| Pot-limit Omaha to the untrained eye looks similar to Texas hold em except that you start with four cards instead of the standard two. But this complex form of poker has many differences and it continues to grow in popularity as the poker boom matures. This book starts with the fundamentals of hand valuation and continues up through advanced concepts. Topics include preflop hand strength, short stack play, wrap hands, blind stealing, marking aces, playing on the flop, which flops are good for bluffing, position and check-raising, pot size manipulation, blockers, and much more including numerous sample hands. This book is a discussion of winning play, and more importantly, winning thinking on all streets. It should be of value to almost all pot-limit Omaha players from the beginner to the more advanced, and every effort has been made to give you the best information possible, with nothing held back. Two Plus Two Publishing and William Jockusch are proud to bring you Pot-Limit Omaha: Understanding Winning Play. |
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 Excellent. |
| Review Date: December 13, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Greg Soare, San Fran, CA |
Overall, this is a very good book.
It covers a lot of the critical pieces necessary for winning PLO play, including concepts on what types of hands you are looking for, preflop play, play from the blinds, how to adjust to preflop actions by others, wraps, playing AAxx, defending vs AAxx, flopping made hands, flopping big draws, flopping marginal draws and flopping marginal hands, hand reading, bluffing and more. It has more than 60 pages of sample hands to bring home
The two main criticisms I've seen are 1) it focuses on short-stacking which is true, and probably too much so. But while the purists don't like it (for valid reasons), it can be a profitable strategy and should be covered, imho, 2) the hand examples are clumped at the end of the book, which is probably not ideal, but seems a bit of a minor criticism. After all, if you're flipping from a section to the hand examples at the end of the section, your fingers are holding 5 pages vs 60 pages, but whatever, and to a lesser extent, 3) the author recommends playing a nittier style where he plays more passively. I'm not sure what I think of this, as you have to play the style that makes you money. Part of this is related to playing a laying a short-stack, where correct play has you playing fewer hands.
The only other real competition for "Best Single PLO Book To Buy" is Jeff Hwang's Pot-Limit Omaha Poker, so a few thoughts comparing them.
Advantages of this book:
- Covers a lot more PLO material at roughly 300 pages vs Hwang's 160 pages
- Has roughly 90 pages on post-flop play vs Hwang's 20 pages. Since post-flop play is where more of the money is made, this is a pretty important difference.
- Has more depth and breadth on basics. Has more material on for example what to do based on opponents actions, and also on blind play, and deeper discussion of specifics.
- Good material for a wide variety of styles, but focuses a bit more on short-stack play
Advantages of Hwang's
- Focused more on deeper-stacked play
- Covers a bit more upfront on conceptual materials, and what you are looking for when playing PLO.
- Includes more examples of which specific hands to play preflop, ie. translating the concepts to specifics.
- Has a strong section on straight draws: the structure of them, number of outs and so on.
- Covers other games besides PLO: specifically Limit Omaha 8 or better, and Pot Limit Omaha 8 or better.
- Overall, this is a very good book also.
Overall, this book is a bit of a better choice for a single book to get, but really, if you are going to play PLO for money, it's well worth your time to get both as they emphasize slightly different things.
Disclaimer: I exchanged emails with the author on a poker bulletin board site and commented on a draft before publication. This reflects less on my relationship with him and more on my views of what a good PLO poker book should cover.
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I liked this book
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| Review Date: February 18, 2010 |
| Reviewer: Akorps, |
| I liked this book and am glad I got it. In my view it complements, rather than competes with, other PLO books on the market. The author presents a lot of interesting ideas either not mentioned elsewhere that I've noticed, or presented in a different way, perhaps from a different viewpoint or at a different level. I think the author should be encouraged to continue writing more poker books. |
Completely Unnecessary.
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| Review Date: December 6, 2009 |
| Reviewer: RadicalEinward, Boston, MA |
I'm generally a PLO player and have appreciated the recent increase in its popularity. I'm also a huge fan of 2+2. However, I'm incredibly disappointed with this new offering. To cut a long story short, if you're going to continue being a game-destroying short stacker, stick to Rolf Slotboom's books. For everyone else, Jeff Hwang's two books are far, far superior to any others on the market.
A number of things really bothered me about Jockusch's book. First, he (correctly) points out that short stackers can have a devastating effect on the game, and even throws in two suggestions at the end of the book (one of which is ridiculous) on how to effectively kill off short stacking. He then proceeds to describe how to play a short stack throughout most of the book, and numerous times he mentions that he's primarily a short stacker. What?!
Secondly, in a game as action driven as PLO, Jockusch has written a book advocating and explaining what could best be described as the nittiest possible way you could imagine to play PLO. This book may help you become profitable at PLO if you aren't already, but it will also make you want to gouge your eyes out.
Third, the layout in the book makes no sense. There are very few hand examples compared to not only Jeff Hwang's books, but 2+2 books in general; not only that, but the vast majority are held to the end of the book and lumped into one chapter, making one have to constantly go back and forth between chapters while reading if one wants to get anything out of the topic at hand.
I could go on, but I think by now you should be heading in the opposite direction from this book. Buy it for the people you regularly play PLO with - *that* will make you more profitable. ;p |
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