Book Review: Pot Limit Omaha8 Revealed

With the supremacy of No-Limit Hold’em, other poker variants are often confined to groups of enthusiasts or “old hands” who started playing poker long before the 2003’s boom. Unsurprisingly, most of the poker literature is devoted to NLHE, and the resource for other games remains scarce. Omaha8 is no exception, and even though Pot-Limit Omaha has caught some attention recently, its Hi-Lo cousin is still largely ignored.

The game has many assets though: there is a lot of skill to it, it is pretty fun to play (in its Pot-Limit form, at least), and above all, most people have no clue how to play. There is some good money to make in these games, and that’s what Dan Deppen helps his readers do with his book, Pot Limit Omaha8 Revealed.

The book is 190 pages, and as its title indicates, it only deals with the Pot-Limit form of the game. This is already a good point, since Omaha8 is generally relegated to the last chapters of Omaha books, and they contain only a few lines on the differences between the Limit and the Pot-Limit variants.

Chapter One is a four-page introduction summing up the motivation for playing this game: the perspective of a high winrate, the potentially lower variance, or the “new horizons” it can bring to your poker approach.

Chapter Two covers the basics, in thirteen pages. It is meant for players with no experience in split games or the Pot-Limit structure. The cardinal points of the game are explained: playing to scoop, avoid being freerolled or quartered, playing the position etc. Since most readers will have some NLHE experience, a few critical differences are highlighted between the two games, along with some equity charts. Next, the author shows how PLO8 differs from PLO, then how it compares to Limit Omaha8. It is a good idea, for people interested in PLO8 will often have played PLO too, and there are several caveats to avoid.

People interested in PLO8
will often have played PLO too, and
there are several caveats to avoid.

The following chapter deals with starting hands (26 pages). This is a major part of the general strategy because it is crucial to understand what kind of situations you want to get involved in, and it all starts with the hands you choose to play. The discussion focuses on equity and playability, and how they translate into general concepts. All the advice is quite clear, so the reader will have no difficulty in applying it. Starting hands are divided into groups, and each one is examined in the light of equity and playability, underlining their strengths or their weaknesses. I especially liked the part on the “6+babies” type of hands, that is often overlooked in books and charts; when your opponent has the wheel, the six-high straight can mean you have him quartered.

Chapter Four is devoted to the preflop play (20 pages). First, it answers the all-time classic “why would you want to raise preflop if everyone calls and you need to hit the flop”. Here, Dan made an interesting choice: he offered separate advice for the standard player and the nutpeddler. Most books advocate an extremely solid style close to nutpeddling, and they fail to teach their readers the real subtleties of the game, in my opinion. Another good point for the author.

The preflop profiling is also covered, grouping your opponents into categories according to their VPIP and PFR stats. Straight and to the point. Finally, ten pages of examples close the chapter.

Postflop play is the topic of Chapter Five — the most important one of the book, the author says. Several examples are reviewed to discuss the relative strength of a hand on the flop, considering its high and low parts. Some of them could look good to newcomers, but they actually play only one half of the pot, and the analysis clearly shows why this is very bad.

Next, the discussion deals with the types of opponents you will come across, and how you should adapt to them. The breakdown is pretty simple, but these broad lines should be more than enough to punish your opponents. Continuation Betting comes next, with a few guidelines for firing it or not.

Anticipating the next card is very important in all forms of poker, and all the more so in PLO/PLO8, where the nuts can change hands fairly quickly, with a lot of money left to bet. Sometimes you hand seems strong but it is quite fragile actually, and sometimes your backdoor draws account for a good part of your equity and playability; that’s what the author illustrates with several pages of examples and equity analyses. This is a good read for sure.

All these recommendations are welcome,
considering the number of unwary players who
fall into these traps on a regular basis

After a few pages on implied odds and stack sizes, Dan warns another time against playing non-nut draws, and to a lesser extent straight draws when there is a flush draw on the flop. When you hit a straight (the wheel, quite often), you should also be very prudent if you don’t have any redraw, since you could well be freerolled. Last, a word of caution about sets — even top set is far from a monster in PLO8, and if you don’t have anything else with it, you’d better make sure you’re not against a low and some kind of draw to a better high end than yours. All these recommendations are welcome, considering the number of unwary players who fall into these traps on a regular basis.

Chapter Six deals with advanced postflop concepts (17 pages). We are half-way through the book, and after this solid introduction to the fundamentals, here is some material that will give you the edge against more knowledgeable opponents. It includes aggressive play with two-way hands, and hand reading, according to board texture, your opponent’s preflop stats and their tendencies. The author suggests playing HU SNGs to work on your reads.

This chapter is a mixed bag with many pieces of advice, like thinking ahead, controlling the size of the pot, or attacking minbets. The best one is perhaps the part on semi-bluffing.

Chapter Seven focuses on tournaments, SNGs or MTTs (ten pages). Chapter Eight discusses some miscellaneous topics, like the results from the datamining the author did when writing the book. While the PFR appears correlated to the winrate, no single winning style clearly stands out. Among the other topics, the list of online tells is also worth remembering.

Eventually, Chapter Nine ends the book with 33 pages of practical hands.

Recommended

If you are interested in learning PLO8, or if you already play a bit sometimes to get a break from NLHE/PLO, Pot Limit Omaha8 Revealed will certainly give you the means to achieve a solid winning style and exploit the weak opposition you’ll often find in these games.

The book is available in paperback or in electronic format (ebook) on www.plo8poker.com

Note: I received a review copy of this book.