Today's poker column carries a tip from the dark art of bluffing and free lessons in Omaha poker...
POKER TIP OF THE DAY Rodney Marsh, for the benefit of younger readers, was once a truly gifted forward before he became an armchair soccer pundit. He had a lot of amazing skills but the one I used to enjoy most was his ability to convincingly trip himself up in the penalty area. This perfectly defines the acting quality you need to develop an effective bluff. Anyone who thinks it’s easy to fool other people with a con should think again. This is a dark art. My tip of the day is do not try it until you can convince your wife you were working late without her “folding” her arms, “raising” you with an eyebrow or “calling” your Boss to “check”.
POKER TOURISTS VISIT OMAHA Most professional poker players will often prefer big pot limit Omaha to Texas Hold’em. Let’s look into the probable reasons for this because Omaha is a compelling game. Each hand in Omaha consists of four hole cards, two of which you must utilise in combination with three of the five face up cards on the board. Let’s assume there are ten players at the table. In Texas Hold’em there are therefore only ten possible hands that can be in play. Omaha however gives every player six possible combinations of hands, so in effect, you have sixty hands in play! With so many hand combinations available the chances of a premium hand coming up are far greater than in Hold’em. This reduces bluffing to a very fine art as it is highly likely anyone who is betting aggressively probably really does have a premium hand.
BIGGER POTS INEVITABLE Bigger pots are almost inevitable in Omaha poker which is a far more volatile game than Texas Hold’em and because you have a far greater chance of making a flush or a straight, players get very attached to what they assume will be their winning hand. In this atmosphere bets flourish, hearts are broken and the winner is usually richly rewarded.
FREE OMAHA LESSONS In most games of Hold’em a pair of aces will give you better than a two to one shot at winning the pot. In Omaha that pair of aces is going to have to improve quite a lot along the way. If the face up board cards are showing potential straights or flushes for your opponents, you’re going to need that third ace (at least) to rattle their cages. Try one of the easy to follow free Omaha online tutorials at dailystarpoker.com.
