Omaha is the game of the future

Apparently according to a lot of people, Omaha is the game of the future. I plan to learn it. I played it for the first time in my life a few days ago, and it was quite a sight to see. It was 4/8 Omaha 8, which means its a high/low game. Which means that if your final 5-card hand using the board consists of 5 differently numbered cards you have a low hand, the nut low hand being A2345. Anyway, in the end I think I have a decent grasp of the game and know that the people that played that game that day all suck at it for most part. Course that game is virtually unbeatable because the rake (the fee that the casino takes out of each pot) is a ridiculous 6$ which basically is both the small blind AND big blind. Being the luckbox that I am I ended up winning 60$ haha. I remember using all my brain power to see what kind of draws etc. I had and what not, since its like playing regular Hold'em cept with 4 cards for a total of 6 combinations of Hold'em hands.

March Tourney Madness!

Actually this tournament madness is probably not what everyone thinks it is. Yes it is March Madness time with lots of college basketball, but over at Bay101 when the word tournament is mentioned 90% of the time (ok thats a bit of an overestimation but whatevers) its about the upcoming WPT Shooting Stars Event this Monday (3/16).

The tournament is called Shooting Stars because many "famous poker celebs" are playing and are receiving what is called a bounty dubbing them a shooting star. If you happen to knock out a shooting star you get their bounty which I believe is worth either $5,000 or $10,000. The buy-in for the tournament is $10,000.

I figure #s about how good/bad I've been running are pointless, so I'll just say I feel I've been playing fairly well the past couple sessions. Here's an awesome hand where my opponent goes on tilt for a little after this hand, and for the oddest reason.

Oh and I've been getting pretty lucky
Villain limps UTG, I raise 55 from the CO, everyone else folds he calls.

flop: Jc6c2h
he checks, I bet, he calls
turn: Ts
he checks, I bet, he calls
river: 3h
he checks, I check

He then proceeds to stand up and almost yell, "BUT YOU NEVER CHECK THE RIVER! HOW COME YOU DIDN'T BET?!?!?!" and then he tables 33.

I am awesome.

Been great lately having a familiar face both at my games and to talk to about poker. He's a friend from highschool who has had much greater success than I have had when it comes to poker. I'd also say he probably has a greater edge than I do at the 20/40 game, but who knows. For the most part a large portion of poker strategy discussion I get is from people that I've met online through a poker forum and on AIM or what not. So its nice to be discussing hands with someone I regard to have good knowledge of the game as well as someone I know outside of the online world.

-Dan Low

Feb Recap

All in all, February was good to me. I played 3 more sessions since my last post. -993 -997 and +1940. This brought me to a total of 66.25 hours played for total earnings of 5253 at 79.29/hr. If I had not played that last session on the 28th, I would've been running at 55ish/hr for the month which is way more reasonable, but running well is always welcome.

I realize that these posts are ridiculously long for anyone to just randomly read so I'll try to keep the posts more brief I suppose. I decided yesterday that I need to start putting names to faces so I can recognize playing styles more easily. I recognize faces, but often times I don't remember which face played what hand this way from the hands that I remember. I figure putting names to my past hands will help me remember how they play. Currently I just sit, I see old faces, but its like starting over again on the observations because I don't remember how they play. I just stereotype, which works, but is not the best when I have so many hands against these players.