Tell?

[mcguw]

When playing Omaha live, I will often arrange my hole cards in a manner to help organize my board reading. I do this for every hand. Is this a mistake?

[Wintermute]

Do you arrange them face up on the table? That would be a tell.

[FeliciaLee]

You should be memorizing your cards and not looking back. You should know what you have.

I forgot who said, "You can tell how good an Omaha player is by how many times he has to look back at his hole cards during the hand."

If you have to look back, you will get outplayed at the higher limits. Memorize them, then don't look again.

Felicia [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Quite Possibly.

Growing up I used to play a game with my Grandmother we called "Ace is wild". In short, I knew my Grandmother held all her "wild cards" on the left of the hand and her junk cards on the right of her hand. I knew once she started moving cards from the left, inside other cards she was close to going out. Similiarly, when she stopped discarding cards from the immediate right of her hand, all cards were working and she was also close to going out. If she was close to going out and I wasn't, I'd start discarding my high cards which were counted against me at the end of the hand if i didn't win. This little tell got me quite a few bowls of Ice Cream [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Back to Omaha, I don't know what you do but chances are good if you do it every hand people may pick up on something. Maybe simple like "He's going for high, or he's going for low". So I would defintitely try to work past it before you move off the lowest stakes.

What stakes are you playing? I highly doubt that at low/mid-level stakes anyone is looking for a tell. They are too busy looking at their own cards and trying to figure out whether they should call a pfr with 2-4-J-K off.

Just don't count out straights on your fingers.



I've seen in before in a b&m. It's hilarious.

[Buzz]

[ QUOTE ]
When playing Omaha live, I will often arrange my hole cards in a manner to help organize my board reading. I do this for every hand. Is this a mistake?

[/ QUOTE ]

McGuw - There's an old bridge saying: "One peek is worth two finesses."

Assuming you only sort once, rather than after the flop, then again after the turn or river, no one could probably determine what cards you held or even which way you were going (high, low, or both) by watching the way you sort the cards in your hand.

But if you lift your cards off the table and are not guarding carefully to make certain you don't inadvertently flash your cards while you arrage them, maybe in the act of moving a card, or just holding them high enough off the table to be able to move them around, you enable an opponent to see your hand, or even a card in your hand.

You're not unique in arranging the cards in your hand. I've sat next to a card arrangers. Often they inadvertently flash some or all of their cards.

Buzz

[DyessMan89]

[ QUOTE ]
Do you arrange them face up on the table? That would be a tell.

[/ QUOTE ]

nh

[TheWorstPlayer]

Exactly. You should play Omaha just like you play Holdem in respect to looking at your cards. Peak at the corner while covering them, memorize them, protect them. How hard is it to remember 4 cards, dude?

[mcguw]

Thanks everyone for your replies. I play the lowest stakes I can find, either 3-6 or 4-8. I'm new to Omaha and Omaha H/L, but have done okay so far. Early on I made some fairly embarrassing mistakes misreading the board, but have gotten much better (No mistakes in months). I know I should memorize my cards, but for whatever reason I often misassociate suits with numbers. I've found that by placing my cards in numerical order, I can check cards quickly to make sure that I have what I think I have. I hope that no one else is able to see my cards when I check them, but that is something I should think about. Anyone have any good memory tricks?