PokerWorks

For those of you who read PokerPerambulation, you know that Ken has been dabbling in the HORSE games recently. In fact, Ken's mentioning this fact is the reason why I began playing some HORSE myself several months ago. Like 99% of the HORSE players, I have some serious weaknesses. Nevertheless, by playing to my strengths and by also minimizing the effects of my weaknesses, I tend to do pretty well.

One thing should be borne in mind when playing the typical HORSE game. The general play ranges from horrible to insanely horrible. Thus to be a winner, you really only have to manage minimally decent play. Over time, this will likely change, but for now, a basic strategy is plenty profitable. Along with this profitability, however, comes increased variance from players calling down with little hope of improvement yet occasionally getting it.

Also like most HORSE players, my strength is hold'em. I have a strong secondary strength in Omaha hi/lo, which a small percentage of HORSE players also have. In general, however, the players will largely be hold'em players who have migrated over from the hold'em ring games and have absolutely no clue how to play Omaha hi/lo, Razz, Stud or Stud 8 or Stud hi/low regular. You may also have no clue how to play these games, but if you can just play a little less bad than the other players, you'll do pretty well. Of course, you could play HORSE coming from a stud background, in which case you will have a significant advantage over the other players, since you will be used to the odds calculations in the variants of hi/lo and razz.

Now I'm going to continue on as though your strength is hold'em, but this is just an example to make things concrete. If you have another strength, you can simply substitute the advice for your own game. As I said above the general play is quite terrible. I also said that the vast majority of HORSE players have a strength in hold'em but that doesn't mean they are any good at it. It just means that they are the least awful at hold'em. This also doesn't mean that if you are a decent hold'em player that you don't have an advantage when it comes to this game; you do.

So let's say that your strength is hold'em and that you are pretty much a novice at the other games. How should you proceed? The advice is exactly the same as the basic advice for starting out with hold'em: play tight. In fact, play very tight. You can avoid significant trouble by simply limiting your starting hands, particularly in the stud variants. When you get a hand, push it hard. You'll be amazed what players will call down with. You can play your normal hold'em game where you will crush the opposition, and then even with a super tight approach in the other games, you can still come out slightly ahead in those, since everyone else is so terrible. The overall strategy, then, is one in which you try to plug your leaks as much as possible in the games where you are weak, but play your normal game when you have a decided advantage.

If you can begin to develop your other games, through study and practice, then you will really start crushing these HORSE games. I've been attempting to improve my razz play and it is already showing up. Ultimate Bet and PokerStars both have HORSE games running pretty much all day. I've been playing at Ultimate Bet, but the play at PokerStars is equally bad. Jump in and reap some rewards.

In the next few weeks I'll be writing some articles on basic play in the less well known games that make up over half of the HORSE games and half of the HOSE games. When that happens, links will be available to those articles from this one and vice-versa. Thus, the present article serves as the central reference point. J.B. has written a series of articles on basic 7 Card Stud play and I highly recommend reading and absorbing the advice he offers in those articles.

See 'Razz Primer ' - 'Omaha 8 or Better (High-Low Split) Primer - '7 Card Stud 8 low or better Primer '