What and Who Wins a Tight Game of Omaha H/L

In my last article we compared two different loose tables to see what kind of player would dominate and what hands would win. Unquestionably the tighter players outperform the looser players. Before you continue reading, jot down how many hands per hundred dealt, you play. If that number is too high for you to work with, count the number of hands you play in a single round with ten seated players at the table. If all else fails just jot down how many hands you play per hour. If the dealer is good you may get 20 to 25 hands per hour. The number for Hold-Em is around 30 and maybe as high as 35/40 per hour with a shuffle machine. Honesty counts. Go write it down. Ok let's continue. Do not take into account tournament play.

One measure of how tight a player is counts the number of hands played with respect to the number dealt. The lower the percentage the tighter the player. Someone who plays 20% of the hand dealt, (2 hands per round at a full table) is tighter then someone who plays 3 hands per round or 30%. If you play 2 hands per round, or 5 or more hands per hour you are not a tight player.

As in my previous article I dealt 10,000,0000 hands to a tight table consisting of 7 various tight players and 3 average players. Presented below are the dollars won, (loss) for each player. Please note that not all tight players are the same. They all are selective to varying degrees with respect to their starting hand requirements.

Tight is good. Tight is less then 4 hands per hour. You definitely should be playing less then 2 hands per round at a full table. Remember you are the big blind and small blind twice each round. If your dealer is dealing 20 hands per hour, and you play both blinds that is 4 hands per hour or 20%.

In the chart on the right it is clear that the ratio of money won or lost is directly related to the percentage of hands played. This is conclusive proof that it is not the number of pots you win but the amount of money you win that counts.

As a former blackjack player I can tell you the winning strategy is to "win the majority of your large bets, while loosing the majority of your small bets". Translated to poker you want to win the majority of the few pots you enter while avoiding the majority of hands dealt to you. The advice I usually offer people is to look for reasons "not to play a hand" as opposed to looking for reasons to "play a hand".

In the chart above we can view the difference between winning hands at a tight table and those of the loose tables from last time. Note that a large disparity occurs in the lower end hands between the tight and loose table. At the tight table almost 43% of the hands are won with a Bust, Pair or 2 Pair. Only about 18% win at the loose table. One logical explanation is that at a loose table more people are staying around after the flop and hence you need a much better hand to win with. On average 4.1 people fold before the flop at the loose tables while 6.8 fold at the tight tables. The more people in the pot and the longer they stay in the greater the chance to draw out to a better hand.

One may also infer from the above chart, in a looser game there are generally weaker players who tend to play far too many drawing hands. They will chase a low with only one low card on the flop and back into something more on the river. Let's take a look at the other side of the coin.

Here we see a different pattern. The loss percentages are less for all categories at the tight table. You will loose half as less on a tight table with 2-Pair and almost one third as less with Trips, Straights, Flushes and Full house. With fewer people in the pot all your hands have a greater propensity to hold up. Ok I think you have the point by now. Your hands are worth more in a game with tight players. Does this apply to low hand? Will there be more low winners in a tight game or less? In our loose game the low hands won on average 56.4%. At our tight table the low only won 46.9%, some 17% less often. The answer here is quite simple.

There is always a high winner! When the low does not get there on the flop a player must draw to it. In a tight game there is less drawing. Less back door lows are chassed.

So what have we learned? It is better to play tight then loose. Most pros will advise to play just a little tighter the tightest player at the table. In Omaha H/L if we are playing 20% or more of the hands we are dealt we a probably playing too loose. Hand values go down in a loose game. In a loose game you will probably need to show down the best hand to win. There are less low winners at a tight table. Next time we will look at what happens at an average table.