[Buzz]

Felicia -

Hello again! [ QUOTE ]
So in the past week, I've slowly started coming around. Dyslexia-like symptoms seem to be fading. My passion for poker seems to be slowly returning. While I'm not ready to make a statement that "I'm back," I do think that my mental ability to play decent, rockish, nutpeddling poker might return,

[/ QUOTE ] I hope you continue to improve.

I played a session last week at Morango casino, which is just past Banning on the way to Palm Springs (CA). I had driven out there to visit an old friend for a few days and he wanted to play some poker. I thought he might have some fun playing Omaha-8 and we practiced for several hours, each playing five hands. Rather than telling him what hands to play, I showed him my hands as I folded them, explaining briefly why I had folded each of them. He caught on quickly and soon was playing like a "nutpeddling" rock.

It had not been my goal to teach him to play like a rock, but once he got to that stage, I thought it was safe to go into a casino with him. He's rich so that the money won or lost in a low-limit game would be immaterial, but somehow I still felt responsible. I know that it's pleasing to win but not usually much fun to lose and I wanted him to have a good time.

At any rate, we sat down in the game and the dealer gave us each five cards instead of the usual four. I had shown my friend how to play four-card Omaha-8, and that is what we had practiced. Oops. (I had never before played five-card Omaha-8 myself).

One important difference between the four-card and five-card games, I think, is that you're roughly one and a half times more likely to get dealt A2XYZ in a five handed game than you are to be dealt A2XY in a four handed game - as are all your opponents. Thus where you might expect A3XY to run into A2XY a bit less than half the time in an eight handed four-card game, A3XYZ will roughly run into A2XYZ roughly three times out of four in an eight handed five-card game. (Something like that).

I don't think one should exacly play any tighter in terms of the percentage of hands played, but you get dealt hands such that if you picked the best four out of the five cards, you'd have a good four-card hand more often in the five-card game than in the four-card game.

Seems sensible to play the better hands when you're dealt them, but get out of the way more often when you're not dealt them. That's just my first impression and shouldn't be taken as gospel.

I reflected that my friend had come away from our practice session playing actually a bit too tightly for a four-card Omaha-8 game, but he might be playing about right for the five-card game. And indeed things worked out fine with my friend having a good time.

I hope you have a good time playing poker too. Welcome back!

Buzz