Is there any consensus for just how tight?

[chaos]

A big improvement will result from not playing many high hands when the pot will be split with a low. When you can only win half the pot, it is often correct to fold your straight and flush draws.

You may also be over-valuing hands like two pair, trips, and straights. They are not the money makers they are in hold'em or stud. Two pair and trips often need to improve to a full house to win because low hands back into straights and flushes. Also all full houses are not created equal. Making a non-nut full house can be costly. That is why hands like bottom two pair or bottom set should usuually be folded in a multiway pot.

[toots]

Well, I generally drop any high only hand that isn't the instant nuts on the flop when two or more low cards show up. If there's only one low card, and I hit my suit or a good rainbow chance to broadway, I'll hang in, but these are the hands I have the easiest time getting rid of.

Where I get in trouble with high hands is when my low draw gets counterfeited, but I have a good but not great high hand and I chase it anyway.

My problems with two pairs is that I undervalue them. Unlike Hold 'Em, I just don't see it when I have two pair, or when it's vaguely possible that two pair would hold up, and I've often mucked the best high hand as a result. I'm not sure if I'm really leaking money here, because I only tend to notice when I muck a good two pair, but there was that painful experience the other night at the casino when I checked down the river and mucked a good high hand because it was only two pair and I didn't notice.

Trips are my danger hand because I keep chasing the boat and either miss or get the wrong side of the boat.

Straights, I drop whenever the board three flushes or pairs, unless I can just check it down. I'm just thinkin' that maybe I should clean up my play when the board's got two to a flush: raise more if I think I can induce the others to fold, or maybe just consider check/fold if there are six others check/calling.

Which means that I pretty much don't know how to play for the high hand. I shoot for the nut flush when my suit hits, and if I have top trips, I'll chase for a full house, but otherwise I just make a mess of it.

With the result that I'm often just paying the most attention to my low draw, which violates at least two fundamental strategies of O/8.

And here's the part that really confuses the crap out of me: Is the guy betting against me betting because he's made (or has a good draw to) the high or low. If he looks like a good player, I guess it's a bit easier: he's scooping.

I can't tell you how many times I've mucked a good draw on the turn because a couple people go to war, only to find out that I'd have made my draw on the river for the uncontested half of the pot.

Or maybe I just shouldn't be playing for half the pot.

Well, it took me about 15,000 hands of Hold 'Em before I didn't have my head completely up my butt (yeah, I'm a slow learner), and part of that issue was that the extreme fishiness of the other players was masking the leaks in my game.

So, even though I'm money ahead at all the limits of O/8 I've played, I think it's probably true that the fishiness is masking my leaks. I think maybe I'll have to play another 10,000 hands before I can really get my head out of my butt in this game.