It's a Wonderful Time of the Year

Springtime in Las Vegas – it's my favorite time of year here! Swimming pools open, golf balls fly through the air, and the World Series of Poker hits town. Serious poker players from all over the world come to town with dollar signs in their eyes, seeking to obtain a piece of the currency that's available during the extravaganza. The action is fast and furious. By no means do only good players come to town. Plenty of loosey-goosey players show up, also. A lot of money changes hands – many, many, many millions of dollars. Players bring their whole bankrolls to town and play as high as they can afford to play for the monthlong tournament. Often, they play for more than they can afford. A few of the wanna-bes will be successful, win a bunch of money and maybe a tournament or two, and make a name for themselves – but most go home broke. Some of those players possessing big names in the poker world will disintegrate their bankrolls, lose their minds in the process, and transform themselves into "has-beens."

One characteristic of WSOP time is that the best local players tend to step up and play higher limits. Tough pros who clog the $30-$60 through $60-$120 games I frequent play $100-$200 and higher, looking to make a score. That leaves the high middle limits pretty fertile territory. Also, lots of players try different games. Limit players take shots at pot-limit, stud players play Omaha, and so on, because the action is so good.

While at Bellagio, I noticed a $50-$100 Omaha high-low game with a half-kill that seemed awash with action players. I used to play Omaha high-low when I was developing my poker game at the local cardrooms around Seattle. I have not played it competitively since moving to Vegas 16 years ago. It was never my best game, and I knew that my feel for the game would be at a minimum from rust.

However, this game looked great! And there's one thing about Omaha high-low: If your opponents are playing virtually every hand, anyone playing tightly with some card sense will have a huge edge over them. Playing a nitty style in Omaha high-low does not require a high degree of strategy knowledge. The value of the game seemed too good to pass up, and I sat down in the one remaining open seat.

In Omaha, drawing to a hand that is not the nuts can get pretty precarious. Your chances of making the second-best hand are so much greater than drawing to the non-nuts in hold'em. By just playing a solid style, drawing to only the nuts, and always considering the pot odds against fields of such players who are continuously drawing to second-best hands, you will get the money over the course of time. This strategy does require multiple opponents who are playing a loose style, as the correct playing strategy of Omaha high-low changes greatly, becoming much more complicated, when most hands are being contested shorthanded.

In this game, I limited my starting hands to hands that contained either A-2 or A-3, or four high cards. Adding a nut-flush draw to the ace low draws strengthens the starting-hand value immensely. Hands with a powerful potential to "hog" the pot by either making a hand with no low or making a strong hand in both directions are premium starting hands. I did not do a lot of raising before the flop, as I wanted to trap the loose players into playing hands in which they were going to make more meaningful mistakes on later streets. It was not the most exciting style or mentally challenging game I have ever played in. An Omaha high-low expert would have had a much larger edge than I possessed against this field. However, I still liked my situation.

As I have stated before, poker is a game of edge over your opponents. Often, the equation is not so much how well you play a given game, but how well your opponents play the game. A good player who's playing against feeble opposition will make more money than a great player who's playing against a group of good players. Some of poker's biggest money winners are not necessarily the best players in terms of knowledge and application of strategy, but they have access to poker situations in which they hold a large edge in terms of ability over their opponents and the limits are large. Picking these spots effectively can maximize the dollar value of your poker skills greatly.

Editor's note: Roy Cooke played winning professional poker for 16 years. He is a successful real estate broker/salesperson in Las Vegas – please see his ad on Page 121.