hand range for calling preflop raises from bb in limit O8

[Buzz]

1MoreFish4U - Excellent post.

[ QUOTE ]
I have spent a lot of time studying the results from the biggest/most consistent winners in my database, as well as many other players with large hand samples.

NONE OF THEM have long term success in blind play. You start off at such a disadvantage - forced to put in money with random cards, playing oop throughout the hand - that I can't imagine the results being anything but losing ones.

[/ QUOTE ]Agreed. Nobody wins, long term, from the blinds.

[ QUOTE ]
I would suggest that if you are playing against players that take frequent shots, you defend with any hands that you would play for 1 bet in an unraised pot, as well as with any hand that has a high pair as well as a flush draw, any hand with 3 wheel cards unpaired, any hand with Awxx, and any broadway type hands not already covered.

[/ QUOTE ]Those are hands that would be expected to play reasonably well one-on-one. Maybe in your games the play often reduces to one-on-one before the flop. However, in my games, that would be very rare! Still, probably good advice for a beginner to start very conservatively.

But at least at some point, and I think sooner than later, Hero has to start defending himself - or he will simply continue to get pushed around by the playground bullies.

And here's the hard part about defending yourself from a playground bully. You have to punch the bully even when you know you're going to get a bloody nose, even when you know you're going to get beaten. The reason is you're less likely to get bullied tomorrow (and forever).

Buzz

[jbright]

Thanks for another detailed response... much to chew on here!

Looking through this post and some others, it seems one of the hardest thing for a hold'em player (or any omaha newbie) to figure out is how to evaluate the relative playability of the huge mass of middle-of-the-road omaha starting hands, and then how to handle iffy or ambiguous situations when the flop hits. Both of these elements arise in defending-the-big-blind situations.

It's pretty easy to learn the basics of how to handle premium hands and garbage hands... but the array of possibilities in the middle are confusing and it's often not intuitive what plays well against x number of opponents.

Anyway if I understand the advice given, the lessons about defending the big blind in a low-limit O8 game are:

a) the pot odds for calling preflop raises in the big blind with mediocre hands can be deceiving, because even a favorable flop can have the hand dominated by all sorts of draws that can kill equity by the river, especially when the hand is played out of position...

However,

b) to offset this, there are 'meta-game' reasons not too fold too often when your big blind is raised, namely that your opponents will then steal your blind at will, which will kill your table image, and the few times you do call they'll have a near-perfect read on your hand.

[Buzz]

[ QUOTE ]
how to evaluate the relative playability of the huge mass of middle-of-the-road omaha starting hands

[/ QUOTE ]J. Bright - Your hand has four cards, making six two-card combinations. You need more than just one good two-card combination to have a hand that is better than middle of the road. But if you voluntarily choose to play a middle of the road hand, at least choose one that has a two-card combo with a decent capacity to make the nuts. Ace-deuce, ace-trey, deuce-trey, suited ace, pair of aces, pair of kings are all two-card combos that have a decent capability of flopping the nuts or a nut draw. For the lows, you like back-up counterfeit protection.

Ace-four and suited king are a couple of two card combos that primarily have 2nd nut on the flop capabilities. You maybe can play middle of the road starting hands with these too if you understand how to play them.

There's a lot more to starting hands than I'm representing in this post. This is just with respect to middle of the road starting hands. I'd call KQJT and some other all-high-card hands middle of the road starting hands. Being highly coordinated increases some of the nut draw potential for these middle of the road starting hands, and you can play them too.

Defending your big blind or not is a different, more complicated issue, as partially discussed in other posts within this thread.

Buzz

[rory]

Of course you are still a losing player from the blinds-- the point is to lose less. If you fold your big blind every time you lose 0.5 BB. If you defend 100% of the time and lose only 0.3 BB or whatever you are doing 0.2 BB better. If you fold 60% of the time or 30% of the time, one of those will wind up giving you an optimum minimum-loss-rate out of the blinds. You'll still lose, just lose less which is the same as winning more.

[tangerine]

[ QUOTE ]

What if the flop has an eight (28K)? That would be favorable, right? What if the flop is 654? That would be favorable too, right?

6h7s8h8s/2s8dKc ends up with
<ul type="square">trip eights scooping 7.5%
trip eights winning half 22.4%
trip eights losing 30.9%
eights full scooping 10.8%
eights full winning half 10.1%
eights full losing 8.8%
quad eights scooping 4.3%
quad eights losing 0.1%.
a straight winning 3.5%
a straight losing 1.6%[/list]You only catch a set of eights on the flop about one time out of eight. And then you end up losing but stuck in the pot roughly two hands out of five. When you do win, roughly three times out of five it's for only half the pot. And you don't flop a set of eights approximately seven times out of eight.

Of course, some of that time you might make a straight (or a straight draw with zero, one or two pairs) on the flop.
6h7c8h8s/3d4s5c ends up with
<ul type="square">eights full scooping 0.2%
eights full winning half 1.8%
eights full losing 0.8%
a straight scooping 0.1%
a straight winning half 62.1%
a straight losing 34.2%[/list]

Buzz

[/ QUOTE ]

Hi Buzz,

May I know which simulation tool you used to come out with all these data? very impressive!

thanks

[Buzz]

[ QUOTE ]
May I know which simulation tool you used to come out with all these data? very impressive!

[/ QUOTE ]Hi Tangerine - Thanks.

I used Wilson Turbo Omaha High-Low Split for Windows, Version 2.0 for those simulations. I have a copy of the newest version of Wilson around here somewhere, but that newer version is not installed on the computer I used for the simulations.

But I used more than one screen of data provided, made some inferences, did some calculating and used some reasoning to come up with those numbers. They were not provided directly in that form by the simulator.

Buzz