Abandon Hold 'Em?

[LetYouDown]

I've been primarily a low to mid stakes NL player...occasionally Stud 8OB, very rarely Stud high. My winrate is somewhere around 9BB/100 over the last 50K hands. I have modest aspirations, typically trying to make an extra grand a month. I don't have any designs on turning pro. I play for fun and profit. I almost always play well within my means, unless a higher limit game is ridiculously beatable.

I've been learning/playing Omaha at the lower stakes SNGs and limit tables for a few weeks. At first I was absolutely terrible and couldn't shed the Hold 'Em mindset. Aces were gold. Then I did some thinking and realized the huge drawing aspect of the game, and realized I had to look at entirely differently.

So far, I've done very well at lower limits. I'm fully aware that I have an incredibly small sample size, and can make no real assumptions about my long term winrate. However, I've looked over a ton of hands that I've played. I play very very tight and nut puddle or play huge two way draws. I haven't sucked out on very many hands, I just pick my moments. I've noticed the caliber of play at the lower limits is absolutely terrible. I realize that if I sat at a higher limit PL game, I'd be in some serious trouble...but the lower limits just seem incredibly beatable. There seem to be tons of positions where I can get in a ton of bets at limit, freerolling one way or the other against some awful player who thinks TPTK/4th nut low is worthy of a showdown in a 5 person capped pot.

I guess my question is, should I spend a lot of time reading and learning Omaha 8OB and just jump ship on Hold 'Em. I'm not emotionally attached to Hold 'Em. It just seems that bad players get punished MUCH worse in Omaha and I'm able to get a lot of money in as a lock one way with half the deck giving me a scoop.

So from a purely financial/winrate standpoint...and considering I play lower limits (with no designs to move up), am I significantly better off switching to Omaha, if I'm able to grasp the game?

Unbiased opinions appreciated.

[emptyshell]

At the lower levels, yes.

At the highest skill levels, I know people than can win a lot more at NL Holdem. The reason is because, although reads are very important in high-level PLO8, they are the whole ballgame in high-level NLHE; and the ability to get good reads can differentiate great players from really good ones.

[LetYouDown]

Fair enough. I'm not going to be sitting with $2K any time soon. I'm merely talking about grinding it out at $100 and less buy-ins. The bad players at these levels seem to have absolutely no chance against players that have a clue what they're doing.

[Cooker]

At low limit PLO8 you can do very well playing weak tight and nut peddling. This strategy can certainly be improved upon, but will get plenty of money and is dead simple. At the higher limits, this won't work well, because you will need to get some value out of marginal hands since your big hands won't pay off nearly as well, but if you don't want to move up, peddle the nuts. You can probably do better than 9 BB/100 at PLO8 nut peddling alone and 20BB/100 isn't unheard of for the better players.

[LetYouDown]

At the limits I've played, it seems like it's less about playing your opponents and more about playing your cards. With that in mind, I assume multi-tabling is still quite reasonable at the lower limits? I'm sure the better players can do it at the higher limit tables. I have no problem 4+ tabling NLHE, because my VPIP is typically around 15%. I can tell I'm a TAG Omaha player already...so I'd imagine I could 4 table and most times only be playing one hand at a time.

Side note...what's a tight VPIP for an 8OB player?

[dcasper70]

VPIP of 20 - 25 seems to be standard at LIMIT O8. Not too certain about PLO8, although some very good players are in the low to mid 30's. For nut-peddling, 20-25% should work just fine.

I have yet to play PLO8, but simply based on the posts here I would suggest reading everything written by these guys:
Buzz, Wintermute, IronMan, GooperMC, and gergery.

Also spend some quality time at this wonderful site

And yeah, abandon Hold'em. You can always go back...

[Wintermute]

[ QUOTE ]

And yeah, abandon Hold'em. You can always go back...

[/ QUOTE ]

I basically abandoned HE... there are two major drawbacks as I see them, sort of related--

1) Virtually all live poker is HE these days. When I go to Vegas, I play nothing but NLHE, and I hemmorage chips pretty good now that I never play it. (Just ask emptyshell.) Not that I was a strong HE player to begin with.

2) The upper limit for earnings in HE is way higher than O8, since all the major tournaments are HE. If you're not going to be a touring pro though, this may not matter much.


Aside from that, I think internet players at middle limits will do better at O8 than HE if it suits them. But I wouldn't abandon HE completely since you'll have to play it live now and then.

[neorab]

I've abandoned hold'em for the most part. Like wintermute said, I only practice playing HE anymore because it's all that is played in the only casinos I've been to. Thankfully I'm OK at hold'em, I'm about break even playing live. It's kind of a bummer for me because I only break even and I get very little enjoyment out of hold'em.

O8 on the other hand is a blast to play, I like it alot. I stil need to find a casino in the area that plays it though.

[gergery]

[ QUOTE ]
reading everything written by these guys:
Buzz, Wintermute, IronMan, GooperMC, and gergery.


[/ QUOTE ]

JoshuaMayes has good advice.

and thanks dcasper!

[dcasper70]

oops, forgot JM...

BTW, leaving for Aruba this Thursday for 9 days, paid in full by Party O8!!!

Hold'em might have gotten me to New Jersey.... [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]