Mixed Games Poker Forums

Limit Omaha 8 is supposedly the least variance form of poker.

And I am losing at it. Not just losing, but losing handily.

The past two sessions of the 3/6 with a 5/10 kill home game that I attended, I lost my entire buy-ins. And I don't know what the hell I'm doing wrong. Or IF I'm doing anything wrong.

It seemed like whenever I had the nut low draw, no low would be possible by the river. When I had the nut flush draw, the flush would not come in or the board would pair. I got my money in when I had the most equity (I think) and folded when I knew I was beat. I was up against players who had VPIP ranges in the 70s to 100s. (One person literally played every hand, another raised preflop from the small blind with QQ97badugi.)

And yet, it seems to me that I'm losing too much and too often at this game to be due to run-bad. And I can't figure out, for the life of me, where I'm going wrong.

The only thing I can think of is that I might be playing too tight preflop, waiting for hands to have an A2xx, suited A3xx A34x, or suited A45x. (with exceptions when I can see a hand like KQJTds or KK23ss/ds in position) I don't think my post-flop game is too poor, as I bet out draws that are capable of scooping, or made nuts. But then again, every O8 book out there says: Play for the scoop, play for the flushes, have backup protection for your low... I do all that.

I just, for the life of me, cannot figure out why or where I'm going wrong. How can I determine if this is just run-bad or if I have something seriously wrong with my O8 game?

i have no idea what Dunner-Krugering is.

it sounds like you played fine, and had normal variance (ran poorly, in this case) over a tiny sample size. realize that it's a completely commonplace outcome for good players to run poorly, or poor players to run well, etc etc, for a long time -- certainly many thousands of hands at a minimum. unfortunately, it will take you a really long time to get to a statistically relevant sample (the "long run") playing live poker.

but this variance is standard. do you think the guy who played every hand or the QQ97 guy are winners in the long run? if not, why assume you are a loser based on the exact same number of hands of play?

probably you could play a few more hands profitably, if every pot is massively multiway, but there's not a huge need to.

The Dunner-Kruger effect is when you're so ignorant of a subject, you are ignorant of your own ignorance of that subject.

Yeah, I just... the variance in LO8 hurts a lot more, I think, because it is death by a thousand cuts. Running bad in LO8 means that your stack is just getting chipped away at, and you can't help but wonder after a while if you're doing something horribly wrong. In big bet poker, your bad-beats and run-bads are over in an instant. It stings, but, like ripping off a bandaid vs. slowly peeling it off, it hurts less cause it is over more quickly. Plus, you can always say that you got your money in good, and know that over the long term, you're winning money. And stacks can rise just as fast as they fall - in LO8, for example, being down half a buy-in means that I have to scoop, on average, about 3 or 4 pots without losing one just to break even. In NLHE/PLO/PLO8, one big pot is all you need; the rest of the time you can just protect your stack.

As it is, I'm putting a down payment on a townhouse, and liquidating my roll in order to pay for it, so I'm no longer properly rolled for the game in any case.

you might be Dunner-Kruger-ing(?) in regards to variance, sample sizes, and so on

focus on playing well and not on how stuck you are or how many pots you need or whatever

the book "Elements of Poker" by Tommy Angelo is something I bet would be very useful for you right now

You could put $100 online and play low stakes o8 there for continued practice/fun/training - Merge network gets .10/.20 or .25/.50 going every day. you'll even get some back in rakeback

I suppose I'd feel better if I could play at lower live game stakes. I'll ask Ryan if he's interested in doing a "Micros night"