As most of you know I am struggling at the moment with ill health. I started playing online poker more to relieve the boredom and to stimulate my brain. I also want help retrain both my eyes and my hand/eye co-ordination. I am one of those people who will not do anything by half. If I do something I want to do so to the best of my ability.
I trawled the internet and found a decent site that could provide stats and trends on my opponents. My thinking was simple, if I could see how they previously played I could then look to exploit their habits to my advantage. Before I go any further, I am not trying at this stage to exploit them or be aggressive, I am looking to see if this works; if it does then I will exploit them!
I last played Omaha and Omaha Hi/Lo about 10 years ago and even when I looked for games about 6-7 years ago it wasn't really a popular online game. Basically Texas Holdem in both limit pot limit and No Limit had exploded onto the world scene. This took a blow when the US government managed to sneak in a ban on online gambling. I will try and cover that in another post later. Omaha was still a popular game among the professional players but online it was very much the black sheep.
I wrote on here about some crazy hands that had me almost pulling my hair out. They were 95% Holdem and 5% Omaha. Holdem is the easier game to master but it it is also the game that attracts players with less skill. How hard can it be to get two cards in your hand and then choose three of the five community cards to make the best 5 card hand? A lot of players do not even think about their holding before they hit the call button or even the raise button. They simply want to play and many do so in the belief it is all luck and they have as much chance as the next person. I think if they looked at some of the charts I have posted showing huge losses, they might change their mind. Actually, ignore that last part as they will never change their mind.
You can compare this to trading. I sometimes sit with people and they are watching me trade. I can almost feel them fidgeting in their seat and eventually they say "you're not doing anything, why not?" I try and assure them it is often better to do nothing unless you see an opportunity but they usually reply "couldn't you just lay the favourite or 2nd favourite in case they drift?" They cannot wait to get into the market but experience has taught me it usually leads to losses.
In poker you have the same thought process and players will participate in a hand with absolute junk. Of course they can get lucky and when they do it simply reinforces their view that playing any two cards is acceptable. If they lose then it was bad luck not bad play and so the cycle continues.
I think this happens with trading as people jump in, get it right and think they've cracked it. Sadly, they can't repeat it because they didn't know what they did in the first place. I know I did it but I realised quite quickly that I was going nowhere fast.
With online poker there is a real chance at the moment to exploit the lack of skill in Omaha games. I am still stunned at the amount of players who think it is like Holdem and actually play it accordingly. Last night I watched two players on my table as they raised and re-raised each other until all of the chips were in the middle. I could hardly believe my eyes when they turned over JJJJ and TTTT. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Omaha you can only play two of your four hole cards. So whilst 4 of a kind in Holdem is an excellent hand it is comprised of 2 hole cards and 2 of the community cards. You could have 1 of the four in your hand and hit 3 of the community cards in either form of the game and you'd be happy but it doesn't happen very often. Therefore, holding 4 of a kind in Omaha is junk as there are no more cards for you to hit! Well no more of the same number so you have to hope for a straight, flush or perhaps full house.
A couple of players were asking why they played those hands and each of them said "I had 4 of a kind" but they had nothing more than a pair of Jacks and Tens respectively!
This first became apparent to me when a player called a premium hand with what he believed to be four of kind and then moaned because he didn't win. I laughed at the time and thought it was just a one off. I then lost to the same player when I had the premium AKAK double suited and lost to a junk hand that made a straight.
Well last night and today I have played a few tournaments and have found lots of players calling raises or making raises with Holdem hands. Thankfully on about 10-15 occasions it worked in my favour as they called with good Holdem hands which were poor Omaha hands. My hand which looked innocuous to them was much stronger in Omaha and I won the pot.
So I am wondering why anyone would start playing a game for real money, no matter how small, without learning the rules of the game? Also, why would they part with hard earned money without studying how to play it?
Are they just another form of compulsive gambler? Are they lazy and cannot be bothered to study/learn it? Do they simply believe it is all a game of luck? I would imagine there are plenty of people who will enter trading the same way but would hope their diminishing returns and bank would soon make them realise there is more involved than lady luck?
Have any of you come across similar situations? I would like to read you thoughts if you are willing to share.
Thanks
JG
