Poker Room Radio

www.bodogpoker.com – Many players who have ventured into an Omaha room online or elsewhere, will have a basic grasp of the game, and you might think that you would have enough knowledge of the game to play omaha hi/lo too. But if you have never tried the hi/lo variant, you could find it surprisingly confusing. There are key differences in this game which set it aside from regular Omaha, and these cause the powerful hands of the original game to change somewhat.

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Generally speaking, you would feel that (A,A,2,3) in regular Omaha was a reasonable hand, especially if you are double suited, but in hi/lo, this becomes a very powerful hand indeed.

The object of Omaha hi/lo is to hopefully win with the lowest possible five card hand of unpaired cards, whilst winning the high hand which we are more accustomed too as well. There will be instances where there is no possibility of a low hand, and in this case, the high hand wins the whole pot. No matter how good your high hand is though, if there is a possibility of making a low hand, you are unlikely to win the entire pot if you have no low hand. This rule of the low hand winning half the pot is the reason (A,A,2,3) and similar hands are so valuable.

There are many combinations of cards which might hit the board to give you a wheel, and win you half the pot. The pair of aces and double suited nature of your hand also give excellent prospects for a high hand too. If your low hand ties with another players however, be careful, because they might win the high half of the pot, as well as taking half of your ‘low’ part of the pot. This is known as getting ‘quartered’.

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www.pokerstars.com – With the growth of poker, there have been numerous new types of game which have developed in different parts of the world. I can of course, only speak for my own part of the world, but we have our odd poker games which we occasionally play, and these are quite unusual in their rules.

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The first of these I will mention, is widely known as ‘Irish poker’. I do not not exactly how the game got it’s name, but the rules basically involve Texas holdem, but with three hole cards. the twist in the game is that once the flop has been dealt, each player gets to discard one of their three cards, and the game plays from there as normal. This means that stronger hands will be made, and there is more to interest players preflop, in the same way as Omaha, but the game still retains all it’s Texas Holdem qualities. Other games include one simply called ‘Seven Card’ This is similar to three card poker, except each player is dealt seven cards and must then discard one.

The resulting six cards must be used to make two seperate three card hands. You must beat each player with your best hand first, then the second best hands are shown and you must also win that to claim the pot. These interesting versions of well known games, are fun to involve in home games, but I cannot see them being involved in the WSOP tournament schedule any time soon.

www.pokeroom.com – It is very often the case, that when you are involved in a pot, you can work out whether you are ahead or behind in the hand and act accordingly. The trouble with draws however, is that you are in a position where you usually know you are behind, and know you will be in front if you make your hand.

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This raises the question of whether you should be chasing these draws and how to play them if you are first to act.
If I am first to act with a big draw on the flop I always feel it best to be aggressive, because you would rather not be forced to hit your hand to win the pot, and if you do get called, then you have already built a good pot if your hand hits.

In terms of calling bets to try and hit a big hand, you must make an informed decision based on the size of the bet, the potential size of the pot, and of course the odds of you making your hand. I was recently raised a third of my short stack on a flop of (4d,10d,6h) whilst holding (7d,8d) in a tournament. I pushed all in over the top which I feel was the right play because I had 15 outs for a straight or flush, and two chances to hit one of them, but neither card fell.

I wouldn’t advise doing the same with only a straight or flush draw, but some players do. These decisions can often be pivotal to a tournament, and although the aim in poker is not to go all in when you are behind, sometimes there are just too many outs for you to get away from the hand.
When your draws are hitting in poker, you will find it difficult not to succeed I feel, but we would all prefer to turn over the best hand with all our chips in the middle when at all possible.