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PLO seems to be the game of choice among big cash-game players, and it is growing in popularity among lower-limit players too. I still make some donkey plays and go on tilt (which is more prevalent in PLO than in Hold 'Em, because everyone is speculating in this game and people hit bigger hands on the turn and river almost every hand), but that's my issue. With so much action post-flop, you can go broke fast if you don't know what you're up against. Hwang's book is a great place to start.The first third of the book is dedicated to PLO, then there's a brief section on miscellaneous topics like bankroll management, maintaining emotional discipline, etc.
His book is both as reader-friendly and instructive as Dan Harrington's NLHE books.Get the book if you want a solid PLO foundation. Understanding run-down, one-gap and two-gap straight wraps; the percentages in draw vs. has helped me make regular profits in online small-stakes PLO games. Hwang also recommends several other PLO books out there (especially Ciaffone's), so you'll know where to go from here. I played as I read my way through the first two sections of the book (I can't recommend doing this highly enough) and I felt so much more confident about the choices I was making.Hwang includes enough math to open your eyes, but not so much that you feel overwhelmed. I was a casual PLO player going into the reading of this text, having spent most of my time playing No Limit Hold 'Em.In my opinion, no one should venture into PLO without having studied the nuances of the game first.
draw situations, why one shouldn't necessarily get excited by flopping the nuts, etc. See you at the tables. Mr. and then the second half of the book goes into Limit Omaha Hi/Lo Split and Pot Limit Omaha Hi/Lo Split.I read this book just for PLO for now, and I am a better player for it.
Spoiler alert: almost every practice/hypothetical hand you play vs him in the book, he wins. I think this may be a good starting point book for people familiar with the basics of Hold 'em, but completely unfamiliar with Omaha, but for someone who has played Omaha enough to get the gist of how it works, this is not the book for you. If you are reading this, then you are a poker player and you already know that most poker players have substantial egos. On the positive side, he has much breadth, includes a chapter on miscellaneous topics, and chapters on Hi/Lo.
I think it would have been much better if he had a better editor (or perhaps one at all). He has no major accomplishments under his belt other than winning at low stakes games. Now, a bracelet is not a prerequisite for being a poker author, but it helps if you're going to keep talking about how great you are in your book.All in all, I think this is an acceptable rough introduction into the game for someone without any prior knowledge of it. However, most of the skills here can be gleaned from a few hours of observant play at the tables. I purchased this book mainly based on the numerous positive reviews (mostly 5 stars). Apparently, most people find this book to be profound. who took out things like the non-word, "irregardless," duplicate words, and other inconsistencies. I think without that, some of his justifications were less effective.His ego also began to get annoying.
In fact, he never explicitly states what comparison you are looking for with implied odds vs the odds of making your hand. (In Hi/Lo, he'll let you split). You won't be a pro, but you'll know the strategies found in this book. It wasn't until I read the final section, "Closing Thoughts," that I realized he has only been playing Omaha for a couple of years. In fact, he kept plugging Bob Ciaffone's book, "Omaha Poker" so much, I wish I had purchased that one instead.Hwang did a very good job including a breadth of topics from hand selection to Omaha Hi/Lo to bankroll management. He also kept mentioning how successful he is.
Unfortunately, I found it to be lacking in depth, unclear at times, poorly edited, and infuses a distracting amount of his ego. Hwang is no different. For instance, he always justified plays with claims of "implied odds," but never went into a discussion on how to calculate those or comparing them to the odds of actually hitting your draw. I bought this book in a bundle pack with Hwang's other book and am hoping his strategies there are more substantial.There were enough negative aspects to this book to make me regret buying it. Unfortunately, he didn't expand on many topics he discussed.
If you are seriouse about learning this game this book is a must read. I started playing Omaha a few months before I bought this book and now that I have bought and read it it has definetly improved my game.
He favors a solid, tight/aggressive style which I agree with. So, I found his discussion of turn play to be very short and overly simplified - he basically just says that if you liked your hand on the flop, then you should keep betting it on the turn, no matter what the turn card actually is.And I don't think there was a single hand in the book where he advocated going for a check/raise. He also does a good job of explaning the thought process that you should go through on the flop when you are deciding whether or not to continue with your hand. For instance, what if you have a solid 13-card draw on the flop, but you don't hit it on the turn. This book was very helpful for me and I highly recommend it, especially to relatively new Omaha players.
Omaha high/low could have been covered in a separate book.Having said that, it's a very good book and well worth the price. I would have liked to see the entire book devoted to PLO so that he could cover it in more detail. For the most part he says to keep betting it on the turn, but surely there are times when you should slow down, or even fold your hand on the turn. He covers pot-limit omaha high, limit omaha 8/b, and pot-limit omaha 8/b. I know he is saving most of his advanced plays for the next book, but still, there wasn't enough discussion of postflop play for me. The book stretches itself a bit too thin. Not enough postflop play. This is another area that he will probably cover in the next book.2.
The best part was Hwang's analysis of the different types of starting hands and their structures (which is more complex than you may expect). This seems strange to me because the check/raise can be a very powerful move, even in PLO.There wasn't enough discussion on reading your opponents based on their betting habits, and he made no mention at all of using deception and varying your play in order to make yourself harder to read. I just hope that volume 2 covers some of the "trickier" aspects of Omaha that were not discussed here. However I did have a few issues with the book:1. The turn is an especially tricky street, and he doesn't discuss turn play nearly as much as I had hoped.
A lot of the information presented (such as the weaknesses of having a gap at the top of your rundown) would probably take a long time of playing experience to figure out on your own.If there are any downsides to the text (and I didn't personally see it as a downside), its that you will most likely end up playing tighter than anyone else at the tables you are at; at least, I have since finishing it. Having been a relatively experienced semi-pro Hold'em player, I decided I needed to branch out and learn some other forms of poker; one of my good friends and mentors told me Omaha was the best form of poker for making money right now, so I decided to give it a shot. It's simply that the text will make you realize how many playable looking hands are truly trash that will only leave you vulnerable if you connect, and you will end up throwing away a lot of hands that other players would happily play.Overall, a great text for this novice and one I would recommend to anyone looking to enter the world of Omaha poker. That isn't to say that you will play passively; once involved in a hand, Hwang generally advocates for very aggressive play. With that in mind, the comments on this text come from a relative newcomer to the game of PLO (I started playing it around 2 months ago).Simply put, the strategy outlined in this book is easy to understand and will have you getting the best of it at low stakes (1-2 and 2-5) PLO games within a short time. Broad concepts are broken down understandably, and the synthesis of starting hand requirements to their structural components (full rundown, rundown with gap at bottom, rundown with gap in middle, etc)., with the flop opportunities available for each structure, make the large amount of information easy to process.
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