The Vienna Debacle

The past week I've been sick and so I haven't played live. But today a useful doctor gave me a prescription for antibiotics, and I'll find my way to a casino soon.

In the meantime I've been on FullTilt playing PLO. I've been experimenting with a strategy Rolf Slotboom discusses in his book, called the "Vienna Strategy," which basically involves shortbuying and then doing a lot of limp-reraising and checkraising while sitting to the immediate right of an aggressive player. Well, I figured I would give it a shot as I am trying to give myself a thorough education in this game, even if I knew this was not the way I wanted to do things in the long-term. I guess it didn't go so well. It seemed like every time I got it all-in with AAxx preflop, the other guy made a straight, and every time I got it in with QJT9-ds, the other guy had AAxx and made Aces full. Over 5k hands can this really happen again and again? Apparently so.

So reviewing my Pokertracker stats I did way, way better when I just bought in for full. How much better? Well, I was + 60 BB/100 hands when I bought in full, and -5 BB/100 hands when I went "Vienna." That little experiment is now over.

This isn't to say that Rolf's book sucks. It's actually really good. I think I just got unlucky employing that particular strategy, which is just one tactic he outlines at the beginning of the book, in addition to big stack strategies he later describes.

So why have I been playing almost exclusively Omaha when I play online? Couple reasons. First it is a change from the constant NLHE cash game grind, which I think I needed. Learning a new game could help me think about poker in new ways and ultimately make me a better NLHE player, anyway.

Second, I can tell you for sure, having stopped playing online for about a year and just having got back into it, that the online NLHE games are tougher than they used to be. I'm not saying they're unbeatable or that a good player shouldn't make money, but the edge is not as big as it used to be. So I am looking for a new edge and am trying to get good at this game. Omaha is a deceptively complicated game and you need to develop your card sense for it as well as learn the tricks. There's a reason that if you go on FullTilt you will see David Benyamine, under one of his aliases, crushing the $200-400 PLO on a regular basis. It's not unusual to see him with 10 buy-ins in front of him, having destroyed the top online pros at this game yet again.