[Big Dave D]

Ok, as it was the Christmas season I treated myself to a triumvirate of Hilo terror – the Cloutier book, the new Cappelletti and the Tenner/Krieger collaboration. The reason for this was that I felt that my game had got a little stale and any new ideas, even only one per book would be welcome (disclaimer: I only play online in the Mid-Large Omaha games on Party/Stars.)

The Cloutier book was surprisingly harmless. The actual limit hilo sections are very short, but there was no glaringly bad advice and if I was a complete newbie then this would have been an okay, if a trifle expensive, intro to the game.

Unfortunately I have to report that although the volume of the Capelletti book was high, in that the whole book was dedicated to limit hilo, I felt that the book was truly terrible. The structure of the book was poor, with no real progression of ideas and it gave me the suspicion that it was cobbled together from bastardized versions of his articles. He had many hand examples but most of these were contrived and often he would describe the hand, then say at the end that maybe playing it wasn't such a good idea after all. My favourite of this ilk was a hand where he described “checking, intending to pass to any bet” then when there was a bet and some callers he “decides to take one off”! Worse yet,some of his advice, imho, was plain wrong. For example, he advocates betting into a large, loose field with just a nut low draw, no high. He also suggests playing mixed bag hands and even raising with them for deception purposes, against a field which he has predefined as loose anyway. I can honestly state that I got not one useful idea out of the whole book.

Thankfully, the Tenner book was a completely different kettle of fish and was absolutely excellent. Well structured, no glaring errors, great hand selection advice and tons of “how to“ detail. There was also some useful sections on the psychology of the game and tilt, which is insidious and a major danger in Omaha and nice to see covered off. The is probably the definitive guide to loose style Omaha.

Gl

Dave