The Scoop - Sam Stein Discusses Pot-Limit Omaha Bracelet Win Against Ben Lamb

Sam Stein has been a successful pro on the tournament and cash game scene for years, with lifetime tournament earnings of nearly $4.2 million. Stein truly had a breakout year in 2011, winning his first World Series of Poker bracelet in a $3,000 pot-limit Omaha event, cashing for $1,805,637 over the year and finishing fifth in the Card Player Player of the Year race.

Stein stopped by the set of Card Player TV’s “The Scoop” to discuss winning his first bracelet heads-up against Ben Lamb, a close friend who taught him how to play the game in question, pot-limit Omaha.

“In Omaha I learned a lot from Ben and Chance Kornuth. I got a lot better with their help, because I was only playing no-limit hold’em before that. I was hanging out with them a lot and they told me how good the Omaha games were, both in cash games and in tournaments. So a few years ago I decided to learn the game. It was mostly observation, just watching them play online at the time and sometimes sitting behind them in some live cash games and talking to them about hands.

“I quickly learned that there are a lot of similarities [to no-limit hold’em]. It is a completely different game, there is still a ton to learn, but there are notable similarities so I found it easy to transition into it. I started playing a little bit of online cash games back in the day, and I started with mostly shallow stack play. I figured that I would be able to pick up the deep-stack Omaha strategy a little easier because I had so much experience playing deep-stacked no-limit hold’em, but I thought that the hardest part would be learning the shallow stack strategy. If I played a lot of that it would really help me understand the hands and hand strength in the game.

“[Playing heads-up against Ben] was interesting because I was trying to think of any way I could take advantage of my understanding of his approach to the game. When it came down to it, the heads-up match came down to somewhat of a cooler, which was nice. It was going back and forth at first, and then I had a 2-to-1 chiplead and then in one hand we got it all-in on the turn with me holding the nut straight and he had the second-nut straight. But it was definitely going through both of our minds as to how we were going to approach the situation.

“There was probably one hand that was tough for each of us during heads-up play. I had one hand against him where I wasn’t sure what to do on the turn, based on knowing the way he plays and trying to determine how he was then going to approach our heads up match. One side of it is that I know the way he thinks about Omaha, and it would make a certain play right for him, but of course he knows that I know that, so that made it harder to figure out… It’s deep enough as it is when you are playing against someone that is highly skilled. But when it is someone who is highly skilled, one of your best friends, and someone who you have talked about the game with endlessly, it makes it even that much more hard.” ♠

To see host Diego Cordovez’s full interview with Stein, check out “The Scoop” on CardPlayerTV.com.