Enter Omaha Poker, the pinnacle of action

NLHE is still my main game (and what I'm most skilled at/ where most players are), but I've reached the point of no return for my poker addiction.  Sometimes, I just need more... action.

Enter Omaha. It's very similar to Hold-Em with the flop, turn, and river, but I'm dealt twice as many cards to start, giving me SIX two-card hands instead of one. Do you know how many more hands I can play with that?

Harry Potter has cravings, too.

But it's not enough to satisfy my cravings. Oh no. I need even more action. PLO is just my gateway game.

And that's why I sat down at a game that shoots action directly into my veins to explode out my eye-sockets: Pot-Limit Omaha, Eights or better (PLO8). Not only do you have 6 two-card hands to play, you ALSO play for two separate pots, the "Hi" and the "Lo" (there's too much action in PLO8 to care about good spelling, trust me).

This means it's a good investment. Trust me.

There is always a Hi pot, following regular Omaha rules, and the Lo pot only happens whenever a player has a Lo-qualifying hand, a 5-card, unpaired hand of 8 and below using exactly two of your hole cards and three on the board. Low pots follow Razz scoring: straights and flushes don't count against you, whoever has the "worst" poker hand wins, and hands are ranked from corresponding high and low cards. Here's how you rank, say, 34568 vs. A2378. Their 5th highest card is the same, so we go to the 4th highest. 34567 beats A2378 because 6 is lower than the 7. Oh, and the Hi and the Lo are each half the pot, with any odd numbers going to the Hi pot. Also, the Hi and the Lo can each be split multiple ways in the case of a tie.

All this is to say, nobody knows what the hell they're doing in this game. The session I played, I didn't even know what hands I held some of the time. It's so complicated that there are probably very, very few people who are any good at the game. How can I say that? Well, as a beginner, I promptly won two buy-ins over an hour at Seals with Clubs just based off of general poker knowledge, a spirit of gambool, and a brief primer from my copy of Super/System II on the fixed-limit version of O8 (and a healthy dose of sheer luck) .

There's nothing like drawing to 21+ outs or rooting against it for your opponent, and in two different pots in the same hand.

I just may try my hand at Maryland Live's PLO8 tables next time I go. I remember seeing they actually spread the game there. Wish me luck!

Spend it like Big Government! The Great Money Hole of 2013

I cannibalized my poker roll (plus most of my savings).

It may not have done any favors towards
furthering my poker goals, but it was a massively +EV life decision.

A lot's happened since my last post, and I haven't played too much poker in the interim. What I DID do was buy my first house, my first car, and get promoted at work to my first supervisory position. Then I went on a spending spree and dropped a ton of money on clothes so I could literally look like a boss.

In other words, I'm recovering from a massive spending binge.

Asian babies are clearly the cutest.

Oh, and little Thorn arrived! Though I should mention that he carries a hefty price tag himself. Our thankfully, surprisingly good maternity coverage paid for all but $75 of his delivery (average expenditure is over $1,000 WITH insurance, for a routine birth), but formula, diapers, and clothing adds a significant amount to baby-raising costs.

Oh, and I forgot to mention: Daycare costs $370 per week. Yes, that is not a typo. Per month, that's a whopping $1603.33. It's actually on the cheaper side for my area, but that still runs more than college tuition PLUS room and board... and I couldn't take out any fancy loans for it.

Now I know why Americans don't have many kids on average.

I'm slowly building a poker roll back up on Seals. More poker updates to come, including a few trips I made to the newish Maryland Live! casino, a horrible poker mistake that's cost me $2,000, and forays into the crazy game of Pot-Limit Omaha.

Stay tuned this weekend!