Omaha High/Low

Today I got my daily tournament fix.. this time in another non-holdem game... and at 10:15 am I jumped into a $10+1 Pot Limit Omaha High/Low Tournament. With a total of 89 players and double stacks.. I was basically for a long grind.. considering all the split pots we were going to deal with.

I began the tournament with a plan: Play small pots!!!! I decided to play extremely tight early so that everyone at my table understands I'm not screwing around. So I folded the majority of my hands until I picked up an A-2 suited at the minimum.. usually with a hand like A-2-J-10 being a great one. I slowly built up my chips with a combination of playing good cards and making solid plays. There was one guy to my right who played way too aggressive and tried stealing in obvious spots.. making me able to call a pot-sized raise pre-flop and pot-sized bet on this flop: The turn and river were checked down:


By the time we got down to the final 40 players, I was the chip leader at 120/240 with over 17k. I keep playing my game and stayed within the top 5 in chips all the way to the final table.. where things went a little crazy.

I started the Final table (they paid top 9 spots so I'm in the money) with 25,000 chips.. which was 5th place at the time. After the first short stack busted, I got involved in a huge hand. I didn't capture the screenshot.. but basically I raised with A-A-Q-Q of hearts and spades.. got one caller. Flop comes K-7-5 all spades. We get it all-in on the flop and it's over.. with the blinds and the knockout.. we are down to seven players and I again retake the chip lead:

Numbers 7, 6 and 5 all went out within the next few minutes and it came down to a brutal four-way duel at 1500/3000 blinds where I had about 80k, and everyone else had an average of 40-50k. After getting up to about 95,000 chips... the blinds go up to 2000/4000 and I go card dead. Will_B_D started stealing every single round because both the other two players were playing scared and folding every hand. So with about 53k left, I'm in the big blind and Will raises to 12,000. I re-raise the pot, making it 38,000 to go... leaving me with only 15,000 behind. Will calls.

Now the screenshot of the this hand is below.. but you have to appreciate something.. I pushed all-in on the flop with my remaining 15k and Will_B_D called me with Ace high and no low draw... but I will admit.. there was about 80k in the pot and it was only 15k for him to call... but even so.. he calls with nothing...
So, yea... he cracked an 8 on the river to bust me... but look at how sick this is for this guy to call me in this spot...

I pushed all-in with sevens and they were GOOD! Oh I'm so salty that I finished 4th.. didn't even top three it. I got $97.90 for my troubles.. but I wanted that bracelet baby!!!

So, in the past few days... I've gone deep into a Razz and PL Omaha Hi/Lo tourney.. and it's got me thinking.. I should play more non-holdem games. The fields are smaller and I believe my edge is far greater. And without the "All-in" weapon, players simply have to try and actually play their way through a tournament.. not just push all-in like maniacs.


-Rocco