The ins and outs of casino poker
Written by Steve Larson
Wed, 27 Jun 2007
Category poker
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Nowadays, whenever a poker player hears the word: poker, he immediately thinks Texas Holdem. Even though Texas Holdem is indeed the most popular casino poker variant, there’s a lot more to poker than that.
For most people, Texas Holdem is not the first type of poker they ever learn. At least it wasn’t up until recently. With the masses of new poker players flooding online poker room each day, only God knows whether this still holds true or not.
In the online poker world, Omaha Hi-Lo is somewhat present but no other poker variant truly gets any of the limelight which is stolen almost entirely by Texas Holdem. At a closer look though, I can only say this is quite natural.
Texas Holdem is the game which is the easiest one in terms of short-term luck-skill variation. This means that a player who’s not a really good one, can still fatten up his stack, due to sheer luck.
In Omaha, a game of huge edges and predominant skill, this is simply not the case. The fish will lose his stack faster than he can say “hello” to the other players around the table, provided those other guys are good Omaha players.
To put it bluntly, a newbie in a game of Omaha, facing a good player is like you facing Tiger Woods at golf. I know you don’t like the odds on that matchup, but what about taking Tiger on in weightlifting? You might just stand a chance there, right?
The same way, rookies who know what’s good for them, want to play stronger players ( and when you’re an absolute rookie pretty much everyone is stronger than you) in Texas Holdem.
This is the explanation of why Omaha is nowhere nearly as popular in casinos as Texas Holdem is. In online poker rooms, Omaha provides sharks with excellent value though. The few tables that do fill up every now and then, attract a bunch of Texas Holdem rookies who have no clue about the game whatsoever. It takes a while until these guys realize the kind of thrashing they’re being subjected to.
All the above goes for 7-Card Stud, too.
Does all this mean that Holdem is an altogether easier game to beat? Since it offers increased value for rookies by means of its short term luck-factor, it has to be…
Unfortunately that’s not the case. Texas Holdem simply offers increased short term variance which makes fish think they’re beating the game. In the long-run, Holdem is much more difficult to beat for a good player or for a rookie than Omaha or 7-Card Stud are. As I said before, Omaha is a game of huge edges. On the opposite end of the spectrum comes Texas Holdem. In Holdem small edges matter. Identifying these small edges is difficult as it is, but putting them to work and reapplying them time and again is something that far exceeds the capabilities of a person who’s barely just learned what the game-rules are.
Winning Texas Holdem is not the glamorous affair many people think it is. Movies about poker are usually baloney.
I read somewhere that winning poker was a little bit like a day-job. Sure, it might not be as boring as digging a moat all day, or that exhausting for that matter, but the elements that make digging efficient, are the same for online Teaxas Holdem,too . Find something that works, and apply it over and over and over. Stealing blinds and making a few successful defenses, receiving rakeback, making good reads and many positive expected value plays. These are the things that make Holdem lucrative. Winning huge pots on marginal hands does happen, but it certainly isn’t the recipe for successful Texas Holdem play.