The Future Of Omaha 8's Popularity?

[Grasshopp3r]

I would agree that bluffing in low limit O8 is futile, but quartering is very profitable. Most locked lows will call off all of their stack on obvious quarters.

I think that Omaha 8's popularity is tied to HE, as HE players will drift into O8 just to try something new. I see O8 getting more aggressive due to the HE influence.

[morphball]

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I think that Omaha 8's popularity is tied to HE, as HE players will drift into O8 just to try something new. I see O8 getting more aggressive due to the HE influence.

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They are mostly drifting to PL Omaha High...but, they will filter to O8 after that. The HORSE games will cause the traffic to increase too.

[Zeldark]

Omaha8 is my least favorite Horse game. It's easily also my worst. My love to play and get better at horse has reached the point so that I wanted improve my Omaaha8 game. And here I am.

As for this conversation. I am proof that Horse will bring in traffic. Most people aren't like me, but perhaps in that way they are. As for the game in the long term, I hear Omaha is really big in europe. Find a European site and Omaha it up? I dunno, but I'm off to research more O8 :-)

[Dire]

I think it will grow in popularity. With a solid game and enough hands, holdem starts to get pretty monotonous and players will be looking for other games. At a glance, omaha seems like a more complex form of holdem so I'd expect to see a gradual increase in the game's popularity. It's also a fish friendly game because of how close the hands tend to run.

In the long run, though - the fish lose their money even faster than holdem and the players who become good at it realize it's a pretty damn boring game too. Because of this, I don't think it will ever become hugely popular like holdem currently is.

[Rick Nebiolo]

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IMHO, O8 is popular with the geezers because there is much less aggression than NLHE and even LHE. Low-limit O8 players often criticize others for frequent PF raises. They just want a friendly family-pot game. They also want to be able to draw a lot and make huge suckouts on the river. They mostly played stud/stud8 before they played O8, where they learned to love chasing.

I think the younger generation loves poker for the chance to make aggressive plays. Will they ever want to play no-foldem O8, where bluffing is almost futile?

Effen

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I used to work as daytime floor in the Omaha/8 and small stud section at Hollywood Park from 1996 to 1999 or so. At the time we probably had more small Omaha/8 games 2/4 to 6/12) then anywhere on the planet. I believe your analysis is 100% spot on.

~ Rick

[T50_Omaha8]

Also it's almost always played limit. People want to watch TV and see everything change in an instant and that just won't happen with this game.

[Scruff]

While I agree with the comments about live O8 having about 1/3 of the players being hooked up to oxygen - there are some encouraging things . . .

I'm an Omaha mostly player at this point - most of my friends think I'm nuts, and get mad when I pick O8 in dealers choice, but think it's ok that someone else can pick Queens and Nines Wild, Four's an extra card and stuff like that.

However, I've gotten a buddy to start playing online, and he loves it. Now he likes it even better than hold-em, which is kind of what happened to me. We are now going to try to push the game on our friends more, since it's not just Scruff the idiot's game anymore :-)

So I think once people play the game some, they like it more - there's a lot more going on, and the suckouts are more than made up for by the fact that you can still get 1/2, and you have people calling you while drawing completely dead. My friend specifically said he doesn't feel the game is as lucky as hold 'em.

Also, I've noticed a few more young people in the live games when I get to the casino. Wheras I used to be the only person under 40, now there might be one or two others. At the Trump Classic O8 $340 tourney (which was pot limit), more than 1/2 the players were guys I'd consider 'young' (under 35 or so). At the final table, we only had 3 guys I'd consider 'older' and one of them was Chris Reslock, who finished 4th at the WSOP Tourney of Champions.

So I think there's hope - we just need to sell it to our friends. It's a great game, and once people play it some, they'll see that.

[Scruff]

One thing T50_Omaha8 - the Taj weekly O8 tourney is now Pot Limit, and the Trump Classic $300+40 was also pot limit. The dealers do a surprisingly decent job with it too, so I think that might start to take off a little. There were 144 for the $340 at the Trump Classic, and there are typically 25-30 at the weekly ($80+20) tourney.

The cash games are still limit though - does anyone know where they spread PLO8 live for cash games?

[Scruff]

One thing I should have mentioned - the geezers hate pot-limit O8 - that same weekly tourney used to have about 80-100 people when it was limit - and I heard the geezers in the cash games openly complaining about the change to pot-limit. So I don't know if management will stick it out with pot-limit or switch back . . .

[Buzz]

Youngster - I didn't vote in your poll. None of those choices quite seem to fit. I would have chosen the middle option, "it will always stay the same" except for the word "always."

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Will it get more popular?

[/ QUOTE ]No. Enjoy it while it lasts. My poker playing friends mostly prefer Texas hold 'em.

I actually think Omaha-8 is very gradually on the decline. I hope I'm wrong.

Omaha-8 tournaments in Los Angeles area casinos have definitely waned in the last several years. The number of Omaha-8 ring games offered has declined too. That's just my observation.

Buzz