[Buzz]

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What should one expect in terms of worse case negative runs

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Soma - Could be your whole lifetime. But it probably won't. It's a bit like flipping a coin. Should come up heads about half the time, but it might come up tails for while.

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I've gone through some long periods where every A2 sees a 2 on the flop,

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Actually getting immediately counterfeited on the flop does not seem so bad to me. What I really hate is getting counterfeited on the river!

But I know how you feel. When you hold A2KK, for example, you should expect to see a deuce on the flop 2025/17296, or only about one time out of eight or nine. So when it happens two or three times in a row, as it sometimes will, you can't feel very good about it.

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every double suited hand flops the wrong color

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When you have two clubs and two spades, there are 26 red cards and only 22 black cards from which to make the flop.

26choose3 = 2600 ways to get an all red flop.
22choose3 = 1540 ways to get an all black flop.
(They're both out of 17296 possible flops).

The grim reality when you hold four black cards is an all red flop is almost twice as likely as an all black flop (but the flop will be mixed black and red about three times out of four).

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.....even with good play (table selection, hand selection, playing to the nuts).....it would help to have an idea of what Omaha/8 can be like during dry spells in terms of big blinds lost.

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If you play very tightly, only playing premium hands, and not contesting possible blind steal attempts by opponents, even in a game with very little pre-flop raising, your blind will get raised almost every time you post. And you might wait hours before getting a reward. To make it worse, when you get past playing against mostly beginners, your opponents will be very wary when you do enter the action if you're playing tighter than the norm.

It's not bad advice for a beginner to play very tightly while watching the game and learning - but when you get past the beginner stage and when you graduate from playing other beginners, you have to loosen up a bit to do optimally well.

You obviously risk more when you loosen up - and if you have a run of bad luck, losing your entire stake won't take long. Loosening up takes good judgement.

Tight is good, but too tight is not. Especially once you get past playing against mostly begninners, the tightest player at the table is usually not the best player at the table.

To keep the game interesting you need an occasional reward.

Slot machine designers give you back a little bit once in a while. Doesn't really amount to much, but if the machine is properly designed, the small reward is enough to keep a slot machine player interested.

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I've gone through some long periods...

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If so, you're not exactly a beginner. The "be the tightest player at the table" advice for beginners may not apply any more. There's more to the game than mostly just playing hands with an ace plus a deuce. But that doesn't mean you should be seeing the flop with dogs like
2[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img], 2[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img], 9[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img], J[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img], or 2[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img], 8[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img], 9[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img], K[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]! You still need to exercise good judgement!

Be fore-warned that every time you loosen up your game a bit, you'll probably undergo a losing period while you're adjusting to your new style.

Whatever.

"table selection" is probably the key to success. Find a group of opponents you can beat and then have at them.

Just my opinion.

Buzz