I recently came across a poker strategy article on how poker players should be playing more Pot Limit Omaha and Limit Omaha HiLo. The author’s reason for why people should be playing these games more is that players can hope to win more money with them since they’re less populated poker variations. Basically, these two games aren’t like Texas Hold’em where everybody and their brother is an expert.
But to be honest, this author’s line of thinking is way out of date since people have already moved on to playing games like Pot Limit Omaha and Limit Omaha HiLo. At the bigger poker rooms, you’ll commonly find full tables in most of the Pot Limit Omaha and Limit Omaha HiLo stakes. I mean they have WSOP events for these games and online events like the Full Tilt Online Poker Series include these two variations as well.
If I had to say it, we’re past the point where a person can dominate a poker variation just because there’s so many people who don’t know how to play it. Every poker variation from 5 Card Stud to Texas Hold’em has players who are killing the game. We are in an era of poker where there are going to be people who are great in every single variation.
A few years ago, you could jump in a game of something like Omaha HiLo and find people who weren’t so good at the game, but the same was true of Texas Hold’em before the boom in 2003. People just were not as good at the game back then. But now, way more people have jumped into the game of poker and there will always be people to fill in where there’s money to be made.
You could say that the smaller rooms have people who are less apt to be good players in the lesser played poker variations. However, you’ll have a very tough time finding full tables at the limits you want in anything but Texas Hold’em. Really, there are no shortcuts in today’s poker game and to make money with it, you’ll have to put in hours at the table and study lots of strategy.