Things that rock: poker games where everyone calls too much

I’ve started to pick my poker carefully.  I don’t mean picking games that are only so easy that I can beat, but picking games online that I can’t find in real life.  Like Omaha/8.  As the kids say, "It’s hard out here for an Omaha player", and finding a a varied selection of O/8 games, even in Vegas, can be a real challenge.

So I’m spending my online time playing O/8 and large NL tourneys.  No Limit cash games and Limit Hold’em ring games I’ve got in spades around here in DC, but Omaha/8 and $10 300 person NL tourneys, those are hard to find.  So I play them online.

I used to have a very helpful poker coach who got me through some tough analysis and once gave me guidelines for games I should look for online in order to make money: 60% seeing the flop and pots that are 10X the big blind.  I love those games because it’s not that hard to play as a nut peddler and do well.  There’s a lot of action and you get to play hands that would be statistically wrong on almost any other situation.  And mastering the art of extracting maximum value from such a set of people is really fun.  Playing in those games will be most good players first exposure to the concept of learning how to run the table, and that’s key as you move up in levels.

But I’m not in this to make money, so I enjoy playing in really tough games well, such as the $5/$10-$10/$20 Omaha/8 game I played at the Wynn.  I’ll never make an income from this worth speaking of compared to my day job, but playing correctly is a clear goal I love.

I was playing a loose $2/$4 Omaha/8 game on PokerStars last night and the typical crap broke out between players at the table in the chat window.  "You suck."  "Just keep drawing to those 1 outers, dumbshit."  "Sour grapes, moron."

I honestly don’t see how any of that helps.  If they’re playing $2/$4 to make a living, they must be living in a cardboard box.  And if they’re playing it to learn how to play well, that level of frustration is certainly not going to help their game.  Maybe they’re playing because they’re bored, and their mind’s not on the game.

Whatever the reason, it doesn’t matter to me.  I’m just peddling the nuts and reading the players.  And cashing out with more money than I bought in for.  I love this game.