As anyone who followed this year's
World Series of Poker knows, the rotation game of H.O.R.S.E. has become immensely popular. The largest buy-in tournament of the
Series was the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. event, won by poker luminary Chip Reese. It should be pointed out that my friend Andy Bloch finished second, and had Reese all in on more than one occasion while Andy held the best hand.
In the aftermath, online cardrooms began spreading H.O.R.S.E. games to instant success. Since so many players have flocked to this rotation game, I thought I'd do a two-part series on some basic mistakes to avoid in each of the five H.O.R.S.E. components.
For those who don't know, H.O.R.S.E. is equal parts hold'em, Omaha eight-or-better, seven-card razz, seven-card stud, and seven-card stud eight-or-better. Each game is played with fixed betting limits. Usually, hold'em is played first, and after some set amount of time (typically 15 minutes online, or 30 minutes in a brick-and-mortar cardroom), the game changes to the next letter. In my opinion, a player can be successful at H.O.R.S.E. without being an expert in any one of its games, especially at the low to medium stakes. This is because most players do not know the basics of all five games, and usually play one or more of them quite badly. The key to H.O.R.S.E. is knowing the fundamentals of
all five games. You don't have to be a master in any of the games, but just make sure that you're not a fish in any of them.
I'll start by looking at the first two games in the rotation - coincidentally, the two games I know best of the five - limit hold'em and limit Omaha eight-or-better. Again, my goal in this particular column is not to turn readers into $2,000-$4,000 H.O.R.S.E. players, ready to take on Chip Reese, Barry Greenstein, Phil Ivey, and company, but rather, to plug enough leaks in readers' games so that they can comfortably sit down in a typical low- or middle-limit H.O.R.S.E. game (cash or tournament) and expect to be a long-term winner. For more in-depth analysis of limit hold'em and limit Omaha eight-or-better, see my book
The Making of a Poker Player, and also the relevant sections of
Super System II, where Jennifer Harman, Bobby Baldwin, and
Card Player columnist Mark Gregorich do a superb job.
Limit Hold'em
Pitfall No. 1: Open-limping. This pitfall actually exists in all five games, but it is most important to avoid in hold'em. If you are the first person entering the pot, either raise or fold - every single time. If others have limped (that is, just called and not raised) in front of you, it is perfectly acceptable to limp in behind them and see a cheap flop in position. Conversely, you do not want to let the players behind you see a cheap flop in position. If you have a playable hand, you want to raise, and make sure that anyone behind you plays for at least two bets. You also don't want to let the blinds look at the flop for free. The most important skill in limit poker is to get value out of your good hands. To do this, start by raising with those good hands preflop. If your hand isn't good enough to open-raise, you shouldn't be playing it at all. A corollary to this advice is that if someone has raised in front of you, you should pretty much only reraise or fold, unless you're in one of the blinds.
Pitfall No. 2: Missing value bets, especially on the end. Most everyone knows how to keep firing away with decent hands on the flop and turn if no one has shown resistance, but for some reason, river play trips up a lot of people. If you have a made hand on the river and have been the aggressor throughout, you usually should bet your hand again, hoping to get called by a worse hand, especially in position. There are times, when out of position, that you'd be better off inducing a bluff than betting for value. But when in doubt, you should bet your second and third pairs (and definitely top pairs) when you think they're good. I've been called down by more ace highs and king highs than I can count, and those call-downs aren't even necessarily wrong! This is not no-limit, in which a misguided value-bet can cost you a ton of chips. This is limit, in which the most you'll lose is two bets (if you get raised, call, and lose). Make as much money as you can when you have a winner.
Pitfall No. 3: Bad folds. As a limit hold'em player, you should be folding the vast majority of your hands before the flop. But, on the later streets, when the pot gets big, you need a pretty compelling reason to fold any halfway decent hand. I often see players four-bet the flop, only to fold to the first bet on the turn. This line can be correct only if the four-bettor was bluffing the flop with no pair and no draw. If you've reached the turn in limit hold'em, you usually need to end up with the best hand only about a quarter of the time, and sometimes a lot less often, to show a profit. Let's say that you raised preflop, got called by the big blind, bet the flop, got raised, and called. Now your opponent bets the turn. There are 5.25 big bets in the pot, and there will be 6.25, assuming your opponent bets the river. You have to call two big bets to see a showdown, so you need to win 2÷(2+6.25) = 24 percent of the time to break even. There certainly are times that you will not win 24 percent of the time, and those times, you should fold. The rest of the time, however, you must at least call.
Limit Omaha Eight-or-Better
Once more, I give the disclaimer that this advice is suited to low- or middle-limit games, and is not advice on how to beat experts.
Pitfall No. 1: Overvaluing pocket aces. Hold'em-only players mess this up all the time when they switch to Omaha eight-or-better. When dealt pocket aces and two other mediocre cards in Omaha eight-or-better, it's fine to raise preflop (although you might want to limp in behind a string of limpers), but after the flop, you don't have a real hand unless you flop a set or some nut draw. Unimproved pocket aces are a mediocre holding, at best, in Omaha eight-or-better, and should be folded to any significant action in a multiway pot. Being heads up against a tricky player is one thing - in that case, you may be required to call down - but in a typical low- or middle-limit Omaha eight-or-better game, in which many players see the flop, it's crucial to just let those aces go when they've missed.
Pitfall No. 2: Chasing non-nut draws. As I said in my book, if you're going to draw to a flush or straight with a pair on the board, you might as well just write out a check and leave it on the table. The only draws worth playing in Omaha eight-or-better are nut draws, whether they be nut-low draws (preferably with backup), top sets, nut-flush draws, or nut-straight draws (never with a pair on board). You occasionally can get away with drawing to non-nut full houses with a middle set on a connected board, but that is about the only exception. It's hard to raise the river in Omaha eight-or-better without the nuts, so if you're going to
draw to a hand, you better be drawing to the nuts.
Pitfall No. 3: Playing for half the pot. If three low cards appear on the flop, and there is any kind of action at all, you oftentimes should throw away some of your strong high-only hands. If the pot is big enough, and, of course, only if you have a chance at the nuts, it might be worth it to play for half the pot. But most of the time, the price will not be right to compete for just half of what's out there. Whenever you're involved in an Omaha eight-or-better hand, you should be asking yourself, "Do I have a chance to win the whole thing?"
In my next column, I'll look at pitfalls in razz, stud, and stud eight-or-better.
Matt Matros is the author of The Making of a Poker Player, which is available online at http://www.CardPlayer.com.
