Do bad starting hands do well short term or am I on tilt?

[se2schul]

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Realize that you actually deserve a cold run of cards since things are just averaging out.

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Though this might be a nice mental trick for you I wouldn't encourage others to think this way. This can lead to belief in things like heaters and being "due." You don't deserve a cold run of cards because you ran good for a while. This is just wrong as I understand it.

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Every winning player is due for a cold streak just because of the nature of variance.

Here is a quote from one of the winningest tournament players around:

"Everybody will eventually run worse than they thought was possible. The difference between a winner and a loser is that the latter thinks they do not deserve it."

Link

[Buzz]

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I think that most forms of poker are streakier than most people realize. Variance plays a huge roll. Even if you could play at the same table with the same opponents for a very long time, you will have streaks when you run red hot and streaks when you're really cold.

If these streaks weren't around, losing players would actually realize that they suck and there would only be sharks at the tables.

If you are running cold, just stay positive and play through it. Realize that you actually deserve a cold run of cards since things are just averaging out. Review hand histories and ensure that you haven't developped bad habits that are causing you to leak chips. Don't let a cold streak slowly transform you into a losing player.

Good luck, stay positive and work through this streak.

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se2schul - Seems like good advice stemming from a decent understanding of “streaks.”

Just my opinion.

Buzz

In O8B, there are a lot of hands, and i mean a lot, that are playable PF that people say arent. IMO, your play on the flop is what determines how many hands you can play PF. If you play the flop and turn exceptionally well, your implied odds are great, which compensates for playing hands like KQ24 or JJ57,crap like that....

Ted Forrest once spent an entire month playing every single hand dealt to him PF in O8B, and made a profit doing so.

The point is, if you can play the flop like an expert, you can play a lot of [censored] hands in this game....

[Buzz]

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In O8B, there are a lot of hands, and i mean a lot, that are playable PF that people say arent.

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TxRedMan - Who is (are) “people”?

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IMO, your play on the flop is what determines how many hands you can play PF.

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I’d say there are also some other factors involved - mainly how your opponents play on each betting round.

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If you play the flop and turn exceptionally well, your implied odds are great, which compensates for playing hands like KQ24 or JJ57,crap like that....

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I wish you’d specify suitedness. K[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img], Q[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img], 2[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img], 4[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] seems playable to me, not “crap” at all.
K[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img], Q[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img], 2[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img], 4[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] seems marginal to me - playable on the button in a loose/passive game.
K[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img], Q[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img], 2[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img], 4[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] seems a poor hand to me, but in a game where seven or eight players regularly saw the flop and then regularly chased all the way to the river, regardless of how well their hands fit the flop, would become playable for me.

I have all the 57JJ hands rated as poor bets, regardless of suitedness, but I like 57JJd better than 24QKn.

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Ted Forrest once spent an entire month playing every single hand dealt to him PF in O8B, and made a profit doing so.

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But he didn’t necessarily make a profit on every single poor starting hand dealt to him. I imagine he probably fared better with the better starting hands than with the poorer starting hands.

And since he probably didn’t need to play as many starting hands as he was playing, he probably was not playing optimally.

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The point is, if you can play the flop like an expert, you can play a lot of [censored] hands in this game....

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I think experts play their opponents.

Just my opinion.

Buzz

[chaos]

I doubt Ted Forrest was playing every hand in a loose, passive, low-limit Omaha/8 game. At the higher limits the game plays much differently. There is usually a raise or a reraise PF, few people see the flop, and it is usually heads up or three-handed after the flop.

[Buzz]

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Is it the nature of Omaha Hi/Low that really bad starting hands can do exteremly well for a short peroid of time or am I just being stupid?

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Steamboatin - What do you mean by really bad starting hands?

Just as some bets at a craps table are less favorable to a craps player than other bets, some starting hands are less favorable to an Omaha-8 player than others.

Casinos make money on craps by arranging payoffs for various bets so that the odds are favorable to the casino. A player might beat the odds in a given playing session, but over the long haul, and with many players, the slight casino edge proves profitable to the casinos.

Craps players obviously have a better chance of being successful if they choose bets that are less favorable to the casino.

A goal of many (maybe most) poker players is to make money playing poker. There seem different ways to accomplish this feat.

One way is to find a game with players who make more mistakes than you do, so that even if now and then you make a mistake and give some money away, you’ll probably still end up a winner at the end of the session because your opponents will give more money away than you will.

Another way seems to be to play when the odds are on your side and fold when they aren’t.

But before the flop, how do you know when you will have favorable odds and when you won’t?

Seems to me that it depends (1) partly on the cards you hold, (2) partly on the cards your opponents hold, (3) partly on the cards on the flop, turn and river, (4) partly on how your opponents play, and (5) partly on how you play yourself.

Maybe I’ve left out something. But at any rate, it seems very clear to me that the cards you hold yourself are only part of the picture.

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I am playing just under 20% of my hands and I am beginning to eat away the red ink from PTO stats.

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The number of starting hands you presently play seems to me reasonable for you to play at this time. What does that have to do with “really bad starting hands”?

Are you sure you’re playing the 20% of hands dealt to you that is the top 20%?

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The red ink doesn't bother me, much because I still have a lot to learn and it costs money to learn.

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Seems a good attitude, if you really believe it. But then why this post? Just venting because you took a bad beat or two (or more)?

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I have a little over 6k hands now and it seems that Omaha can be really streaky.

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Anything involving luck can be streaky.

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It is my understanding that starting hand selection is even more imprtant in Omaha than in Holdem. Is this an accurate assumption?

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How could anyone know the answer to that question?

Starting hand selection is important in both Omaha-8 and Texas hold ‘em.

Here’s one for you. If the universe encompasses all space and is expanding, where does it go when it expands?

[img]/images/graemlins/ooo.gif[/img]

Buzz