[benfranklin]

[ QUOTE ]
Hi Ben -

[ QUOTE ]
One of the commandments of O8 is thou shall only play hands with 4 coordinated cards.

[/ QUOTE ]

No. No. No.

Indeed, many hands with four coordinated cards have poor prospects in a full game of Omaha-8.

For example, 7[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]-8[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]-9[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]-T[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] is a poor starting hand in Omaha-8, despite the four coordinated cards.

[/ QUOTE ]

I was talking about the general guidelines for hand selection put forth by the respected writers, particularly for beginners. I wasn't saying that this is carved in stone. As you get more experience, you play more and more according to the situation. Another "commandment" (Kreiger and others) is to generally not play 7's, 8's, and 9's. My point was simply that whatever your starting hand standards, you can loosen them a bit in an unraised pot in the small blind, because you are getting better pot odds and it is unlikely that the big blind will raise.

[ QUOTE ]
But A[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]-2[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]-3[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]-K[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] is a rather nice starting hand in Omaha-8, despite the lack of four coordinated cards.

[/ QUOTE ]

I would consider this a coordinated hand, and would play it with few exceptions. The king might look like a dangler at first glance, but it works with the ace for a high draw, so it is not completely isolated from the rest of the hand.