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Omaha High Strategy: Learn to Diversify

May 14, 2009 By: tuckonline Category: Omaha

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Omaha high has the same essential characteristics as the poker game texas holdem; however, you receive 4 cards instead of 2 cards. This minor difference immensely changes the strategy you must play, and it is important to recognize this before you play. In Omaha high, you have to be very selective of what hands you play because even though your hand might look high compare to holdem standards, it could lose in Omaha high. With the 2 extra down cards you receive, you increase the chances of making a strong hand, thus you have to change your perspective of hand strength.

You would learn this concept after playing the game for a couple of hours and losing all your money, but hopefully instead of going through that, you will be able to learn from this strategy guide and apply it to your game play. If you desire to understand the game of Omaha high, and be good at it, your are going to have to be able to lay down what might seem like very strong hand. There are occasions where a hand such as a king high or queen high flush will appear to be the winning hand, but then you lose to a full house or even a higher flush.

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You need to analyze the cards that our in the community and determine if your strong hand has the better chance of winning then losing. This may seem like an obvious choice, but often times players will forget to do this, and won’t be able to lay down their 3 of a kind or low flush. The reason that your queen or king high flush could lose is because the person with the ace is probably still in the hand, and only one of their other three cards has to be of the same suit to beat you, so it actually happens quite often. An important thing to stay away from when you play Omaha high is draws.

One of the most deceptive things about Omaha, is that since you have 4 down cards, you should always make your draws. This isn’t true, and many times you will waste your money fishing for hands that won’t win even if they are made. On the other side of this, it is important to realize that your opponents will also be fishing for cards, so make sure that you make them pay for their draws. There are some occasions where it is okay to slow play, but most of the times you should bet your hand since there is usually players trying to get some free cards to make a flush or straight. Remember that Omaha high strategy can be tricky because the best hand can shift greatly as each card comes down. Anything short of a full house is not considered a very strong hand until the final card comes down. This is very different from other poker games, where a straight, flush, or even 3 of a kind can be a powerful hand. Furthermore it is crucial to have the ability to decide how strong your opening hand is. You are first dealt four cards, but you will only be able to use two of them in your hand. This means that you want to have cards that compliment each other, but do not take away from each other. If you are able to have the control to not pay for your unreasonable draws, then you will end up saving yourself a lot of money that many players will waste.

Because of the aspect of four cards, you often feel like any hand looks good in Omaha. Don’t think like this, or else you will start playing to loose and you will start losing money on mediocre hands that you played. Omaha high is a very interesting and entertaining game to play once you have a basic understanding of tactics and strategies. This article only gave you an introduction to what kind of strategy you will need and if you are truly interested in learning more, come back soon for new strategies soon to come.


This poker article was (re)published on JackTenOffsuit.com and the original author(s) retain all rights.

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Aggression is Key to Winning Poker…Duh!

April 08, 2009 By: tuckonline Category: Poker Strategies

How many of you have heard this saying? How many of you have heard or read people talking about aggression, aggression, aggression – it wins bracelts and championships, and is the key to winning poker? Well, I know I have. I have heard it so many times that now it seems to have lost it’s meaning. It’s become one of those things that , once you hear it, you just kind of shrug off and fast forward to the “good stuff”.

Beginning poker players are also very susceptible to ignoring this advice, as they feel it is elementary, almost like…Duh! As if they know how important and effective well timed aggression can be, and how devastating ill timed and tilted aggression can be.  I think that this is one of the least developed part of the majority of poker players’ games. Well timed aggression can take years to learn and develop. What’s an example of “well timed aggression”? Well, here’s an example below that I executed while writing this article. I was at an 18 man turbo sng with blinds at 80/160.

Seat 1: Leon2872 (1,480)
Seat 3: DanCor44 (2,175)
Seat 5: XXXXXX (2,185)
Seat 7: gakali (2,030)
Seat 8: peachfuzz3489 (1,850)
Seat 9: BRrulex (5,260)
DanCor44 posts the small blind of 80
XXXXXX posts the big blind of 160
The button is in seat #1
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to XXXXXX [Kh Ad]
gakali calls 160
peachfuzz3489 folds
BRrulex has 15 seconds left to act
BRrulex calls 160
Leon2872 folds
DanCor44 calls 80
XXXXXX raises to 2,185, and is all in
gakali folds
BRrulex calls 2,025
DanCor44 folds
XXXXXX shows [Kh Ad]
BRrulex shows [Jh Jd]
*** FLOP *** [As 4c 8c]
*** TURN *** [As 4c 8c] [2h]
*** RIVER *** [As 4c 8c 2h] [Ah]
XXXXXXshows three of a kind, Aces
BRrulex shows two pair, Aces and Jacks
Leon2872 has been disconnected
XXXXXX wins the pot (4,690) with three of a kind, Aces
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 4,690 | Rake 0
Board: [As 4c 8c 2h Ah]
Seat 1: Leon2872 (button) didn’t bet (folded)
Seat 3: DanCor44 (small blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 5: XXXXXX (big blind) showed [Kh Ad] and won (4,690) with three of a kind, Aces
Seat 7: gakali folded before the Flop
Seat 8: peachfuzz3489 didn’t bet (folded)
Seat 9: BRrulex showed [Jh Jd] and lost with two pair, Aces and Jacks

With blinds at 80/160, stack sizes averaging at around 13 bb’s, and 3 other ppl in the pot, the most effective play with AK is definitely a shove. Raising would only give opponents proper pot odds to call, which could put you in an akward situation post flop with multiple opponents. Of course, when someone calls you are typically ahead of their range, or against a mid pocket pair, which is okay too.

This is just one form of well time aggression. It can come in the form of double barrels or 3 betting. The key is knowing your opponents and sensing weakness. Playing your opponents is the next level of thinking you need to get to. At this level of play, your cards dont mean near as much as they used to, and aggression is key to understanding your opponents play style, and reading their hand.

So get out to the tables and bring your aggression to the table. Strike fear in your opponents and see how quickly the cash starts rolling in!

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Building A Bankroll from $10: Part 2

March 31, 2009 By: tuckonline Category: Bankroll Building & MGMT

If you missed Building A Bankroll from $10 on PokerStars (Part 1), I will catch you up real quick, or you can Click Here to read it. In part one of this series, I discussed the easiest way to build a bankroll from $10 on PokerStars. The reason I started with $10 is because $10 is the minimum deposit allowed on PokerStars, and I have found that the minimum is usually the maximum people tend to deposit. So, at the end of my long spiel about grinding the $1.10 45 man sngs, and how easy they were to beat, I said that I would try to build a bankroll off of $10 playing only those sit and goes. So I tried…and to be honest, I had a lot of fun doing it.

Now, playing micro sit and goes for hours at a time can be pretty extreme at times, so I just took it easy and grinded four at a time, and once I finished all four, I took a break for a little while. Luckily for me, I was both running fairly well and getting decent cards. After three rounds of this, which was 12 sngs, I was up to around $40 in my account. I had 2 first place finishes, and a couple 4-6th finishes. This is where  I stopped for the day, and this is where I sit as of now. So now that we’ve established that following my ever so simple (and often ridiculus sounding) guide to crushing the $1.10 45 man sngs actually works, where do we go from here? Do we continue crushing these sngs with a $40 bankroll, or do we jump up?

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Now I absolutely believe in following good bankroll management, and I believe that it is the key to success for any serious poker player; but, right now our main focus shouldnt be on whether we lose the initial $10 deposit or not, it should be on building our bankroll as efficiently as possible. So this is what I am going to recommend starting with a $40 bankroll – For your first round of betting, play four $1.10 45 man sngs and now throw in two $1.10 90 man sngs. In total, you should be playing 6 sit and goes, risking a total of $6.60. After this round, evaluate your bankroll and your play. If you made a positive gain to your bank roll, use this guide as your second round of betting – One $3.25 45 man sit and go, and three $1.10 45 man sngs. If you made a negative gain to your bankroll, go back to the original plan of playing four $1.10 45 man sngs. This is a fairy simple concept of jumping up levels when you are winning, and going back down when you are losing.

If you have not begun this challenge of building a bankroll from $10 on PokerStars, join us by clicking here and start your poker career today! just download the PokeStars software, make your first deposit (it can be more that $10!), and start hitting the tables while using strategies and tactics discussed here! I guarantee you will be a winning player in no time. Also, keep watch on this series of Building a Bankroll from $10 on PokerStars, and find out how far we can actually take it!

Good luck and see you at the tables!

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Building A Bankroll from $10 on PokerStars

March 30, 2009 By: tuckonline Category: Bankroll Building & MGMT

$10 is the minimum deposit on PokerStars, and often times, this is the maximum people tend to deposit at a time. So with that said, I am going to go over a strategy guide which will outline the quickest and most effective way building of a bankroll from just $10.

Playing cash games can be the quickest way to build a bankroll, but, if you’re anything like me, one bad beat and you are liable to tilt your entire life away…including your $10 deposit. So, for this article I am going to stay as far away from cash games as possible. Instead, we are going to focus on PokerStars most profitable games (in my opinion), $1.10 45 man turbo sit and goes. These games are very quick to fill up, and an advanced beginner player should be able to 4 table these with ease. These games are filled with the worst of the worst. No regulars would dare inhabit these waters because they all move up stakes to the $6 45 mans, and occasionaly you can find some at the $3.30 45 mans. The payouts for the $1.10 45 mans are as follows:

  1. $14
  2. $10
  3. $7
  4. $5
  5. $4
  6. $3
  7. $2

So, as you can see, 1st place is 14x your buy in. This is a perfect payout structure for any decent player trying to build a bankroll off of these! And with so many awful players, it is an easy task to get into the Top 3 regularly. With $10 in your bankroll, I recommend popping up four of these bad boys and getting to work. The way you want to play these is simple. In fact, it’s so simple, its bad. You have to play bad in order to win these. Now, I don’t mean you start limping with any two, or raising with QJo. I mean that when you get a “Top 10 Hand”, raise heavy! No matter how transparent you think it may be, do it! In fact, I prefer jamming over anything. I GUARANTEE more often than not, if you push AA pre, (and position doesnt matter!!), you are going to get KQ0, A10, QJ, even 46 calling you! Pushing pre is +EV. So the first (and maybe only rule) is to push pre with “Top 10 Hands”. If you get sucked out on, load up another one and smile.

Now you may be thinking theres gotta be more to it than this…but there isn’t. These are the easiest games to play to build a bankroll from $10. These can get pretty mundane after a few hours of playing, so if you are any good at Omaha H/L, I would load up a few $1.20 45 mans. They are not turbos, so they will take quite a while, but its a good mix to throw in your routine to keep you from killing kittens.

So this is my preferred way to build a bankroll on PokerStars from $10! I just deposited $10 on PokerStars, so I will try to put my money where my mouth is and try not to go broke. I will post my results sometime tomorrow and let you all know how much money I am up (or down). If you would like to try this out too, download PokerStars right now and start playing!

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SharkScope: Can It Improve Your SNG Results?

March 29, 2009 By: tuckonline Category: Sit and Go Strategy

Today I am going to talk to you about SharkScope. I think this is one of the most under rated poker tools at your disposal. Poker databases such as SharkScope can provide you with so much information on your opponents, that after doing a quick search of their name, you will already have gained a huge edge. So what exactly is SharkScope, and is it free?

SharkScope is the largest database of online poker sit and go tournament results. It offers a person 5 free searches per day, but with limited search information. Lets say you are playing a 9 man sng, and you find yourself down to the final three. Doing a quick free search of your opponents on SharkScope will tell you:

How many games your opponent has played on that site, their average profit per game, their average stake per game, their average ROI (Return on Investment), total profits for all games played, and whether they are on tilt, or are on fire! You can also pull up their 8 most recent results of sit and goes played (free search), and if you are a subscriber, you can check their last 50 games played and their results. So why is this information beneficial to you?

Well for one, it can let you know whether your opponent is a profitable player, or whether he just donked his way to the top 3, which is often the case at lower stakes. Knowing this will allow you to adjust your game accordingly. Knowing whether your opponent is on tilt or whether he/she has been super hot is also good to know. A player on tilt is often much more likey to make mistakes, such as shoving too light, and trying to pick up too many blinds, etc.

So I get five free searches a day! Why would I need to get a subscription?

Well, for many poker players, who I call “liesure” players, probably do not need to get a subscription to SharkScope. They do not rely on the money made from poker to support themselves or their family, so investing in products or services outside of the game are probably not going to benefit them too much. But, for dedicated poker players, who rely on poker to fund their lives, a subscription to SharkScope is a must in my opinion. For one, its only $11.99 per month and will allow you up to 250 searches per day! That is enough searches for almost any player who puts in that crazy amount of volume needed. Also, in order to predict and control your opponents moves, you must understand your opponents. SharkScope provides extremely valuable information which will enable you to properly understand, predict, and control your opponents on the virtual felt.

If you wish to try SharkScope on you next few sit and goes, head over to PokerStars, Full Tilt, or PartyPoker, and start crushing your opponents!

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