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kenobi · Flush Joined: 15 Jul 2005 Posts: 127

I forgot to add "Which usually makes it easier to turn a profit than hold'em."

acekicker626 · Posted: Mon Feb 26, 2007 10:45 pm Post subject:

no cant agree with you there omah dosnt take more skill if any thing its less you have more cards to put hands to gather but in holdem your olny delt 2 cards and you have you more fears of what your oppotet has

a24kiaj · Pair Joined: 03 Apr 2007 Posts: 43 Location: OHIO ,USA

dont get me wrong but i like holdom all though omaha has more thought put in to it

shyguy94 · Posted: Sat Apr 07, 2007 9:38 pm Post subject:

I like Omaha better than Holdem< but you can easier get your but whooped alot easier to by Omaha.

HuJwang · Posted: Sat Apr 07, 2007 9:59 pm Post subject:

Buttonwillow · Posted: Fri May 25, 2007 8:22 am Post subject: More "beginner" skill

First off, there's a difference between lower-level skill and higher-level skill.

At beginner (and probably intermediary) levels, Omaha definitely takes more skill.
I have a cash game where we alternate between pot-limit Hold'em and pot-limit Omaha. The beginners/semi-beginners always bomb out the fastest in Omaha -- they get annihilated almost immediately. That's not luck. If it were luck, beginners would do much better and the better players would be getting wiped out more.

Why do beginners bomb out so fast in Pot-Limit Omaha (high)?
Well the hardest thing for a beginner to do is to fold a marginal hand on the flop. They don't have the knowledge or sensibility to figure out what's marginal, what's strong and what's weak. All they know is they caught something and they don't want to let it go.
For example, two pair is probably the most dangerous hand in Omaha. Beginners (and simply bad players) loose their stacks with them time and time again. It's pathetic, actually. However, good players can play two pair profitably -- they read the board and feel out their opponent, and yes, occassionally bluff with them when the situation is ripe.

In contrast, in Hold'em it's easy to miss the flop entirely. In fact, you usually do miss the flop. And when you do miss the flop, it's easy to lay down the hand. Even a beginner can see he has nothing.
In Omaha, however, you're always catching some piece of the flop -- pair, two pair, three pair, some nice draws, etc.-- Therefore, there will be more times where you will have to exercise poker judgement on the flop. You have to gauge the relative strength of what you caught. And that's where the beginner makes the crucial mistakes and lose all of his/her chips.

The other thing I see many beginners fail to do is bet aggressively enough when they do flop a strong hand -- they will play too "passively" and not protect their hand. Failing to protect your hand when you should is a bigger sin in Omaha than in Hold'em-- this is because draws are so much bigger in Omaha, that giving a free card is more likely to cost you the pot.

Furthermore, in Hold'em, a beginner can get away with failing to read the board. If the beginner fails to see the double gut-shot board in Hold'em, it probably won't matter -- there's a good chance no one has it. In Omaha, however, that same oversight will cost you all your chips.

Finally, since Omaha (high) is almost always played pot-limit, that betting structure assures more flops, turns and rivers are played. Outplaying an opponent on the flop takes way more skill than pushing all-in preflop, as happens more in NL hold'em.
Also, pot-limit increases the importance of position. Pot-limit Omaha is way more positional that No-limit hold'em (or even pot-limit hold'em). That's another skill set that beginners (or even average players) are oblivious of.

In summary, beginners can't read the board, can't figure out where they stand, can't lay down a marginal hand, can't protect a good hand, can't play post-flop, and can't exploit position. This is bad enough in Hold'em, but it means instant decapitation in Omaha.

This suggests a higher level of "beginner" skill. (It also suggests Omaha will never be as popular in the US as Hold'em, since it's not beginner friendly at all.)

I would venture to say that "intermediate" skill is probably also higher in PLO, but that's a total guess.

As for the expert-level skill required, I have no idea. I'm guessing that it's around as skillful/complex as hold'em, either more or less.
A lot of skilled hold'em players also play Omaha sucessfully. Gus Hansen, Phil Ivey, Chris Ferguson, TJ Cloutier all do. If these top players can make a larger long-run profit in Omaha than Hold'em (when playing against similar players at similar stakes) then that would suggest a higher skill level, I think. It would be interesting to see numbers on this.

BTW, the game isn't just about "the nuts" as it is often said. There are surprisingly many situations where the nuts doesn't win... and it takes a lot of skill to identify and profit from those situations. Besides, poker is not about winning a pot -- it's about winning lots of money. Anyone can flop the nut flush, bet pot, and take it down. But that won't win you a big pot. Knowing how to extract the maximum amount with either a made hand, a good nut draw, a backdoor, an opponent's busted draw, or sometimes with a total bluff (yes, you can bluff in Omaha), is where skill comes in.

Of course, the most important thing is not what is more skillful (in which case we'd be doing theoretical physics), but what's funner.
Five-handed, I'd choose PLO over Hold'em any day.

8ANASHS · Posted: Fri May 25, 2007 11:10 am Post subject:

...couldnt agree more Buttonwillow...also , keeping track of the winning percentages of each player in different situations requires a lot more calculating in PLO...assuming u r good enough to guess the cards of your opponents , of course...pot odds and implied odds become so much more complicated in omaha...

FOUR ASES · Message Board Junkie Joined: 06 Feb 2007 Posts: 1526

Omaha is more harder to play. Takes more skill to pick 2 cards.

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