Sign in a bar

"liquor in the front
   poker in the rear"

Omaha Straight Draws #3

There is a 20-card draw with 14-nut outs in Omaha just high commonly known as the 'Maine-to-Spain' draw.  It is two connectors (J-10-7-6) with a two-gap middle.  On a 9-8-X board your 20 outs are: 4 queens, 3 jacks, 3 tens, 3 sevens, 3 sixes, 4 fives.  Quick which six cards are the non-nut outs?  They are the jacks and tens.

Omaha/8 best starting hand?

The pundits all agree the best starting hand in Omaha/8 or better is A-A-2-3 double suited.  Who can argue?  But be careful.  This hand is nothing like pocket aces in Texas Hold'Em which is a 4-1 favorite over an under pair.  This best starting hand in Omaha/8 only wins the high half of the pot 5.5% of the time and the low half 9%.  It scoops 28% of the time.  So what have we learned here?  Don't go crazy when dealt this hand!  What's the worst starting hand in Omaha/8?   2-2-2-2 !  Can you Imagine being dealt quads is a bad thing?

7-card stud/8 trivia question

Try to find the answer to this question in any poker book!  In 7-card stud 8 or better which of the following two hands would win the low half of the pot?  A-A-5-6-7 or 2-2 5-6-7 ?  I contend that the former would win because aces swing but my fellow players say no.  One day at Foxwoods, during an Omaha/8 tourney in the grand ballroom, I asked Men'the master' Ngyuen, who was in the middle of the room trying to get noticed.  He did not answer instantaneously but did finally concur with me.  I finally found printed confirmation in a slim poker book entitled Poker is the Name of the Game by Walter Gibson (page 84.)

Omaha Straight Draws #2

In Omaha just high a hand with a top connector and two single gaps at the bottom (example: J-10-8-6) will offer a 16-card nut straight draw on a flop of 9-7-X.  The 16 cards that will make the nuts are 3 jacks, 3 tens, 3 eights, 3 sixes and 4 fives.

Omaha Straight Draws #1

A three-card rundown hand with a 2-gap bottom (example: J-10-9-6) yields a 16-card nut wrap draw on a 8-7-X flop in Omaha (just high.)  The 16 cards are the 3 jacks, 3 tens, 3 nines, 3 sixes and 4 fives.  Any one of these 16 cards will give you the nut straight.

2-7 lowball advice

Quick what is the worst hand in poker?  In other words what five card hand cannot beat any hand?  I am always surprised at how many players don't know and/or can't even think, given time, of the correct answer.  The answer is the nuts in 2-7 lowball which is 2-3-4-5-7.  Remember playing high-low with your dads old buddies?  They played A-2-3-4-6 as the nut low and we had to declare which direction we were going in by taking two coins or chips under the table, putting one, two or none in your palm then coming up simultaneously and all opening clenched fists to see which direction every one was intending?  Ah, the good old days.  This really added a tough dimension to high-low decisions.  We also played you had to declare your hand!   None of this pussy-ass 'cards-talk' bullshit.  And now A-2-3-4-5 is the nut low in every casino high-low game except 2-7 lowball.  Another great dimension to 2-7 is that straights and flushes count against you.   Also remember that aces are high only!   So here's my advice.  Only play single draw.  Avoid triple draw where luck is more of a factor.  Don't play anything but a monster hand in early position.  If you are in the cut-off seat and are dealt a playable hand, raise, to try and drive out the button because then you are the button by default and  position is uber-critical in this poker discipline.  THE ONLY TIME YOU SHOULD RAISE PRE-DRAW IS WITH A PAT HAND OR A HAND YOU PLAN TO REPRESENT AS PAT!!!  Raising and then drawing is just plain old dumb in this game.

Poker Book Mistake

In Championship 7-Stud: High, High-Low, Razz by Linda Johnson, Tom McEvoy and Max Stern there is a mistake on page 20.  McEvoy is discussing three card starting hands in 7-stud/8.  He says, 'Two aces with a baby card, especially if it is a wheel card, is an extremely strong starting hand."  Then he says, "If it is double-suited, so much the better...."  !!!  How can three cards be double suited????!!!!

Make Bubble Safe?

On June 26th, 2006 I was playing in one of those little Omaha/8 tournaments at Foxwoods in the witch infested woods of North Stonington, Connecticut.  With 6 players left and five getting paid I was short stacked when someone graciously asked the players if they would vote to make bubble safe.  There was one crotchety bitch at the table who voted no.  Fine, I guess I didn't blame her.  Well, like the baseball player on deck who sees his fellow teammate intentionally walked to get to him it fires one up!  So I bore down and won the tournament!!!  Guess who was bubble girl!!!  Yea, baby!!!  There is a god!!!   Moral of the story ala Yogi Berra?  It ain't over till it's over so say yes, always, to making bubble safe.

Omaha/8 or better advice

There are 5,278 starting hands in Omaha/8.  Well, there are more but my figure eliminates similar hands.  For example: A-2-3-4 unsuited is only counted once in my total.  In that number the top 100 hands have two aces in them!  So think twice before playing a hand that doesn't contain at least one ace!  There are very few hands without an ace with positive EV (expected value) but more on that later.  Here's my advice...when you flop two pair with no low draw; fold to any bet.  Four outs in Omaha is terrible.  And any set less than top set is equally big trouble.  Only play starting hands with scoop potential (a draw to both the low and the high.)  Remember always that each player can make 6 hands after the flop, 24 hands after the turn and 60 hands after the river.  This is why your hand never holds up!  You must have something around 13 or more nut out re-draws to play a hand aggressively.

Piss Spot

One day, at Trump Taj Casino in A.C. I finally got on the stupid $5/10 Omaha/8 table after an interminable wait.  To the left of me is an empt seat.  I love when there is an empty seat for various reasons.  Being in close proximity of poker players and their bad breath is not the least of them so when a seat is oh-so-temporarily empty it is a rare treat.  Well, short lived is putting it mildly as the seat was filled before I played my first hand.  This corpulent (nice way of saying fat fuck) woman plops her two-seat ass down next to me and I thought a total eclipse just took place indoors for the first time in the history of mankind.  This woman is so big (this is where you say 'how big?') that she has to sit side-saddle in her chair.  And that's when I saw it!  The giant piss spot!  I got up without playing a single hand and realized the beauty of on-line play in an instant!