Will the playing style of a table affect the profitability of your starting hand? It is widely known that in a loose game your swings will be greater. The real question is this: Will you earn more money, or will the loose play cause the rest of the table to draw out on you?

The chart (charts not shown) on the right contains the same parameters as the chart presented last time, but our player is now at a loose table. The first thing to notice is that the flops which produced loses now produce even greater loses. The last column, labeled "Tight" is the net win column from the tight table in my last article. At the bottom of the table on the row labeled "Averages," are the average of the net wins. These numbers clearly show that for this group of starting hands, the losing hands overall lost more, while the winning hands won more.

Win percentages are nearly half of what they were at the tight table. When you flop your nut flush you now win only 77 percent of the time, compared to 90 percent of the time at the tight table. But now, however, you enjoy a net win of $127.72, or $51.57 more than the $76.15 at the tight table.

At the tight table it is quite clear that players are folding their marginal hands after the flop. At the loose table, the players just keep chasing with a set or two pair.

What happens if we change the flop to contain the three highest high cards instead of the three lowest high cards? The chart below displays the results of flops consisting of K-Q-J, when played at tight table. The last column shows the net win for a loose table.

The win percentages for each starting hand follow each other very closely. The net wins are less overall, but quite similar. These two flops are really quite similar in texture, and with no low cards, a low hand is impossible. It takes a two-card flush draw to make the high only flop profitable.

So far we examined a tight table and a loose table with two different flops. There are many different types of flops still to examine. What if a pair flops? How often will we win versus how often will we lose to a set? What happens if we flop low cards and get counterfeited? Is a flop that assures us a nut low, like 6-7-8, a good thing? How often will we get quartered and lose the high to a low or high straight? How often will we have the best hand if a set flops? Does the rank of the set matter?

We have seen the effects of a flush draw in my last article and this one as well with a loose table versus a tight table. Before I analyze the questions posed above, let's take a look at how the number of players affect our starting hand. Hold 'em players know that different hands play differently based upon the number of players in the game. The number of players seeing the flop also affects your odds. Pocket aces are far more profitable with fewer persons seeing the flop. Does it work similarly in Omaha/8?

This chart compares our basic starting hand played heads up against randomly dealt hands. The results obtained when played at a full table are also displayed in the last two columns.

The first point to notice is that while our win percentage increases dramatically, our net win decreased. The largest drop in net win occurred when we flopped three of our suit, a reduction of$62.62. The smallest net Dollar change occurred when we flopped one of each of our suits, $0.23, a nominal 11.7 percent. All other changes exceeded 65 percent. We did manage to lose less with the losing hands. This is certainly due to the reduced chance of someone beating our hand.

Next time I will present the full range of results for one to ten players in graphic format. You may want to keep these graphs to compare different scenarios.

So what have we learned? When playing Omaha/8 we should pay attention to how tight our table is. A simple way is to keep track of how many people on average see the flop. The more players seeing the flop, the looser the game. And be mindful of the number of players at the table. Short handed play, as in most other forms of poker, require us to make adjustments

Sam Mudaro, BA, MBA, is a practicing tax accountant and financial executive with 35 years of analytical business expertise. He uses simulation software to analyze and develop strategies for Omaha/8 and other forms of poker. Reach Sam at: realguru2003@yahoo.com.