1) I wouldn't get hung up on it, but at the low limits 4 and even 5 BB/100 seems possible long-term. As hand rates are slower and average pots generally bigger, the winrate of a decent O8 limit player will tend to be a scratch higher than an equivalent limit holdem player.
2) Hard to say really. My limited experience of 1/2 O8 (I haven't really ever played that low that I remember) is that the games are VERY soft, say 25PLO8 standard at best. The play at 2/4 and then 3/6, as in holdem, quickly becomes a reasonable amount better. 3/6 and maybe 5/10 would be equivalent to the 100 and 200 PLO8 skill levels, perhaps. But it's all VERY arbitrary.
3) This is a bit too in depth to go into in one post, and again (although I like limit O8 a lot) i'm not sure if I'm the best qualified person to teach in this respect. Preflop, raises (unlike in PLO8) are almost never done with the intention of eliminating opponents or taking the "lead" in a hand (as in holdem) but almost exclusively to swell the size of a pot in which you've got a better than average hand. Thus, you tend not to raise much at all from EP so as not to scare players off marginal hands (i.e. you WANT the A3 and A4 in when you hold A2), and raise liberally with good hands late on once everyone is tied into the pot by putting in one bet (and, perhaps, trying to buy the button too). Postflop it becomes a simple game of expectation and value - raise when you have the best of it, call or fold when the situation suggests.
At the lowest levels, almost every hand will go to a showdown and most tables will be collosally loose-passive so fancy plays are at a minimum. Even check-raises can only be confidently tried against really aggressive types or into a big field, successful bluffs are almost non-existent. You'll often be raising with scratchy values because the field will be large and your hand, though moderate, will be better than average, once everyone is trapped in for one bet. The "promotional raise", and variants thereof, is an important feature in O8, as is defining when your one-way hand may be winnning all of that one way and pumping it. Promo raises probably will be of less value in low limit games where people fold less. Read Michael Cappelletti's O8 book (which is almost exclusively limit-orientated) for some good thought processes on the limit game. Once you start thinking like a limit O8 player (Mathematics, odds, value bets) you'll start playing like one. It's a very analytical game and quite objective and that appeals to me; it may not to you.
4) Pass. I would suggest 2 BB/hr would be fairly reasonable, as a rough stab. The play in the casino will, as in most games, almost certainly be a couple of notches worse and looser.
Monk
xxxxxStatistics: Posted by Felonius_Monk — Mon Sep 05, 2005 2:49 pm
]]>