Omaha Hi/Lo is a variant of Omaha. The betting, blinds, and postings are exactly the same as in Omaha. If you’re not familiar with Omaha, click here for a quick lesson. At the showdown, the pot is split between the holder of the highest hand, and the holder of the lowest hand, if the low hand qualifies.
To qualify for a low hand, you must have five distinct cards (no pairs), with no card higher than an 8. Remember, since you have to play two cards in your hand, the two cards in your hand and three on the board all need to be 8 or lower. Straights and flushes do not count against you. The best 5-card low hand is A-2-3-4-5 of any suit. The hand is “ranked” by starting with the highest low card. 7-4-3-2-1 would be considered a 7-low, and would lose to 6-4-3-2-1, a 6-low. If two players each have low hands with the same highest card, the next highest card determines the winner. 7-5-4-3-2 loses to 7-4-3-2-1. If there is no qualifying low hand, the high hand wins the entire pot.
Just as in the high version of Omaha, each player starts with four hole cards, and then the dealer places five cards face-up in the center of the table. These community cards are part of each player’s hand, so each player has access to seven cards. The difference between Omaha high and Omaha Hi/Lo, is that in Omaha Hi/Lo each player can potentially have two different hands: a high hand and a low hand.
Each player forms a five-card high hand by using only two (no more, no less, but they can be any two) of his hole cards together with only three (no more, no less, but they can be any three) of the five community cards. Each player forms a five-card low hand (if possible) by using only two (no more, no less, but they can be any two) of his hole cards together with only three (no more, no less, but they can be any three) of the five community cards. Both the high hand combination and the low hand combination can use the same set of cards, but they don’t have to; in fact, usually they would not.
Because of the qualifier restriction, if at least three cards 8 or lower do not appear among the community cards, a low hand is not possible.
6 card stud poker is very similar to seven-card stud, but without the last face-up round. During traditional six card stud, the dealer will give each player two cards face-down, three cards face-up and finally one card face-down. There are however many other variants of six card stud, and you can for instance play the game with one face-up and one face-down card, three face-down cards, and one face-up card. During this variant of six card stud, the first betting round will start when one face-up and one face-down card have been dealt, which means that the game will be quite similar to five-card stud, but with an additional down-card.
One of the many 6 card stud poker variants is a game called Alligator stud. During Alligator stud, the dealer will begin by dealing each player one face-down card (a so called hole card) and one face-up card. The first betting round will then commence, and when this round is finished the dealer will give each player two face-up cards. A second betting round will follow, after which each player will receive a fourth card that is placed face-up. The third betting round will commence, and the dealer will then give each player their fifth card. This fifth and final card is placed face-up, and is followed by the last betting round before showdown. Alligator stud is usually played as a no-limit or pot-limit game. If the dealer instead deals each player two cards face-down and one card face-up at the beginning of the game, the game is called Zanetti stud. Another important difference between Alligator stud and Zanetti stud is that a player of Zanetti stud is allowed to use only one of his or her downcards when forming the final hand.
The term English stud is sometimes used for another variant of six card stud, but the name can cause some confusion since several other poker games also are known as English stud. English stud can for instance refer to a type of seven-card stud poker, and a game more commonly known as London Lowball. The 6 card stud poker variant known as English stud is a 1-4-1 poker game with a twist (six-card option). “Twist” is a poker term used to describe a round that follows a certain set of rules instead of the normal rules that are used for the other rounds. Any round can be replaced with a twist round, and in English stud it is the last round that is replaced. During the twist round, all the players can choose to discard one of their cards and have it replaced with a new card from the deck. This make English stud a bit similar to draw poker, but with several notable differences. In English stud, you can choose to discard a face-up card or a face-down card. If you discard a face-down card, you get a new face-down card, and vice versa. The player who bet first during the previous betting round is the one who starts making the decision about whether to have a card replaced or not. This will usually be the player with the best face-up cards. Each player will then wait for his or her turn before discarding one card, or refrain from discarding any card. When all players have made their decisions, the dealer will start handing out the replacement cards. The dealing will start with the person sitting left of the dealer, regardless of who made the first choice. In one form of English stud, each player must add a certain amount of money to the pot if he or she wishes to replace a card.
No matter how wealthy you are, it is often best to start out at the lower limits simply because the competition there is easier. Few ‘professionals’ play at the $1-2 games, so it is a relatively safe place to begin one’s poker career. Even if you are a billionaire, no one will know it when you play on the internet and think any less of you for playing at a low limit.
When choosing a limit, the major choices come when one decides to move up a limit or down a limit. Generally, you should only move up a limit if you think you are comfortable playing at that limit for seven sessions or more. Do not choose a limit so high that it makes you scared to play. Playing scared is a guaranteed recipe for losing. It is also not wise to ‘go for it’ at a higher limit. If you are making a run for it at a higher limit, you probably do not have the bankroll to survive there for long. Even if you win on two straight sessions, you will likely bust out and have to move down if you are not bankrolled enough at any given limit.
If you take a hit at a higher limit, you should generally move down. However, you shouldn’t move down so far that you are totally unmotivated to play. If you move up to $25-50 from $10-20, you shouldn’t fall back to $1-2 once you decide that $25-50 is too high. While people tend to play too scared at a higher limit, they also tend to play too loose at a lower limit. Play a limit that motivates you to play, but also at which that you are not scared to play.
Limit Hold’em lends itself to a smaller edge. You are limited by how much you can bet, so fish are protected against making blatantly idiotic moves like calling all-in with bottom pair when you hold top set. Think about it mathematically. The bets are a mere fraction of the pot. So most of the time people call with a solid draw, they have good odds for the draw. Suppose you are playing a $1-$2 limit game (with no rake). You hold AK and your opponent has K4. Three players besides you and your opponent see the flop. The flop comes K69. You bet and he calls through the river. How much did your opponent expect to lose? Excluding the expected preflop loss, your opponent did not expect to lose that much. The pot going into the flop was $5. He called $1 so the pot was $7 after the flop. He then called $2 so the pot was $9 going into the river. Let’s see how much your opponent lost in terms of expected value on each of the postflop streets. The way to calculate this expected value is his expected win (chance of winning * pot) - his bet.
Flop: $-.55
Turn: -$1.41
River: -$2
Total: -3.96
While he actually lost $5 on postflop betting, he only expectedto lose $3.96. So essentially, for every dollar he bet, he lost 79.2 cents. Keep in mind this is one of the WORST possible situations in Limit Hold’em. Rarely is one dominated in a smallish pot. Most of the time when people make incorrect bets in Limit Hold’em, their losing edge is much smaller.
If this hand was played in a No-Limit Hold’em game, your opponent would have lost a lot more money. Your edge over him in terms of expected value would also have been greater. This is because your bets are a larger fraction of the pot. Assuming pot sized bets were made beginning at the flop, this is the amount in terms of expected value that your opponent would lose:
Flop: (bet of $5):-$4.04
Turn: (bet of $15): -$12.06
River: (bet of $45): -$45
Total: -$61.10
This time, he made bets totaling $65 and expected to lose $61.10. Not only did he lose more money, he expected to lose an even higher percentage. For every dollar he bet, he expected to lose 94 cents! That’s a much bigger edge than the one in Limit Hold’em simply because the bets are a larger fraction of the pot. Please note that this example did not include implied odds. In that sense, it is an imperfect example. However, it illustrates the point that in No-Limit Hold’em, the edges can be huge under certain situations, whereas in Limit they generally are not nearly as huge.
Does this mean that No-Limit ring games are superior to Fixed-Limit ring games? Not necessarily. Because the edges can be so huge in No-Limit games, most players tend to stay away from them unless they are good at No-Limit, especially at higher stakes. Also, even poor No-Limit players are wary of betting their money in situations like the one above. People will not throw their money away in situations where they expect to lose 96 cents on every dollar they bet, whereas they would lose 79 cents on the dollar in a Limit game. At No-Limit Hold’em, being caught as a huge underdog in a big pot is disastrous, so few people who survive to play No-Limit Hold’em make such critical errors. However, poor players will tend to stay at Limit Hold’em and continue to bleed their money away slowly.
Basically, a few big fish can greatly raise the expected value of a No-Limit Hold’em game. You will be able to find yourself in a few situations where your edge is huge and you can win a huge pot. It is possible to make huge, disastrous mistakes at No-Limit whereas it is very hard to do so at Limit. People tend to make more common, smaller mistakes at Limit, so one cannot take too great of advantage of an opponent’s huge error. Obviously a soft game is preferable, but the addition of one huge fish will alter the expected value of a No-Limit game much more than it will a Limit game.
So when you think about your edge in a Limit or No-Limit game, realize that one’s edge at a No-Limit game is much more dynamic. A player’s edge at Limit tends to stay in a certain general area, while a No-Limit Hold’em edge can vary greatly depending on the play of a few players. In the example of the K4 versus AK hand, you will more than likely win money in situations like those at Limit (unless you play in a tough game). However, you may or may not win any money from your opponent in No-Limit games. If you are able to extract huge bets from players with top pair and no kicker in No-Limit Hold’em games, then you may be able to retire from your day job a little earlier. But sometimes people will not pay you off at all,so your expected gain is contracted. Basically, the really big mistakes your opponents can make are either bigger in No-Limit or they do not exist at all, and this will greatly determine your expected win or loss from a game.
Nonetheless, there is the possibility of a more general edge at low-stakes No-Limit Hold’em games. This is because these games attract so many poor players that the addition of one or two more poor players does not significantly alter the ecosystem of the game.
Most decent players have a pretty good understanding about when to fold preflop. The decision you make preflop is a crucial one, and is covered extensively on this site (see Limit Longhand and Dynamic Hand Value). Simply put, you want to play premium hands preflop. In terms of marginal hands, you want to play suited connectors/small pairs more when it is a multi-way pot and less so when it is about three people seeing the flop. For big cards such as AJ or KT, the opposite is the case. Be more willing to play these hands in a heads up or three way situation. Always fold garbage hands like Q5 offsuit.
Again, these preflop decisions are important, but they are not the whole story. There are three rounds of betting postflop, and the decisions you make are not automatic. Surely, pot odds will help you, especially if you are on a draw, but what do you do if you have a made hand but are unsure of where you are in the hand?
For example, suppose you have AJs and the flop is QJ2. The pot was raised preflop, and you have pot odds to go ahead and call the flop. What do you do on the turn? Again, this is a judgment call. If someone bets the turn and someone raises and another player calls, you can be rest assured that your jacks are not good and go ahead and fold. However, what if someone bets, everyone else who is still in folds and it’s to you? What is the correct decision?
Small Mistakes vs. Big Mistakes
In Limit Hold’em, the bets are a small fraction of the pot. This encourages action because it is cheaper to see a showdown. This aspect of Limit appeals to fish and new players who like to ’see cards.’
Most bad players lose money at Limit Hold’em over time and not one any one big hand. This is because they continually make small mistakes. They call when they do not have pot odds, or they continue to call when they are clearly beat. Every time you call when you shouldn’t, you are making a small mistake.
A big mistake at Limit Hold’em is folding when you should not have. I do not mean folding early and then later finding out you would have hit a miracle river. I mean folding when you have the best hand late in the pot. For example, suppose you have AQ. The board is KQ2 rainbow. You raised the pot preflop and there were 3 callers (8 small bets). It is checked around to you. You bet, someone raises, 2 people call, you call. A 5 falls on the turn. The raiser bets, the other players fold.
Right now, there are a total of 18 small bets in the pot (8 preflop, 8 flop, 2 turn- remember a big bet is equivalent to two small bets). What should you do? You are probably beat. However, if you call on the turn and the river, you will invest a total of 4 small bets. If you call to the river, there will be a total of 24 small bets in the pot, so you must win this pot 1/6 or more of the time in order for a call down to be appropriate. Assuming you have 5 outs (which is not the case if he has KQ or AK but let’s just assume), you have a 12% chance of drawing out. So, you roughly have a 1/8 chance of winning because you draw out. In this case, you only need to be roughly 4% confident that you have him beat (1/6-1/8). This is very small indeed!
Thus, you should probably go ahead and call down, even though you probably are beat. However, many weak-tight players will fold this, which is a disaster if the other player is bluffing or is on a draw.
So When to Fold?
Basically, there are two major decisions to be made at Limit Hold’em. The first is preflop, whether to play your hand or not, and the second decision is to be made on the turn. The flop decision is not that important because most of the time you will just be making or calling a small bet; this is a decision that can be made almost entirely based on pot odds.
The second major decision is on the turn. Assuming you call the turn, you should call the river because it would be a disaster to fold the winning hand on the river. Calling the turn and the river means investing 2 big bets, equivalent to 4 small bets. Assuming the pot is raised preflop and just one bet is made postflop, you would have only invested 3 bets to see the turn. Thus, you can fold at the turn and lose slightly less than half the money you would have lost had you called to a showdown.
The river is not the time to fold your hand. The only exceptions to this are when you missed a draw (such as a small flush draw) or if there is so much betting and raising that you know you are beat.
Pai Gow Poker is not as popular as some of the other casino games, however there are many people who swear by the game. Although it can be confusing once you learn all of the intricacies of the game you may find that it is your game of choice at the casino. It uses a standard deck, but it also includes one joker into that. This joker however can not be used in its usual fashion. It can only be used as an ace, or to complete a straight or straight flush. To start the game you are dealt seven cards, and you must divide them into two hands, one of five cards and the other having two cards. Your five card hand has to be stronger then your two card hand, i.e. you can not have a pair of aces as you two card hand and only have a pair or tens as your five card hand. The dealer also divides his cards, and then the two hands are compared. Now your two card hand will be judged against the dealers two card hand, as well as the five card hands. If both the dealers’ hands are greater then the player loses. If the result is split then it is a push and no money changes hands. However if the player wins both hands the house takes a five percent commission on the payout. They do this because the house makes so little money on the game that they need this to give them a greater advantage. So on a five dollar bet you would only win 4.75 in return. Those are the basic rules of how to play, however Pai Gow puts a large emphasis on strategy.
The biggest thing to remember in Pai Gow poker is two hands is almost always better then one. If you are dealt a good hand such as a full house it is much better to split it up into three of a kind and the pair in the two card hand. Both of these hands are very likely to win, but while the full house would have won the other two card hand would have probably lost leaving you with a push. Conversely sometimes it is better to have one good hand and concede the other rather then having two poor hands and losing both. With Pai Gow there are a lot of push’s hence there is less money changing hands then in some of the other games. However this allows you to play longer and you can still make money in the long run. Try to gain splits when your cards are bad and then you will be able to stay in long enough to get hands to win with. One thing to remember is a pair in your two card hand will usually be good enough to win that, so if you can it is a good idea to try to put a pair in your two card hand. Pai Gow can be a very fun game that you can play for a long time without a huge bankroll, but you can win in the long run.
by Stanley Majors
Reading Poker hands will dramatically increase your win percentages, but learning this skill is not an easy task. It takes hours of play, a good memory and an attentive eye.
Reading poker hands is not the most important part of any poker armoury, and it’s not very useful for low stakes poker rooms either. Players at this level are not very skilled making them unpredictable and harder to read.
But as you become more experienced and start to move up to higher stakes games you’ll begin to find that your opponents will actually be reading your play. And if you don’t learn to read their hands you’ll be at a big disadvantage.
This skill can only be developed through experience but by following these tips you should be able to accelerate your learning.
Everyone who plays Texas Holdem knows that Ace-King is one of the very best starting hands. But, it is just that, a starting hand. It’s only 2 cards of a 7-card equation. In nearly every situation, you want to come out firing with A-K as your hole cards. (The exception would be when faced with a big raise from an early position bettor.) When the flop comes, you need to reassess your hand and think things through before you just assume your overcards are best.
These concepts aren’t for advanced players, and they’re not for total newbies either. They assume you know how to play and some of the jargon, but you’re not winning consistently because you have no strategy concepts…
Concept #1 – Pot Odds
Long-term profits in holdem come from making bets with a positive expectation. You only have a positive expectation when your payoff is higher than your risk. Casinos make money from negative expectation games like roulette. The single number bet in roulette pays off at 35 to 1, but the odds of winning the bet are 37 to 1. The difference between the 37 and the 35 is the casino’s profit margin.
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