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First, try sitting in a play money game so you can grow accustomed to how the game is played. It would be disaster to sit down in a real-money game while still not yet understanding that you only get to play two cards from your hand.

Basic Strategy

In PLO, you want hands with four cards that work well together. Being double-suited is valuable since it gives you two different ways to make a flush. Having four consecutive cards (ie: 9876) is also very strong since it gives you multiple was to make a straight.

PLO is a Turn and River Game

No-limit hold’em is all about flopping strong hands. PLO is about flopping strong draws. Often when you flop a hand like two pair, you can actually be behind another player due to the strength of their draw. With that in mind, don’t over commit yourself on the flop with a hand like two pair, or even bottom set, since often times you’re an underdog to dodge all of the outs that improve your opponent(s) hand.

Play Big Draws Fast

When you flop a monster draw (ie: a straight draw and a flush draw, or a set with a flush draw), don’t be afraid to play the flop very aggressively. You might not technically have anything yet, but you have so many outs that you’re often a favorite versus a “made” hand like two pair. Conversely, if you have a made hand like two pair, consider trying to keep things cheap on the flop and waiting to see a safe turn card before building the pot.

Be Aware of the Nuts

In PLO, you should always be able to identify the “nuts” (that is, the best possible hand). This is a game where often a person betting large sums will be holding the best possible hand. Don’t treat a non ace-high flush with as much confidence in hold’em as you do in Omaha. That’s a recipe for losing money hand over fist.

Aces Are Not the Nuts

The biggest mistake new Omaha players make is playing Aces too fast. They see a hand like Ace-Ace-Seven-Six and immediately they want to re-raise preflop. If you can get most of your chips into the pot with Aces in Omaha, by all means, go for it. However, the pot-limit style betting usually means you can’t get the majority of your stack into the pot preflop unless there are a couple raises and calls.

So with that in mind, you want to play Aces for their set value, or for their bluff-catcher value (in a two way pot). Just call raises preflop with Aces. If a player behind re-raises and a couple players call, then you’ll probably be able to re-raise all-in for most of your chips.

Sandra Naujoks had other plans for McDonald. The 26 year old economics student who is relatively new to the game became just the second woman to win an EPT event. Vicky Coren won the EPT London event in season three. Naujoks captured €917,000 along with the first place trophy. The reason McDonald’s score in a field of 411 was larger than Naujoks in a field of 667 is that last year’s buy-in was €7,700 while this year’s was just €5,000.

For McDonald, his dreams of becoming a back-to-back EPT champion were cut short in fifth place. That impressive showing allowed him to head back to Canada with another €197,000 earned on German soil.

Holger Kanisch and Marc Gork made it a clean sweep for the Germans in the top three. They earned €533,000 and €307,000, respectively. Swedish pro Johan Storakers was fourth for €237,000.

The EPT rolls on to Italy next for the San Remo tournament on April 18th. American sensation Jason Mercier will see if he can follow in McDonald’s footsteps and make a strong run at defending his title.

Here is a crash course for some things to keep in mind when playing HORSE. Realize that the aim of this article is to give you a basic concept of how to play the game so you don’t get destroyed at the table. Entire books could be written about HORSE if you really wanted to dive into specifics.

Hold’em

This should be the variant most people are comfortable with. However, hold’em in HORSE is played with limit betting, which is something that many aren’t used to anymore since most games are played as no-limit hold’em. Some basic tips to keep in mind are pot odds and position. Pot odds make it so that you can call river-bets with fairly marginal hands since the pot will likely have already ballooned to a handsome size. Position is crucial in these games as well.

Omaha Hi-Lo

Don’t show up without an Ace in this game. You want a hand that has a chance at “scooping” (winning both the hi and lo parts of the pot). “Lo” hands involve all five cards being an Eight or lower (no pairs). Any hands with an Ace and a Two are great for drawing to a low. The best hand in this game is something like AA23 double-suited. Hands like JT97, which have no chance of winning the low and very little chance of winning the high are the worst hands in this game.

Razz

Razz is Stud Lo. The best hand is A2345. The key to this game is making sure that your three starting cards work well towards a low. If they do, continue with the hand, if they don’t, fold. This is a very easy game to learn since it’s usually pretty obvious who has the best hand based up on the “up” cards.

Stud

This game has two “down” cards (initially) just like hold’em. Put quite simply: play your hand like you’d play a hold’em hand. Also, pay close attention to the other players’ “boards” so you know when it’s time to fold or raise.

Eight or Better

This is a combination of Stud and Razz where the pot is split by the person who makes the best hand in each variant. However, unlike Razz, the highest card in a qualifying Lo hand has to be Eight or lower. A great hand to start with in this game is Ace-Ace with a Two “door card” (which means the first card face-up). “Rolled up” Aces are very powerful since you already have a pretty good Hi hand a good start at drawing to a good Lo hand. The key to this game is to not get caught drawing to a Lo hand when you know you have zero chance of taking the Hi hand.

Last year’s champion, Mike McDonald

The European Poker Tour (EPT) is coming back to Germany. Dortmund will host the €5,300 buy-in event from March 10th through the 14th. Last year, Mike “timex” McDonald triumphed over a field of 411 players to win the €933,000 first place prize. McDonald’s win sent a message to the poker world that youth is most certainly not a handicap; he was just 18 at the time of his big win.

It is likely that this year’s field size will increase notably. Firstly, EPT field sizes have been steadily increasing in general. Additionally, poker has been growing in Germany more rapidly than most other parts of the world, so there could be a sizable turnout for this one.

Players to Watch

Johannes Strassmann

Strassmann finished 6th in this event last year (€152,000) and should be hungry to continue his streak of fantastic success on the EPT in his home country. Presumably many Germans feel the way Strassmann does about this event. As he told Poker Tips in an interview, “It was surely of great importance to do so well in my home country.”

Moritz Kranich

Moritz was a fairly unknown player until a few weeks ago when he won the EPT Dauville (France) event for €851,000. Now that he is no longer a stranger to the poker world, this young German could be antsy to join the likes of Strassmann and Sebastian Ruthenberg among his country’s best tournament players.

Peter Eastgate

The reigning world champion of poker is showing that his win in Vegas last November was no fluke. He has already won a $5k second-chance event at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure in the Bahamas this year. Just yesterday he received double honors at the Scandinavian Poker Awards for “Rookie of the Year” and “Best Performance of the Year”. There is perhaps no one in the world with greater confidence in their game than Peter Eastgate right now.

Dario Minieri

Relentlessly aggressive, this young Italian has had a quiet 2009 so far. If his success in 2008 says anything (a WSOP bracelet, and two 3rd place finishes on the EPT), it’s just a matter of time before he pops off something big.

EPT German Open Info

Players and fans alike can catch all the EPT German Open action in Dortmund at Casino Hohensyburg. Satellites priced at €300 kick-off on March 8th with the Main Event starting March 10th. There will also be a €2,000 buy-in second-chance tournament that starts on March 13th which is the day the Main Event will play down to a final table of eight players.

Although 2008 was probably a bit of a disappointment for Langmann (even though most of us would have traded places with his results in a heartbeat!), he has already gotten off to a great start this year. At the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure in the Bahamas, Langmann got knocked out of the Main Event and joined 272 others in a $5,000 buy-in “second chance” tournament. He notched another big second place finish in that event collecting a healthy $184,000 to get his year off on the right footing. The only player who could stop Langmann from winning the whole thing was none other than reigning world champion Peter Eastgate.

This young man clearly does a lot of traveling. Less than a week after that nice finish in the Bahamas, he showed up in Mississippi for a World Poker Tour event with 283 players. Of course, the finish was probably a disappointing one for Florian: 18th place. *Yawn* just another money routine finish in a $10,000 buy-in tournament!

Perhaps no other German poker player is as dedicated to traveling the live poker tournament circuit as is Florian. For that reason, it’s hard not to expect him to be considered the best German player in a year or two, if he isn’t considered that already.

On a personal note, I played with Florian in the WSOP Europe event. At the time, I had no idea who he was, but it quickly became apparent that he was quite possibly the best player at the table which is really saying something since Barry Greenstein and Nenad Medic were among us. His stone-faced demeanor and endlessly aggressive betting style make him a serious force to be reckoned with in the poker world.

Thanks to online poker, it is possible to build a nice gambling bankroll from next to nothing. Some players have built massive bankrolls from a start of literally $0! Of course, going from, say, $50 to $10,000 is much, much easier than going from $0 to $10,000. If you’re serious about trying to accumulate a big bankroll via online poker without making much of an initial investment, it is still advisable that you commit at least a hundred dollars or so to the quest. Trying to win a handful of change through tiny freerolls is a pain-staking, time-consuming process.

Find Good Promotions

Several poker portals offer exclusive online poker promotions. These are a great way for a beginning player to get good value off of their first-time deposit at an online poker room. Online poker rooms don’t take their customers for granted. They’re usually willing to give up a little something in order to get your business. Do some research and find an online poker room that offers some competitive sign-up initiatives.

Usually these sign-up initiatives are found at large poker information websites. You won’t see anything like that on this site because it’s quite small. But for example, PokerTips.org, which is a large poker strategy site, has a deal with Pacific Poker that awards their readers with two weekly seats to the $140 buy-in Deep Stack tournament. Look around for deals like that before signing up directly with an online poker room. The added value in promotions like this can be the make-or-break difference for a player trying to get on their feet with a small deposit.

Play Within Your Limits

In order to build a big bankroll from a small investment, it is imperative that you play within your limits. Even the best online poker player in the world could go busto from a $50 start if they were immediately jumping into $10 buy-in tournaments. Leave yourself some room to absorb the inevitable variance of poker. If you’re playing tournaments, you should have a bankroll of 50-100 tournament buy-ins. For cash games, leave yourself at least 20 maximum table buy-ins (but preferably more).

The most likely way to move up the ladder is to make yourself earn your way up the ladder!

According to this poker interview, Ruthenberg began playing in 2004, but didn’t start taking the game seriously until 2006 after he finished his education. Fast forward to two years later, and Sebastian finished 11th on the Card Player POY Standings. This fantastic finish was fueled by two huge wins. First, Sebastian won the 7-Card Stud Hi-Lo World Championship at the World Series of Poker. The buy-in for that event was $5,000. Over 250 of the world’s best players competed and Ruthenberg bested them all. His final opponent was five-time WSOP bracelet winner Chris “Jesus” Ferguson.

Ruthenberg’s second big win of the year came on the European Poker Tour (EPT). Season five of the EPT kicked off in September with the Barcelona Poker Open. A hefty €8,000 buy-in and a huge field of 609 players left a massive €1,361,000 waiting for the eventual winner, Ruthenberg. That win landed Sebastian in elite company. On the year, only a small handful of players can lay claim to besting Ruthenberg’s enormous winnings of $2.3 million.

As if his year hadn’t already been impressive enough, Ruthenberg closed things out by narrowly winning another EPT event. The €5,000 buy-in EPT Prague event took place just a few days ago. Ruthenberg was ousted in 9th place for €42,800, a truly great finish in a field of 570 players.

So what’s his secret? In his interview with PokerTips.org, Ruthenberg advices “reading, reading, and more reading”. Clearly, poker books and online poker strategy guides have been key to Ruthenberg’s path to riches. He also recommends bankroll management and patience. This understanding of the variance associated with poker is key to being successful in the game. Multi-table tournaments in particular are known for their brutal ups and downs. Since usually 25-33% of a prize pool goes to whoever wins the tournament, the stretches between victories can be long and tough for pro poker players.

As we head into 2009, it will be fun to monitor which German player finishes the highest in the Player of the Year Standings. Just for fun, here are some odds on who that person will be:

3:1 Field
6:1 Sebastian Ruthenberg
8:1 Florian Langmann
8:1 Johannes Strassmann
10:1 Thomas Bihl
10:1 Alexander Jung
12:1 Andreas Krause

You have to give the field a lot of credit here. After all, stars such as Langmann, Strassmann, and Ruthenberg all basically came out of nowhere in the past 18 months. It seems reasonable to expect that some German poker player who is currently unknown could rise to fame in 2009.

Playing too many hands from the blinds

It’s a big temptation for a lot of players to call raises from the blinds. The logic goes, “well I’ve already got $x invested in the pot… so why not put in a few more chips to see if I get lucky on the flop?” This line of thinking has led a lot of people to losing a lot of money. In general, playing hands from the blind positions is the least profitable position at the table. Of course, that seems sensible since, even if you do fold preflop, you’ve lost some chips from the blind you posted. However, don’t add insult to injury by playing “catch up” with marginal hands from the blinds. You’ll be out of position for the rest of the betting rounds. Being out of position is something you should avoid as much as possible.

Playing too many hands from early position

There are two primary things to consider when weighing whether or not to play a hand: the hand’s absolute value and what position you’re in. A common novice mistake is to disregard what position you’re in and only evaluate hands based on some rigid, absolute scale. In other words, certain hands are always played and certain hands are always folded; position doesn’t matter. This is a very sub-optimal approach to poker. In reality, the value of a hand is very much determined by the position you’re in. Without getting too specific (and thus ignoring other necessary variables), a hand like pocket fives could very easily be folded in early position but played for a strong raise on the button. The rule of thumb is that hands tend to be much less valuable in early position since you’ll be first to act on all subsequent betting rounds.

Overplaying TPTK

TPTK is poker lingo for “top pair, top kicker”. For example, if you have Ace-Nine and the flop comes Nine-Four-Two, you have TPTK. Generally speaking, players tend to overvalue these hands. To be sure, they have value, but they’re not necessarily a “close your eyes and get all of the chips in” type of hand. In a tournament where the stacks are short, it is generally more understandable that you’d play that type of hand for your whole stack. However, in deep stack cash games, be careful how eager you get with these hands. In some circumstances, it might not be a bad idea to slow down at some point and limit the amount of bets that make it into the pot.

“Seeing a lot of hands” early in tournaments

One common “fish strategy” in tournaments is to “play a lot of hands while the blinds are low.” In theory, this isn’t necessarily a bad strategy. However, in practice, the types of players who tend to be attracted to a strategy like this are the types of players who don’t know how to implement it very well. I would recommend beginner- to intermediate-experienced players avoid these cutsie “play a bunch of hands” styles of poker. Until you’re really experienced, it’s a good rule of thumb to keep your decisions infrequent and relatively simple.

Like many successful poker players, Johannes career began as a transition from being a Starcraft player. Starcraft is an online strategy game of sorts that served as a gateway to poker for many players including Bertrand “ElkY” Grosspellier.

In 2007, Johannes participated in the European Poker Tour (EPT) Grand Final in Monte Carlo where he finished 23rd for €33,180. That result marked just the beginning of his successes on the EPT. He gained worldwide fame in the poker community for making three EPT final tables in a stretch of five months between December 2007 and April 2008. Just recently, he made another final table, this time in the EPT London event, where he finished 7th for £120,723.

Strassmann’s live tournament results over the past 18 months are highly impressive. He has totaled well over $500,000 in winnings in seven countries throughout the world.

But Johannes is not simply known for his live tournament performances. He is also a fearless high-stakes online cash game player who can be found playing on Party Poker when he isn’t traveling. Stakes of $25-$50 blinds are a part of his regular game.

As if being one of the best German poker players in the world isn’t enough, Johannes is also branching out into the business world. He is reportedly teaming with the likes of Italy’s Dario Minieri and France’s Grosspellier to create a poker strategy and video tutorial training website. Watching a training video from Johannes would certainly be a good way to boost one’s poker abilities. After all… I’m sure a lot of us would love to trade bank accounts with the young man!