Championship Omaha

by Tom McEvoy & T.J. Cloutier

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Reviewer:  pjensen

Championship Omaha covers three forms of Omaha – High/Low split 8 or better (limit), High only (limit), and pot-limit high only. It covers the rules of the games, starting hands, strategies for the flop, turn, and river, dangerous draws to avoid, how to play against different types of opponents, and even some tournament advice.

The authors have some good advice on starting hand selection, and they help you avoid a lot of trap hands. The emphasis is on all four cards working together, and usually dumping hands with a “dangler”. Get used to that advice, because you’ll read it over and over again! They have some good examples of how to avoid going to showdown with a second-best hand, something that can happen a lot in Omaha. There is also emphasis on other bits of advice that are essential to winning Omaha play – starting value of hands being much more important than position (as opposed to Hold’em), only draw to the nuts, always try to have a re-draw to a higher hand, etc.

There are a few things I didn’t like about this book. For one thing, since it covers different forms of Omaha, the advice for the different games sometimes gets mashed together from one paragraph to another. The writing style is also not as polished as other authors like Sklansky or Harrington, and can sometimes come off a little amateurish. But in a way it makes it seem more “conversational”, which might appeal to some readers. There are some “stories from the road” that are entertaining, but are pretty much just filler. And it doesn’t cover a new form of Omaha that is starting to become popular, especially online – pot-limit high/low.

In spite of these flaws, Championship Omaha is a solid book, with plenty of good hand examples. This should not be your only source of knowledge on Omaha; it should be more of a supplement. If you are a beginner, it will definitely improve your game. It won’t have as much of an impact on the more advanced players, but it can act as a refresher. As with any other poker book – if it helps you win just one or two pots, it will pay for itself!

3.5/5

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