Customer Reviews

How to Win at Omaha High-Low Poker

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This is a very helpful and entertaining book. It aided me in thinking about this potentially very profitable game. Combined with online information by Steve Badger and by Annie Duke, it has been enough to keep my O8 adventures profitable.
The interesting new things I got from this book were the advice to play high flops aggressively, the raise with third nuts to drive out the second nuts (dangerous but very profitable at times) and the advice on table selection (Cappalletti's Number)

The flaws:
1: There should be a bit more about starting hand selection. O8 is a starting hand game. You are not often going to outplay anyone post-flop, at least I'M not.
Having re-read the book, I will have to modify this part of the review. He does go into starting hand selection quite extensively but I found his ideas pretty much identical to what I had already picked up from other sources and not surprising or very intersting, although I think that they are correct. So, I didn't think that much about them when I wrote this review. He does seem to give less credence to the "all four cards must be useful" concept than Steve Badger, among others. Playing A2XX when XX are crap is fairly loose by the standards I was taught. However, make XX of ANY value at all and I agree it can be played profitably.
2: He digresses a great deal into hi-limit, pot-limit and other tough Omaha venues. He also gets into Holdem. These are some of the most entertaining moments in the book but won't be popular with those who want technical advice for profitable low-limit O8.
3: He says O8 is fun. Not a matter of taste. He is wrong.

My one other problem is that the one table of O8 that is usually in play at Foxwoods does not, whatever Mr. C's experience there in the past, usually consist of loose enough players to meet his ideal of a good table. On weekdays, especially, the number of people seeing the flop on average can get as low as 4 or even 3.5 I also don't see O8 growing in popularity the way Mr. C. does. It had its growth and I think that we will see a die-back.
--
Will in New Haven

I was terribly dissapointed with this book. It struck me as a lazy effort to cash in -- a cut and paste of magazine articles and ego massaging annecdotes -- not a useful product for customers. The content is disorganized. Almost everything presented is vague. Most comments, described hands and annecdotes are about high-stakes tight games, when in the real world most customers are dealing with lower-limit loose games. I still do not have a clear idea from it what starting hands (besides obvious ones) he reccomends being played and from which position in which type of game. And the charts are HORRIBLE! They are obtuse and hard to read, some of them flat out don't make sense -- at least to a common player. There are references to 11 handed play (are there enough cards in the deck for that with the burns? -- I've never seen 11 seats at an Omaha table anywhere online -- nor in the LA card rooms)There are useless odds charts based on all hands going to river (which they don't) and there is almost no information on adjusting to shorthand (when a table has empty seats) or heads up (when playing tournaments)... The author should have figured out if he was writing for typical low/moderate limit players in typical loose games -- or high limit, aggressive pre-flop games. Of course then he wouldn't have enough material to fill out a book. Which is my take on this whole project. Compare it to Phil Hellmuth Jr.'s "Play Poker like the Pros" where step-by-step, beggining or intermediete players are given a set of tools, rules and an organized approach of how to apply, adapt and expand them to different game conditions and experience levels.

This book isnt worth its small price. The book is disorganized to say the least, making it difficult to read. Furthermore, there is little real usable information, especially for those who are new to Omaha 8. Whereas a good author would write a solid chapter about starting hands (for example), the equivalent in this book is 7-8 articles on a subject, apparently culled from Card Player Magazine. This leaves a lot of questions unanswered and topics unaddressed. Though some of the individual articles arent bad, its no way to write a book. Based on what I have heard and the other books I have read by 2+2 publishing, I wish I had bought the Ray Zee book instead. Bottom line: This book might be ok for someone who has played a little bit of omaha and wants to learn a little more, especially playing recreationally, but if youre serious about learning omaha 8 or taking your game to the next level, look elsehwere.

Cappelletti offers solid strategy for Omaha 8/ play. In some places he suggests a very aggressive strategy (like raising with 3rd best hands to drive out 2nd best hands), which seems overboard for the average player. Additionally there is little to no advice for pot-limit or no-limit games (admittedly these games are relatively rare).

The book could have used better editing. Many concepts and statement are repeated verbatim (as if the chapters were written separately and never edited when compiled into a complete book). The graphics depicting cards are also hard to read (you'll see 4 cards and 2 suits, and have to think a while to figure out which 2 cards are suited).

If you want to learn the basic strategy for this relatively simple game (compared to hold'em which is much more difficult to play well) this is a good book to do so.

Cappelletti is too loose in his starting hand recommendations in my book. That being said, the rest of the material is very useful. I had already played a great deal of winning O8 before reading this book and I had read Zee's book, but was still able to find some great insightful advice to apply to my game when playing. I especially liked how he got into the differences in play between high flops and low flops and the push and pull hands. This book is very informative and will help your game, just don't play as loose as the author does preflop.

Mike cappelletti's book has got to be one of the worst books I've ever read. First of all, he is a very loose player. Play A3 anything? Raise with the 3rd best hand to knock out a 2nd? With a limits most people are playing at people typically will stay in with the 2nd best hand. He also tends to repeat himself quite a bit. How many times do we have to hear a loose game is when 5 or more people see the flop? On top of this he is extremely disorganized. For example he is talking about flop types before preflop play. He also uses too many random charts. Finally his hand examples are terrible. Yes, it's great to know that Hartford is the insurance capital, what the rules are in Tampa, and where you have played, but it's not relevant to o/8. No one cares where you were for each hand example Mike. The bottom line is I cannot recommend this book to anybody without a case of Advil, because your head will be in severe pain after you read this book.Good luck finding advice in this scattered mess. Someone has got to make a good low limit o8 book real soon, because if this is the best out there I'll figure everything out by myself the hard way.

I was disappointed. I enjoy Mike's magazine articles, but this book is too anecdotal. He correctly explains common mistakes (don't be a fish) and points out how to be a fisherman (I like this better than the shark analogy). There are too few pages devoted to ranking of hands and strategy. There is some but not enough. Too many bad beat stories and not enough "do this" "don't do that". Mike seems to be more interested in fun than profit - - but maybe that is true of all Omaha players. I'll stick to holdem, thank you.

Poker books are all good, but it is hard to find much good Omaha information. Enjoyable read and good information. Good book.

After one reading, I turned a $40 weekly loss into a $40 gain. This was my first book on Omaha Hi Lo and with the dicipline to follow the guidelines, you can win too. However, you must study another source to learn profitable tournament rules. I do agree with the flaws identifed in earlier reviews: a) somewhat disorganized, b) too much print about "other forms" of poker, and c) leaves some common playing decisions unanswered. But there is enough solid advice to allow you to start getting actual playing time without it costing too much.

This book was key in my decision to emphasize Omaha Hi-Lo over Hold-em. Since reading it I have had a final table at the Bicycle Casino Mini Series of Poker and a few tournament wins at PokerStars, Absolute and True Poker. What was impressive to me was how he supported his opening hand recommendations with computer simulation, as I had used simulation tools in Scrabble and learned much from them. There may be a weakness in the area of postflop play, but the opening hand section is a big winner. The recommendations on how to play all-high hands were very good too.