Full House
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Melbourne
Posts: 1,073
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I might talk a little bit about image today. It's often been said that Omaha is a game of reads. That's true. The corollary of this is that Omaha is also a game of image. If reads are so influential, then we certainly want our opponent to read us badly.
So how do we form an image to enhance our profits? Well, PLO and PLO8 both lend themselves to fairly conservative play. The nature of the game lends itself to conservative play with selective aggression. So you want your opponents to form an image that you're a bit of a gambler, a fish, a bluffing station, or otherwise stupid. How do we go about doing this? We do this by realizing that every play we make has an $EV, but it also has an $IV - this representing Image Value. If you fold 30 hands in a row, this will hurt your IV, but of course if all you're getting is 248Q all offsuit, then the -EV associated with playing the hand will outweigh any IV from not being seen to be a rock. So with this in mind...
I advocate raising every hand you play. I've experimented with a standard raise of 2BB (minimum), 2.5BB and 3BB and I've settled on about 2.5BB ($10 in my game) in PLO and 3BB ($12) in PLO8. Whether or not there are limpers. I may deviate from this if the circumstances warrant, but this is my standard. The good thing about raising almost all the hands you play is that it annoys people. Fish like to see lots of flops. They get annoyed when you raise their trash, and more annoyed when their hands inevitably miss. They will see you as a bit of a bully or just hate you, because *they* don't raise preflop unless they have AA.
Steal some pots. If you've got it 2 or 3 handed, and you have a flop with reasonable texture fire a bet 60-75% of the pot and see what happens. If they call you might get a free card and snatch the pot. If they raise you off your hand, which will happen some times, then you still get $IV. People on the table will remember that you often bet at the flop with garbage, especially when you raise pre flop. But they won't know it's not that often you do it, and when you do catch a hand, they commit suicide.
Don't fold to minimum bets. Either raise them if you have any decent hand or draw or call it if you don't. You'd be surprised how often you get get all or half a pot by calling some minimum bets. Not long ago I hit a 2 outer and took a large chunk of change. But again, there's value in not allowing your opponent to take the pot with a minimum bet. Make them know that if they want to move you off a hand, they're going to have to make some reasonably sized bet. This way, you get action from your opponents trying to bluff, not just an extra BB.
Make plays that are at worst close to 0EV but possibly +EV that your opponents won't be able to understand. Re-raise with AA+flush draw against what looks like a 2 pair or set. Against 2 pair which is much more likely then you are actually in front and against the set you're drawing very live and all in all, you can't be making a big mistake when there's a bit of a pot to start with. But your opponents often don't know this, they just think you're a fish. Raise your A23 on a 45 board in PLO8, raise your big draws, raise hands that have something going both ways like 1 pair with decent flush or straight draw. Omaha is a funny game, and the pot equities are sometimes quite counterintuitive. You can boost your $IV without much loss in -$EV by making plays that appear stupid to all but the very best, but actually are good plays, if a little bit on the aggressive side.
Deep stacked an facing a small raise you can reraise with holdings other than AAxx. You can buy a lot of pots on the flop, and when your hand actually connects (like in PLO8 a 258 flop and my opponent goes all in with their A24J thinking they could have my "AAxx" drawing quite dead only to have me turn over an A235) you can stack them. But when the hand gets shown down (either you hit something and got paid off or you get caught and check it down) and they're like "SHIT he reraised with 789T"? If you read wrong and they have AA and they come over the top with a raise you can't call (though often you can, if their first raise is small enough and the stacks are deep) then cest la vie.
There are also non-strategic ways to work an image. You can use table chat to your advantage, although this is cumbersome and I don't like to engage in this unless I'm single tabling and feeling a bit bored. Or you can just choose a confrontational name. "fluffuAGAIN", or "RiverYoMoTHA" or "SORRYULOSE"... u get the drift. But one thing I don't like to do is show my cards. If you're playing aggressively as you should, you often don't have to show your cards, and you should strive to keep it that way. Often, not knowing whether you got played or not can be worse than actually being shown a bluff.
That's all for now. Until next time, happy hunting!
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