2/4 Limit O8 - Leaking Badly
 

This is a general question on how to improve my s/h play. I have 12,000 hands of 2/4 O8 play with 2-4 players. My play in the SB is killing me. Any suggestions to improve it? I can't just not play. Here are my stats from PTO. VPIP 58%. WP 45%. WWSF 37%. Play to SD 47%. W%SD 41%. Should I play tighter/looser? Any help would be great.

Re: 2/4 Limit O8 - Leaking Badly
 

Yeah, try to loosen up a bit under the gun

Re: 2/4 Limit O8 - Leaking Badly
 

I consider myself a decent Omaha player,but don't get a chance to play much short-handed,so your short-handed game is probably stronger than mine.

With that said,I have 3 thoughts that may be helpful.
(1)You have to expect to do somewhat poorly out of the SB,since your position is the worst possible.And,as you know,position is a very big deal short-handed.
(2)You get good odds to call out of the SB since 1/2 of your money is already in,making it mathmatically correct to call with some fairly ragged hands.But the other side of this is--You don't win a large percentage of time with these ragged hands,so from a psychological standpoint,it's aggravating to be throwing away your money a good part of the time in this situation.
(3)A lot of the time,it's a good idea to raise or re-raise our of the SB to get rid of the BB,So maybe more of your call/fold decisions should be raise/fold decisions,I don't know.Being aggressive out of the SB whenever possible has the added benefit of keeping your opponents from screwing withyou as often.

Hope this helps.Good luck to you Ben.

Re: 2/4 Limit O8 - Leaking Badly
 

That sounds like good advice. I don't expect to win overall from the SB, but I think I have been lacking aggression & not mixing it up enough. I'll try it for a couple of weeks.
Thanks very much & good luck to you.

Re: 2/4 Limit O8 - Leaking Badly
 

if you are doing poorly out of the sb then its very possible you do the same out of position all the time. not as well as you should i mean. think about how out of position changes your playing and betting requiements. the sb is the worst spot to be in if you leak badly out of position as you tend to play more from there when you shouldnt, especially if the bb raises often.

Re: 2/4 Limit O8 - Leaking Badly
 

I had a similar reaction to a couple of others. I'll just add that I had a similar experience once, noticing that I was losing more than I thought I should from the SB. I tried an experiment that is a bit extreme, but it taught me a lot. I resolved never to play from the SB unless I could raise. I did that for a month, and lo and behold! I began losing less from the SB. I don't play that way any more -- I will sometimes limp from SB -- but I learned a lot from the rasie-or-fold experience, and saved some money at the same time... I commend it to you.

By the way, what I mean by 'could raise' (from the SB) is of course game and situation dependent, but it generally means that I wouldn't mind being reraised (either because the reraise tells me just how much trouble I'm in, or because my hand is that good).

Re: 2/4 Limit O8 - Leaking Badly
 

One problem seems to be that I go up against a number of players that raise the SB on basically every hand. The challenge is to figure out what to defend it with. I think limping too much encourages the raises & a more aggressive approach (raise or fold) is an improvement for me. So far so good in a day of play.

Re: 2/4 Limit O8 - Leaking Badly
 

I can agree with one of the points Benwood made. You might want to raise or re-raise out the SB once or twice to let the table know where you stand. You can also raise a bit more when in good position. If you are interpreted as being a passive player, many will take advantage and test you on your blinds.

JMO - Knoll

Re: 2/4 Limit O8 - Leaking Badly
 

I just wanted to come back & post an update& thank you for the help, and especially a tip of the cap to Benwood. In the 17 days since my post I have played just over 16,000 hands with a profit of $0.27 BB/100. In the 17 days up to my post I had played 18,000 hands with a loss of -$2.05 BB/100. Changing my approach in the blinds had the effect of making me more aggressive in my oveerall game & reconsidering the value of playing as many questionable hands voluntarily.

Best free advice I ever got. Thanks again.

Re: 2/4 Limit O8 - Leaking Badly
 

Thanks for the feedback,my friend.I really appreciated what you said,& I'm glad my ideas helped you.

Ben.