Those who play a lot of Omaha know that you’ve often got to commit a lot of cash to the pot without knowing what you’re going to wind up with in the end. That’s because the game involves a lot of chasing draws, and praying you hit them in the end. However, you don’t have to pray so much when you know which draws are good ones to chase and which ones are bad. It’s the tricky hands that you definitely need to avoid to stop yourself from wasting money!
A good example of a tricky Omaha hand would be if you had 8s-6s-9d-5h and the flop ended up being 8h-5s-Jc. In this instance, it seems like you have a good hand to work with since you’ve not only got a two-pair to fall back on, but also a straight and flush draw. However, there are definitely some problems with this hand.
The first one is that your fall back - the two-pair - isn’t much of a fall back at all because there will be a good chance that some other player will hit a higher two-pair. In addition to this, you are also chasing the low straight and flush draws which means you’ll also likely be beat if the card you need lands on the table anyways.
Now this doesn’t mean that you should avoid playing these hands - it simply means that you shouldn’t spend too much money staying in them. A good idea with these hands would be to see the later streets as cheaply as possible so that you don’t get sucked into thinking you’ve got the nuts.
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Whenever the discussion of all-time bracelet winners comes up, Erik Seidel’s name is sure to come up. After all, Seidel is tied for 4th all-time (Johnny Moss) with 8 WSOP bracelets and could add more to that total before his playing days are over. This past week, Seidel was able to parlay his poker fame into an appearance on one of his favorite shows “Curb Your Enthusiasm”.
For those who aren’t aware of this show, Curb Your Enthusiasm is a HBO comedy that centers on the fictional life of former Seinfeld producer Larry David. Since Seidel has been such a big fan of the show, he was able to end up in it as an extra just recently.
The scene that Seidel appeared in was during a restaurant shot where Larry David was talking to his onscreen wife about an upcoming Seinfeld reunion. During this shot, Seidel is prominently shown when the two are talking in the background. Basically, Seidel is just sitting behind them eating in the restaurant.
Now I know this performance isn’t going to earn Seidel any Golden Globe awards, but it is pretty cool that he was able to get on one of his favorite shows. And don’t ask me how poker fans were able to recognize him in the background during this scene - but they were.
Seidel joins the latest poker pros to appear on mainstream television as Maria Ho and Tiffany Michelle did so recently when they were on the Amazing Race. The pair of poker pros did fairly well and finished in 6th place out of 12 teams.
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Before the WSOP Main Event final table resumed play this past weekend, there were plenty of news stories flying around. There was the story of Phil Ivey going for even further poker greatness by adding the Main Event title that’s eluded him during his career. Then there was Jeff Shulman who made headlines after saying he’d trash his WSOP bracelet if he happened to win the Main Event.
And of course there was Darvin Moon who was the chip leader going into the final table as well as the center of several hokie rags-to-riches stories (never mind the fact that he actually owns his own logging company). After this weekend, those rags-to-riches stories came to fruition as the logger from Maryland earned his way into a showdown with Joe Cada for the Main Event title.
Cada is also an interesting story as he fits into the old college dropout turned poker pro class of players who have made it big. What’s unique about Cada though is that he has made his mark by playing in live tournaments outside of the US which is rare for an American under 21. Cada built his bankroll at Casino Windsor in Canada then experienced further success in live tourneys in Aruba and the Bahamas. Now he’s set to collide with Moon in a WSOP Main Event duel.
The only problem for Cada is that he’s sitting at a 2-to-1 chip disadvantage against Moon. With this kind of advantage, it’s clear that Moon will be the favorite going into the last leg of the Main Event. However, Cada did battle back at several points during final table play while on the brink of elimination. It will be interesting to see how this finale plays out in the end!
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It’s safe to say that everyone loves having the big stack at their table when they are in a tournament. Having the big stack allows you to push other people around on the table with big bets and raises without fear of busting out. On the opposite end of the spectrum is having the short stack where you are in constant fear of going out on any play. Nobody likes to be in this position since you don’t have much room to maneuver around in a tournament with a short stack. But it’s something that happens at some point in every tourney so it must be dealt with.
And the best way to deal with a short stack situation is to try and double up by making an all-in call. The best opportunity for going all-in against a bigger stack arises when you actually have some decent cards to make such a call. For instance, having a premium hand like J-J or higher definitely warrants calling a bigger stack since your odds for winning won’t get much better than this. In some cases, you may even want to call with something like 9-10. or J-T if your stack is really hurting.
Of course good cards don’t always come your way during these times so you’ll have to use required odds sometimes. Required odds are basically the times when you get correct odds to call with a short stack - normally 2-to-1 or better. How this works is if you can put your opponent on a certain range and give yourself 2-to-1 odds then you have to be making the call. So if you put your opponent around A-K and you have J-T then you should be calling since you have almost a 40% chance of beating your opponent. This fits into the 2-to-1 odds so you should definitely call!
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Everyone loves to look down at their hole cards and see a pair of awesome cards. Even better is when the board helps one turn these great cards into a monster hand. However, just getting a monster hands is only part of the battle since one has to take this big hand and make as much money with it as possible. Here’s a glance at ways you can use to turn your big hands into big money makers.
Overbetting
One of the most common ways to make lots of money off of a great hand is to overbet. Overbetting simply sees one firing out huge bets in hopes that somebody will call which sometimes happens since opponents take overbetting as a sign of bluffing. However, overbets can also scare other players out of a pot too so be careful with these.
Betting Every Time
Another way to get lots of money into the pot is to bet on every street. Placing wagers on the flop, turn, and river is a good way to get others to call these bets and build the pot bigger. However, putting chips out on every street is yet another way to possibly scare others out of a hand. So you’ve got to know the players who are still in the hand if you want to capitalize through this method.
Check-Raise
One very tricky way to build the pot is to check-raise. Check-raising is very effective since it enables one to get two bets out of one round of wagering. Unfortunately, a big problem with check-raising is that another player might just check as well which knocks out a whole round of betting.
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