Is o8 a limpers game?

[Mr_J]

How about raising to isolate a poor opponent...

Or maybe to isolate the blinds who likely have a worse hands and have to play out of position.

[gergery]

Let’s clear a few things up.

First off, no one argued “Raise AA4 because you want to eliminate opponents”. This thread got started because Ribbo took one statement from I made on the o8poker.com site, condensed it down out of context to an inaccurate simplification, and then argue that the thinking behind it was wrong.

Second, if you read my post at o8poker on preflop raising, you will see that the primary point I communicate is that your decision to preflop raise/not raise is first and foremost tied to what objective you want to accomplish. Then I note that with AA4 you WANT CALLERS and will make money. I merely note that in certain circumstances you can MAKE EVEN MORE MONEY if everyone folds. Or you can have hand that plays well vs. a big field, BUT EVEN BETTER against a small field. Specifically, I mention tight tables where you might win the blinds outright. I’d add that raising with AA4 can also get hands like A3 or 23 to fold when you want them folding. Note that I am not speaking of loose low limit tables.

Third, Ribbo and Mendacious both seem to think that simply because your hand has an edge over another hand in twodimes, then that means you should raise. This is false for reasons that Buzz pointed out in his excellent Dog-Seagull post. Namely, you scare people away and won’t get paid off on later streets, and moreover, the value of position can more than negate a relatively small preflop edge. There are several different styles that can be successful in O8, but the passive one can have much greater success here than just about any other poker game I’ve seen.

--Greg

[Mendacious]

I don't think I advocated predictably raising with every statistical edge. Obviously there is more to it. My point is that it is that L08 does not have to be a limpers game. It makes sense in MANY MANY situations to raise pre-flop for value, even if your edge is nowhere near the 3-1 or 4-1 edges you can get in holdem.

[k_squared]

the question is why should you raise a hand with a marginal advantage if that puts you in a position to not have a more significant advantage to press later? How much value do you gain from making the raise now, and how much do you lose later? Does raising define your hand in omaha? Would you raise a hand that didn't have a low draw? If the answer is no then it seems you are giving away a lot of information about your hand pre-flop information that can easily be used to dominate you based on the flop conditions.

What hands do you advocate raising with?

Furthermore, I am not suggesting that raising is something that should never be done. Rather, I believe that raising is much more positional and situational than in hold'em. I don't see what the point of defining your hand to a field of players is by raising your AA23ss into 4 limpers. With 3 low cards you only have a 40% chance of making a low pre-flop. Why invest that raise pre-flop, and declare your strength when you have a field of limpers? Why not just let the flop come and if it gives you a strong hand or draw pump the pot at that point?

How much value do you actually derive from raising AA23ss pre-flop? How often will that hand pay off? How much of an advantage does it have over K-Q-J-10ss of different suits? How much advantage does it have against a random hand? How does the hands value change when in a multi-way pot? I imagine that the more multi-way it is the more chance the low gets quartered and the high is won by someone else.

The flop has a huge impact on this game. Your pre-flop equity is significantly less than in hold'em in part because of the fact that it is a high-low game and in part because you have more cards from which to make a hand. With a reduced amount of equity the question of whether or not to raise becomes one that is largely dependent upon meta-game questions of how opponents respond, position, and what your image is. The reason you won't see people open raising with any hand they play, which would be a strategy employed by many winning TAG hold'em players, is that they don't have the same pre-flop edge, and so put the money in when they have a larger edge.

Ribbo - are you telling me that AA23ss typically wins pots, as in more than 50% of the time? I can tell you AA wins pots significantly more than 50% of the time. I was not saying that AA23ss is not a good hand, what I was saying is that when you compare it to other starting hands the difference in strength is significantly less than AA to anyother hold'em starting hand.

Furthermore, you should try to be more respectful of people posting. It is okay to disagree but you did it in a very rude way. At no point did I even suggest aa23 is unprofitable as you seem to imply. Perhaps you should read more carefully. FWIW I guess it would be "possible for me to spout more meaningless drivel than that" seeing as your reply clearly fits into that category. The only thing of value you said was that AA23 was a winning hand... which was not even a contended point. If you truly think AA23ss has a larger edge over other hands than AA then explain why rather than writing the sort of reply that tends to drive intelligent and curious people off of these boards rather than engaging them in the task of deepening our understanding of poker.

k_squared

[Ribbo]

You're not interested in winning pots, you're interested in winning money, the two things are fundamentally exclusive of each other. Bad Omaha players win a lot more pots than good ones. AA23 wins MONEY. You should raise ANY edge you have on any street, this is how you win money, this is not how you win pots, but you don't care about winning pots.
Now you ask "why declare your strength". Well sure, if you're a complete rock you're going to give your hand away. But good players raise a wide variety of profitable preflop hands. A345 falls into this range, and if the flop comes AK5 and people want to believe I have AA, then that's just great with me. Your preflop selection of hands is the single contributing factor in limit O8 to whether or not you will be a successful player.
If you think a small edge is "meaningless" I suggest to you to take a walk down Las Vegas strip. All those buildings were built on a 3% edge at roulette or craps etc.

[FeliciaLee]

Yes, exactly. A4 was just one example, mostly copied from Ray's book.

[pipes]

[ QUOTE ]
Furthermore, you should try to be more respectful of people posting. It is okay to disagree but you did it in a very rude way. At no point did I even suggest aa23 is unprofitable as you seem to imply. Perhaps you should read more carefully.

[/ QUOTE ]

Sure Ribbo comes off as a little rude, but what's most important is that he is giving good advice here. I'll take good advice from an azz anyday rather than bad advice from a super polite guy.

But I reread your post and it does seem that you suggest that raising AA23ds preflop is a bad idea as you still need to hit the flop to win. To win the most money possible you must raise good hands, especially in late position with many loose limpers.

[cjs]

And Ribbo's cute too!

[MortalWombat]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm not sure why everyone decided to pile on him here for his style of writing. He posted a different opinion, I don't think it was a personal attack.

[/ QUOTE ]
Three out of the five sentences in his reply where the following:

1. Shame that what he writes is complete junk.
2. Jesus, that's just terrible advice.
3. Only read it if you want to be utterly confounded by pointless advice.

Now, I am far from an expert on Omaha, and Ribbo's opinions may very well be correct. I don't know, since I am still learning.

But there's an old saying that goes something like "you can catch more flies with honey than by stepping on their neck and spitting in their face." Or something like that.

[yimyammer]

Great reply Buzz.

Your analogies cracked me up. I kept thinking of the movie Swingers when Vince Vaughan was referring to the girls they was hitting on as bunny rabbits and his buddy as the tiger with big claws