Found a great web site for O8

[omaha]

Was browsing and found this great link

http://www.pokerplayernewspaper.com/...uthor&id=8

Looks like a guy went a bit ballistic over wilsons software, but it seems to be prettty good, havnt had the chance to study it all yet!

[ZenMusician]

I remember reading his columns while at Foxwoods.

Anyone have an opinion about his advice? I am reticent to
trust anyone who does not know the difference between
"loose" and "lose" (although it does seem 7/8 of the online
planet has the same problem).

-ZEN

[steamboatin]

He states that only 16.13% of Omaha starting hands are profitable.

How do you determine which hands are profitable? Is there a computer program that will tell you? I wonder about that statement because I would believe the game, tight/loose, passive/aggressive, etc. has a huge impact on starting hand values.

If I wanted to determine the top 16.13% of possible O/8 starting hands, how would I go about it?

[1MoreFish4U]

That kind of thing happens a lot because people trust spell check instead of proofreading their own work as well.

[wiseheart]

Im sure you could determine top 16%, in
the same manner as determining the top 16%
of HE hands, by seeing which hands would
W$SD the most against random hands.

That said Im a firm believer that just like
in HE, most hands in O8 can be profitable at
the right tables and with the right players.

[1MoreFish4U]

[ QUOTE ]

Im a firm believer that just like
in HE, most hands in O8 can be profitable at
the right tables and with the right players.

[/ QUOTE ]

wiseheart - you hit the nail on the head. Really bad players could only play the top 16% of hands, and still lose money if they didn't become good players. They could be too passive, get pushed off some of their holdings, too predictable and always wait to bet the nuts, play over their banroll, their etc etc.

Hand selection is very important, but aggressive, seizing momentum, making good laydowns are at least as important - especially at short tables or heads up.

[Buzz]

[ QUOTE ]
I am reticent to trust anyone who does not know the difference between "loose" and "lose"

[/ QUOTE ]Musician - There are more serious flaws in Mr. Mudaro’s work than typos or incorrectly spelled words. I don't trust him either.

[ QUOTE ]
Anyone have an opinion about his advice?

[/ QUOTE ]My problem with his columns is they are pocked with mistakes and misleading statements. That’s true of almost every one of his columns I have read. It goes deeper than poor editing. He makes some true statements, but he also makes some flat out wrong statements.

Let’s just look, for example, at the first listed article, "Omaha Hi-Low's Many Misconceptions Part 2,"

In this article, Mr. Mudaro takes it upon himself to comment about a statement Jennifer Harmon has written regarding the ace-deuce combination. Evidently Jennifer wrote or implied that some players overvalue hands containing ace-deuce. Mr. Mudaro evidently disagrees with Ms. Harmon’s claim. But his disagreement with Ms. Harmon is not the problem I have with the article.

For what it’s worth, I’m not sure why he disagrees with her. Based on what I have observed, I think some players do indeed overvalue hands containing an ace-deuce combination. Maybe I do myself.

At any rate, Mr. Mudaro explains how to arrive at 1326 as the number of possible starting hands for the game of Texas hold ‘em. Then he goes on to correctly calculate the number of possible starting hands for Omaha-8 (270725). Fine.

But then he skips to the number of unique starting hands in his data base, 11995.

I don't know as it matters, but the number of uniquely different four card starting hands is exactly 16432, not 11995. Evidently, Mr. Mudaro’s data base does not contain all possible unique Omaha-8 starting hands.

It’s all right for Mr. Mudaro’s data base to contain however many hands it contains. But does he incorrectly think 11995 is the number of uniquely different four card starting hands? I wonder.

I also wonder how Mr. Mudaro selected the 11995 hands in his data base. Did he somehow choose them at random, or does he think (incorrectly) that 11995 is the number of uniquely different starting hands? If he thinks 11995 is the number of uniquely different starting hands, he obviously has omitted roughly a quarter of the possible uniquely different starting hands. I wonder which starting hands he omitted.

He evidently uses Wilson’s turbo Omaha-8 simulator, the same as I use. But I’ve never been able to successfully duplicate his results. I wonder why. Perhaps he uses a different edition, (but I don't think that probably matters much). I imagine he must use a different line up than the ones I’ve tried in attempting to duplicate his published results. Whatever.

Assuming he used Wilson simulations to generate his data base, I wonder what parameters Mr. Mudaro chose regarding the playing of the hands in his data base.

At some point he writes that there are 1,934 profitable hands out of the 11,995 for a total of 16.13%. I wonder how many opponents were involved in the simulations, how tightly, tenaciously, and aggressively they played on each betting round, and how tightly, aggressively and tenaciously Hero played the 1934 profitable hands.

In my humble opinion, how tightly you should play depends on how your opponents are playing. In any game there probably is an optimal percentage of hands you should be playing, but the optimal number is not necessarily the same in game A as it is in game B. 16.13% may be right for some games but I think it’s too tight for my games.

The exact choice of Wilson characters involved makes a difference in the outcome of a simulation. Anyone who knows how to simulate using Wilson’s turbo-Omaha-8 disk will recognize hand A may do better than hand B against one group of opponents, while hand B does better than hand A against a different group of opponents. Similarly, the number of opponents involved may affect the relative ranking of hand A and hand B. It’s not clear to me which Wilson characters Mr. Mudaro is using in his simulations, or if he has modified the playing characteristics of any of the Wilson characters involved in the simulations. (Perhaps Mr. Mudaro made that clear in a column or columns I missed).

At some point he writes, [ QUOTE ]
“There are 825 possible hands that contain an A-2.”

[/ QUOTE ]Indeed there are not. Instead there are 20420 possible hands that contain at least one ace plus at least one deuce. (The number of possible hands that contain only one ace plus only one deuce is 18040).

Does he mean there are 825 uniquely different possible hands containing an ace and a deuce? If so, he should have said that.

However, if that is what he means, he is incorrect.

Just in terms of the number of uniquely different possible hands containing exactly one ace and exactly one deuce there are 891 uniquely different possible hands. If you include hands with more than one ace and/or deuce, there are even more. I could figure the correct number of uniquely different possible hands that contain an A-2, but I don’t know as it matters much.

My point is: whatever the correct number of uniquely different hands containing an ace-deuce is, Mr. Mudaro clearly gives an incorrect number.

Another thing that bothers me about Mr. Mudaro’s work at least in the first article listed is that some hands are more likely to occur than others. However, he’s using the percentage of unprofitable Omaha-8 starting hands that contain an ace plus a deuce in terms of the uniquely different hands rather than the total possible hands.

For example, A278 with all cards of the same suit and A278 with all cards of different suits are two uniquely different hands, but A278 rainbow is six times as likely to occur as A278 with all four cards of the same suit. Seems like Mr. Mudaro is giving the four possible hands with all four cards of the same suit the same value as the twenty four possible rainbow hands in calculating his 1.5%. That just doesn’t make good sense.

It’s kind of like saying that if your house has a parlor, a kitchen, a bedroom, a bathroom, and a small closet, the closet takes up one fifth of your house.

To put the relative value of ace-deuce in perspective, it's useful to look at how Wilson's software advisors rank two-card combinations.
<ul type="square">Wilson’s advisors are set to advise playing or folding starting hands on the basis of a point count method using all six of the two card combinations within the hand.

There are lots of different settings possible and they're all a bit different. Using the advisor for an average game, method L is employed. Ace-deuce is rated as worth 23 points for low plus another 8 high card points for the ace, a total of 31 points for a bare ace-deuce combination.

By contrast, ace-ace gets 26 points (without the extra 8 high card points).

Also by contrast, ace-trey gets 16 for low plus another 8 high card points for the ace, a total of 24 points for a bare ace-trey combination.

If any of these has the ace suited to exactly one other card in the hand, method L adds another 11 points for the flush draw.

Thus a suited ace-deuce is worth a total of 42 points while a suited ace-trey is worth a total of 35 points.

Recall that an unsuited ace-deuce was worth 31 points.

Thus the Wilson advisor using method L rates a suited ace-trey as worth more than a non-suited ace-deuce.

Ace-deuce is the best two card starting combination in Omaha-8. However, that does not mean no players overvalue hands containing the ace-deuce combination, especially if the ace is not suited to another card in the hand.

When the advisor is set to follow method L (in one type of average game) it suggests Hero play 25% of the hands dealt to him.

If we change the opponents to all Chans (tight, aggressive opponents), the advisor changes to using method K, set to advise playing 23% of the hands dealt to Hero (rather than 25% as in method L). Points given to a bare ace deuce still total 31 and points given to a bare ace trey still total 24 points, but 30 points (rather than 26) are given to ace-ace.

Thus when Hero follows the advice of the advisor, the number of hands played by Hero varies with the opposition, and also the type of hands played by Hero varies with the opposition.[/list]That’s Wilson software, turbo Omaha-8.

And Wilson is what Mr. Mudaro seems to be using for his simulations, at least in the article to which I am responding. But which characters has Mr. Mudaro chosen for the opponents??? Whichever characters are chosen makes a big difference in the number of hands played by each character, and also the number of hands played by Hero – and also on how these various hands are played.

There’s more but I’ve already written too much.

In short, Mr. Mudaro gets some stuff right and makes some interesting points, but his work is seriously flawed and pocked with errors.

Buzz

[steamboatin]

Do you like the Wilson software? Would you recommend it?

[Buzz]

[ QUOTE ]
Do you like the Wilson software?

[/ QUOTE ]Steamboatin' - Yes. I love it.[ QUOTE ]
Would you recommend it?

[/ QUOTE ]Yes. It's great. Well worth the price.

It never worked very well on my Mac. So I loaned it to a friend of mine, hoping he'd get some simulations going. He had it running for about a year, but he wasn't able to figure out how to do the simulations. He's no dummy, but he couldn't get the simulations going. He used the program for a while, practicing playing Omaha-8 against the computer. I guess it helped his Omaha-8 game.

Then I loaned it to another friend and he couldn't get the simulations going either. He also ended up using the software as a game, playing against the various Wilson characters. These are both very intelligent men who enjoy poker and Omaha-8, and seem reasonably computer literate - but neither of them got the simulations clicking. Beats me why. Doesn't seem difficult to do. Maybe it's a matter of being interested enough.

At any rate, if you get the Wilson Omaha-8 disc and then have trouble doing simulations, maybe I (or somebody else here) can help you or at least answer your questions.

Buzz

[EffenDolts]

If I simply evaluate the Hutchinson rating for all 270,725 O8 hands, I find only 16% rated at 18 points or higher. IMHO, 18-point hands are pretty marginal and I want to be in late position or some other favorable situation. Otherwise, I will fold most of them. Hutchinson recommends only playing hands rated at 20-points or better (12% of all hands).

Only 3% of all starting hands rate above 25 points, which I will play in almost any situation.

I believe there are several variants of Hutchinson. IIRC, I coded up this one: http://www.homestead.com/ehutchison/OmahaSystem.html

Effen