Preflop play in Omaha8 - Ray Zee vs. Steve Badger

[JTG51]

I'm new to Omaha, and am still trying to get a feel for some of the general concepts. I've read "High Low Split Poker for Advanced Players" (HLSP) and just started looking through Steve Badger's website.

It looks like Zee and Badger have a serious disagreement on starting hands.

In HLSP on page 191, Zee says that a lot of preflop raising will increase your fluctuations greatly while only increasing your profits marginally. He says this is because most hands aren't very dissimilar in value before the flop. He says later on that most hands aren't more than a 3-2 favorite over other hands heads up.

In the introductory Omaha section of his website (http://www.playwinningpoker.com/omaha1.html) Badger says before the flop is where you get tremendous advantages in Omaha. He says there are a large group of hands that will win at double the rate of randomish hands, and that Hold'em hands run much closer in value than Omaha hands preflop.

Without knowing much about the game, I'd assume Badger must be wrong since he's disagreeing with Zee. Am I misunderstanding something here? Are the two not disagreeing with each other as much as I think they are?

Thanks for the help.

[beetman]

Without knowing much about the game, I'd assume Badger must be wrong since he's disagreeing with Zee.

Why would you assume Badger is automatically wrong? S & M & Z aren't all-knowing, and their books sometimes contain typos or statements that could easily be misinterpreted.

My biggest complaint about the "Advanced Players" series is that they're not edited as well as they could be, and it can be difficult to tell what kind of game they're talking about.
Ray can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe his comments about preflop raising are mainly meant for higher stakes games where most people know what they're doing. Badger's comments are meant for games that aren't as tight, where people are often playing mostly random hands. (Even when they aren't quite playing random hands, some of their non-random hands are almost as bad as random hands. 5678 is a very popular fish's hand and is actually worse than a random hand.)

Say two decent players limp in ahead of you and you have A24T with a suited ace. If one has A367 w/ a suit and the other has A4JJo, the three of you are in roughly the same shape before the flop. The same is true if the third guy has something like KQT9o or KQQTo.

If those two players were likely playing random hands, you're in better shape. A24Ts has 44% of the preflop equity against two random hands, and scoops about 50% more often than the random hands. Also, if there are other idiots in the game, they may call the raise with garbage--the value of A24Ts is even higher against even more random hands.

In a game where 5 or 6 people routinely see the flop, you're leaving money on the table if you don't raise preflop with a fair number of hands.

[deadbart]

I think beetman really hit the nail on the head with this one. Another point is that depending on the exact type of game, raising preflop may make it much more likely that you get paid off on your nut hands. Some games are loose preflop but not so loose postflop, so raising preflop really helps build bigger pots with hands that like it, and encourages people to stay with second nut lows and such.

[JTG51]

Thanks beetman, I appreciate the help.

That makes some sense to me. I've obviously got a long way to go in this game still.

[beernutz]

[Phat Mack]

It looks like Zee and Badger have a serious disagreement on starting hands.

I agree with the beet man that they may be talking about different types of game.

There are games where a raise BTF might buy the button. There are games where a raise BTF produces a string of calls. There are games where a raise BTF produces a war and it's capped with 6 or 7 playing. Each game seems to have it's own threshold of where players will become pot stuck and start drawing dead ATF for pot odds. Once this threshold is crossed, I don't see much benefit in additional raising.

He says later on that most hands aren't more than a 3-2 favorite over other hands heads up.

I have trouble disagreeing with this. I did a bunch of sims several years ago with full tables. In a ten handed game, the EV of a random hand should be 10%. It was difficult to come up with a hand that exceeded 15%.

As Badger points out, in O8 you've seen 7/9 of your hand on the flop and you pretty much know your exact odds of completing. It's nice to have your opponents past their pot-stuck threshold if you hit something. I believe Badger is also correct in stating that players who wait until the last card to bet are losing EV.