My poker playing has been rather spotty over the past few weeks due to work and other obligations. However, when I do play it is 100% Omaha and nothing else. I just can't get enough of the game and it has really gotten me excited about playing again. I was just getting so incredibly bored with hold'em. I've always considered myself a pretty decent Omaha player, but now I'm really hunkering down and trying to master the game. In fact, when it comes to other forms of poker, ie. Omaha, 7 stud, razz, pineapple, 2-7, and hi-lo games, I've always been good enough at these different forms of poker to be a winning player at each of these games up to certain levels. The thing is though, while I consider myself good at all of them, I don't consider myself really good or great at any of them. This is something I would like to change and for the foreseeable future I'm going to try to get really good at Omaha. With the right amount of patience and dedication, there is really no reason why I couldn't get there one day.

Omaha, IMO, is much more interesting and presents so many more variables than hold'em. I'm really hooked!!...and just have an insatiable appetite for all things Omaha. Unfortunately, there are just not the same resources available for Omaha as there are for hold'em. The things I'm looking for are more advanced type stuff that I can figure out myself, but it takes longer to do the thought and analyzing myself rather than just reading it in a book or on the web. I guess I'm looking for the easy way out, but I'm also kind of glad not that much information is out there because once I figure something out, I don't have to worry about too many others to be armed with the same knowledge. So I guess learning is that much harder, but at the same time I don't worry about too many others having access to more advanced information like everyone seems to have in hold'em these days with all of the resources that are available. Recently, I have found myself spending more time thinking and analyzing than actual playing. I really think this has helped my game tremendously. In the middle of the day, I might think of a certain situation that comes up in Omaha so I write it down so I won't forget about it and then when I get home in the evenings, I do the analysis.

When I have played recently, I've done rather well. I maybe could have won more than I have, but I've been trying different things which has on one hand helped me figure some things out, but on the other hand has probably hurt my win rate. I've still managed to work my way up in pretty quick fashion. In 3 to 4 months of playing part time, I've worked my way up from $.10/$.25 up to $2/$4. Once up to $2/$4 I went on a 10 buy-in downswing and dropped back down to$1/$2 where I dropped another 10 buy-ins before turning things around and now have gotten about 10 buy-ins back. Part of my downswing was due to just running bad, but there were also a lot of hands that I would like to have back to play over. I definitely made some mistakes which were costly. When you run well for a while you start to feel like you're invincible and can win with any hand every hand which obviously just isn't the case. Before you know it, you're calling raised and re-raised pots from the small blind w/ hands like K852 rainbow. Well maybe not that bad but you get the idea. Anyway, I have re-focused and have plugged that leak which was part leak and part trying different things.

Had my 1st losing session of the week last night. I was somewhat card dead and kept getting coolered but I also played a few hands terribly. Still, I only ended the night down roughly $30. It was just one of those nights where everyone always seemed to get there and I didn't. There were two hands that I played absolutely terribly and I'm still kicking myself over it. I was trying fancier plays against players that just don't recognize them so it is 100% my fault for being stupid. I'm probably lucky that I ended up down less than a buy-in.

Here is one of my favorite ways to be coolered:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1576623

Played some full ring PLO last night and continued to play/run well. Over 735 hands I picked up another 6.25 buy-ins across 3 levels totaling ~ $270.

Since Sept. 19th I have only had 4 losing sessions. Two were for less than a buy-in, one was for one buy-in and the other was for two BI's. I attribute this to several factors. One those factors being that I'm multi-tabling which always seems to reduce the overall variance in a single session. Playing/running well also helps. I also feel as though I'm playing levels where the players just don't seem to have a clue for the most part. I know that I'm easily capable of playing and beating the games at the higher limits, but I'm sticking to the game plan and I'm going to exercise good bankroll management and work my way up the levels like I would if I were a true beginner.

One thing that I have noticed is that you have to play these lower limits in a totally different manner than you would the games at the bigger tables. You can't buy pots that often and you can't run people out of pots with aggression like you can at higher limits. I've found myself playing a somewhat tight more passive style than I'm accustomed to. At these tables it is really a matter of playing the right hands at the right times and controlling pots and then when you have the goods, value betting. You can throw creative plays right out the window because they just won't work against most of these players. Occasionally there will be a player that I think I can pull a move on and nuturally I do this every chance I get.

Here are my PT stats for Oct. 1 - Oct. 9.

As you can see, I'm hardly pre-flop raising at all but at this level it just doesn't make much of a difference. Every now and then a table will come together where I could raise it up more often but it is just not that often and people here just do not respect raises. So I just wait until the flop and go from there. Getting the money in the pot just isn't a problem after the flop in most cases anyway. As I move up I will definitely be reverting to my old style and raising more often pre-flop.

I've been playing a lot of PLO in the evenings for the past couple of weeks and have been running well. In the last 2 ½ weeks I have picked up around 46 buy-ins across different levels.

.10c/.25c - 32 ½ buy-ins

.25c/.50c - 13 ½ buy-ins

I've been working my way up the levels in PLO the same way I did with NLHE and SNG's. So far so good and hopefully things continue to go the way they have been.

In the past I did what I called "challenges" where I would take a $50 starting bankroll and work it up to $10k. I did this with SNG's 2x and NLHE 2 or 3 times. It was a pain in the ass but it took away from the boredom of the daily grind. Anyway, I'm doing something similar with PLO except there is no real end goal and I'm more focused on practicing good bank-roll management while working my way up the levels.

A fun hand:

http://www.pokerhand.org/index.php?page=view&hand=1568279