in these forums), and there are fewer close decisions.

as you become an expert you are probably better off playing stud or hold 'em, because the gap between expert o/8 play and merely good play is very small in loose games.