A Man and His H.O.R.S.E.

Am reasonably certain I’m gonna take a virtual seat in the “Saturday’s with Pauly” tourney tomorrow. Unlike some of the folks who’ll be there, $10+$1 won’t represent a step down for me, buy-in-wise. Especially when it comes to tourneys, of which I’ve played exactly three all year. Not too uncomfortable of a step up, either, though. Great time and day for me (4:30 p.m. EST), and the game is the right one, too. I also like the fact that it is on my favorite online site (Stars). At the very least, I’ll win a story to tell next week.

Have been plugging away at the H.O.R.S.E. tables, though I’m realizing it is hard to rack up a lot of hands over there. For one, I can only play so many hours per week. And the tables don’t fill up as fast as they do for other games, so occasionally I’m waiting to find a seat. Also, I’ve discovered I don’t do very well at all multi-tabling with H.O.R.S.E. The stud games especially require a bit more attention -- primarily because of having to remember others’ up cards -- than do the flop games, and so I can’t really play more than one table at a time.

And as those of you who’ve tried H.O.R.S.E. all know, the game don’t exactly gallop. It dawdles along at a slow trot, usually, meaning I can’t really get more than 45-50 hands in an hour.

Haven’t played enough to make any sort of reasonable generalizations yet, but I have experienced a few things I didn’t necessarily expect to when I started trying to play H.O.R.S.E. more regularly. Here are three . . .

For one, I’m actually finding I enjoy the stud games (Razz, Stud, Stud/8) better than the flop games, and in fact feel more comfortable during those rounds, probably because I’m noticing many others not handling those games terribly well. A key, of course, is to be patient enough not to get involved with poor starting hands and/or chase the thin draws too far (i.e., across the big-bet line). Have had my share of heartbreak Razz hands -- starting A-2-4 and brick-brick-bricking out -- but on the whole I’m finding I look forward to Razz coming back around in the sequence.

Another reason why I ain’t minding the return of Razz is the fact that I’m feeling least comfortable about what I’m doing in Omaha/8. I’ve no stats on how I’m performing in each game -- that’s something I’d like to start trying to figure out how to do, actually. But my sense is I’m playing way too many hands in O/8, and somehow keep myself getting twisted into these imprudent quarter-pot quests. I know better than that.

Finally, much to my surprise, I enjoy Hold ’em the least -- by far -- of all five games. I suppose it has something to do with either (1) the relative paucity of variables in Hold ’em when compared to the other games (it seems too “simple” somehow), or (2) the lack of novelty Hold ’em currently possesses for me relative to the other four games. Maybe it is something else, but the “H” round has become the most tedious of all five.

Will report back more on my H.O.R.S.E.-in’ around later.

And I’ll let you know how things go tomorrow with the other Omahalics. Here’s where we’ll be: