Review of Secrets of Short-handed Pot-Limit Omaha

Title:

Secrets of Short-handed Pot-Limit Omaha

Author:

Rolf Slotboom and Rob Hollink

Publisher:

D & B Publishing

Date:

2009

ISBN:

978-1-904468-44-8

Pages:

331

Price:

$27.50

Reviewed by Nick Christenson, npc@jetcafe.org

March 17, 2011

A lot of new material on Omaha has been released in the last few years. As books on this game have proliferated, we've started to see more specialized titles. Secrets of Short-handed Pot-Limit Omaha is the first book I've seen to focus on the six-handed version of the game that is quite popular online.

The book begins with author Slotboom describing the evolution of his approach to short-handed Omaha games. He is well-known for espousing a short-stack strategy, which he explains in depth in his previous book, Secrets of Professional Pot-Limit Omaha. In the short-handed book he opines that this strategy doesn't work as well when players finds themselves paying the blinds more frequently. Also, as Slotboom's skill as a poker player has advanced, he has become more willing to subject himself to the additional complexities that arise from playing a deeper stack.

Slotboom moves on to discuss how he approaches a wide variety of pot-limit Omaha situations on each betting round. He's quite exhaustive in cataloging the many possibilities, and he has quite a range of responses to them. I like the fact that he is concerned with creating strategies that aren't obviously exploitable. He is well aware of these dangers, and addresses these issues at each turn. However, in my opinion his strategies are overly complex, and this leads to the occasional contradiction, or at least ambiguity. Plus, I believe he's missing something fundamental when it comes to dealing with the exploitability issue.

For example, he notices that some players tend to make pot-sized bets as bluffs when the same players are likely to make smaller bets in the same situation with strong hands. This is a very real tendency among some players, and adjusting to it is important. However, his response to this sort of situation is generally to make sure he sometimes bets large with good hands and small as a bluff. Wouldn't it be better just to pick one proper bet size based on all the factors except one's own hand strength that surround such a decision point and then either bet that amount or not? Of course, one could still vary one's bet size in an attempt to exploit opponents' tendencies, but it seems to me that using multiple bet sizes complicates poker strategy unnecessarily.

I believe simplification should be a virtue in other aspects of this book as well, especially with regard to the writing. I continue to be astonished at Slotboom's command of the English language. If I were to attempt to write a book in anything but my first language, it would doubtless cause multiple editors to quit the business. However, even though Slotboom's English skills are excellent, I'm less enamored of his aptitude for sentence construction. As someone who tends toward the rambling sentence myself, I appreciate the difficulty in being appropriately succinct. However, when I frequently reach a page break before a paragraph break, that's a problem. Plain and simple, Secrets of Short-handed Pot-Limit Omaha can be a chore to read. Combine this with the complexity of the strategy Slotboom espouses, and the book presents more demands on the reader than I'd prefer.

This is a shame, because there's some good stuff in here, if only it didn't require so much effort to absorb. My favorite part of the book comes in chapter 4 where Slotboom catalogues the tendencies of many of the opponents he regularly faced at the online poker site that sponsored him. It's not that I expect to face these players myself, but the chapter serves as a great example of detailed opponent analysis. Players who cannot or do not consider in this sort of depth how their regular opponents play are leaving money on the table.

For the last third of the book, Slotboom turns the writing over to his colleague Rob Hollink for hand examples, mostly taken from the high-limit short-handed PLO games at Full Tilt. These examples are good and they're worth reading for those interested in these types of games, even for those who don't play at nosebleed stakes. Most smaller games aren't quite so hyper-aggressive, but the commentary warns us that this is the case.

Secrets of Short-handed Pot-Limit Omaha is a mixed bag. Here is my recommendation: If you're interested in Omaha, go read Slotboom's previous book, Secrets of Pot-Limit Omaha. If you find it useful, and want to see how he adapts his game to six max play and deeper stacks, then definitely check out his short-handed book. It may require some effort, but there's some quality material in it. Now if only someone could explain to me why "Limit" is capitalized in the title but "handed" isn't, I'd be all set.

Capsule:

Secrets of Short-handed Pot-Limit Omaha contains some good information, but it can be rough going. Some folks will appreciate Slotboom's trial-and-error approach to developing his poker game, while some will be turned away by it. I recommend that folks read Slotboom's previous book, Secrets of Pot-Limit Omaha first. If they're looking for a similar approach toward deeper stacks and short-handed play, then this book will be worth the effort.