Book Review: Cappelletti on Omaha High Low
A couple of Saturdays ago my wife had to work a wedding in the St Louis area, which is about a two hour drive. This meant she had to leave around 9:00 a.m. and wouldn't get home until after 10:00 p.m. This meant I would have watch my three year old son all day. I love him more than anything else in the world, but he can be quite a handful, so after lunch it was time to pull out the secret weapon- pack up the van and head to Grandma and Grandpa's house!
Grandparents are always happy to see their grandkids. We went to my mom and dad's house and hung out for a while. After a couple of hours I slipped out the door and headed to Barnes and Noble to look for a new poker book while they babysat Grant.
I have been playing a lot of Omaha 8ob and I really enjoy 7 card stud 8ob as well. These are split pot games where the best high hand splits the pot with the best low hand. These games can generate huge pots. If your hand is good enough you can win both halves of the pot, also called a "scoop", and really add to your stack. I was looking for the book "High Low Split for Advanced Players" by Ray Zee, but they didn't have any on the shelves. I did find Mike Cappelletti's book on Omaha High Low, so I grabbed it instead.
While there are now hundreds of books on Texas Hold'em, there are only a few books on Omaha. I would say the top three are the two mentioned above, along with "Championship Omaha," a book by T.J. Cloutier and Tom McEvoy. All three of these have gotten mixed reviews, ranging from solid gold to solid crap. Most people love one of the books and hate the other two, so it might just come down to personal preference. Well, on to the book.
Cappelletti on Omaha High Low
This book is actually a collection of articles written by Mr. Cappelletti that originally appeared in CardPlayer magazine. Therefore, it is somewhat disorganized and it jumps around a lot. This has been a major part of the criticism this book has received. There where many ideas that where repeated throughout the book and somethings seemed out of order. It did get a little irritating at times and I can see why people would be annoyed. This book also focuses on limit play, not pot-limit, which is my usual game. It is also quite short, coming in at about 220 pages of actual content.
The information in the book, however, is quite good. I was already a winning player before I read this book, but there where situations where I wasn't quite sure what the right play was. One of the best things in this book is the "pulling vs. pushing" hands. Whether you want to "pull" people into the pot, or "push" them out depending on your hand.
I knew that you could play a hand with all high cards, that is all four pocket cards are a nine or higher, but I didn't really know what to do with them. I now know that you want to see a flop as cheaply as possible, preferably with a lot of people. Only one flop in three will be good enough for you to continue with a high only pocket cards, so you need a small initial investment with plenty of people to pay you off when you do hit your hand. This is a good example of a "pull" hand.
A good example of a "push" hand would be when you flop the nuts in one direction, and have a mediocre hand in the other direction that might win if you can push people out that have a better hand that is not the nuts. Let's say that you flop the nut low with a ten-high flush draw for a high. If you bet or raise aggressively with this hand you can get people with a better high draw to fold. If facing a bet and a raise, someone holding a jack-high or queen-high flush draw with a bad low draw would probably lay down their hand, giving you a chance to win the high pot as well as the low pot.
I would say that this book did improve my game. I have played quite a bit of Omaha high/low so I already had a good grasp of the basic concepts. It is geared for limit, but I was able to adapt the information for my pot-limit games that I play. In a world without a whole lot of options, this book does a pretty good job of giving you the information you need to win. I would rate this one at a three out of four stars, just because of the way the book was put together. The information in the book was very good and I would recommend it for anyone trying to improve their Omaha high/low game.
Grandparents are always happy to see their grandkids. We went to my mom and dad's house and hung out for a while. After a couple of hours I slipped out the door and headed to Barnes and Noble to look for a new poker book while they babysat Grant.
I have been playing a lot of Omaha 8ob and I really enjoy 7 card stud 8ob as well. These are split pot games where the best high hand splits the pot with the best low hand. These games can generate huge pots. If your hand is good enough you can win both halves of the pot, also called a "scoop", and really add to your stack. I was looking for the book "High Low Split for Advanced Players" by Ray Zee, but they didn't have any on the shelves. I did find Mike Cappelletti's book on Omaha High Low, so I grabbed it instead.
While there are now hundreds of books on Texas Hold'em, there are only a few books on Omaha. I would say the top three are the two mentioned above, along with "Championship Omaha," a book by T.J. Cloutier and Tom McEvoy. All three of these have gotten mixed reviews, ranging from solid gold to solid crap. Most people love one of the books and hate the other two, so it might just come down to personal preference. Well, on to the book.
Cappelletti on Omaha High Low
This book is actually a collection of articles written by Mr. Cappelletti that originally appeared in CardPlayer magazine. Therefore, it is somewhat disorganized and it jumps around a lot. This has been a major part of the criticism this book has received. There where many ideas that where repeated throughout the book and somethings seemed out of order. It did get a little irritating at times and I can see why people would be annoyed. This book also focuses on limit play, not pot-limit, which is my usual game. It is also quite short, coming in at about 220 pages of actual content.
The information in the book, however, is quite good. I was already a winning player before I read this book, but there where situations where I wasn't quite sure what the right play was. One of the best things in this book is the "pulling vs. pushing" hands. Whether you want to "pull" people into the pot, or "push" them out depending on your hand.
I knew that you could play a hand with all high cards, that is all four pocket cards are a nine or higher, but I didn't really know what to do with them. I now know that you want to see a flop as cheaply as possible, preferably with a lot of people. Only one flop in three will be good enough for you to continue with a high only pocket cards, so you need a small initial investment with plenty of people to pay you off when you do hit your hand. This is a good example of a "pull" hand.
A good example of a "push" hand would be when you flop the nuts in one direction, and have a mediocre hand in the other direction that might win if you can push people out that have a better hand that is not the nuts. Let's say that you flop the nut low with a ten-high flush draw for a high. If you bet or raise aggressively with this hand you can get people with a better high draw to fold. If facing a bet and a raise, someone holding a jack-high or queen-high flush draw with a bad low draw would probably lay down their hand, giving you a chance to win the high pot as well as the low pot.
I would say that this book did improve my game. I have played quite a bit of Omaha high/low so I already had a good grasp of the basic concepts. It is geared for limit, but I was able to adapt the information for my pot-limit games that I play. In a world without a whole lot of options, this book does a pretty good job of giving you the information you need to win. I would rate this one at a three out of four stars, just because of the way the book was put together. The information in the book was very good and I would recommend it for anyone trying to improve their Omaha high/low game.
posted by Chris at
11:10 AM
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