Jeff Hwang's next instalment in his Omaha series offers a range of advice for playing PLO Omaha. As an advanced book it assumes a basic knowledge of the game, though I generally find the book would be useful even to newcomers (once they get over a small terminology gap).

A lot of information

The book is divided into several sections which could be read in any order. For a newer Omaha player we'd recommend actually skipping the first several chapters and starting directly with Small Ball. This is the starting point to the overall strategy and offers the most general view of the game.

We suspect Hwang might disagree somewhat since he indicates his strategy is somewhat based on floating, the topic of the first chapter. Though even without that first chapter his examples tend to be understandable and his strategy clear.

Once those overall strategy chapters are read, or if you've been playing Omaha a while, the rest can be scanned and read in any order. It is a lot of material that can't likely be appreciated in one or two sittings.

Target audience

Many topics, such as the Stack-to-Pot ratio are well reviewed and relevant to any poker player. Further to this, much of the general advice is not just Omaha specific and could apply to a variety of games.

The focus of the book however is on Pot-Limit Omaha and that game is used as the inspiration to support all his ideas. Core to the book, and as the title implies, is small ball and short-handed play. Strangely they reside in different chapters though one gets the impression that Hwang is actually presenting them as a single strategy.

With many details

Hwang writes in a personal style and involves the reader in what he is presenting. This made the book mostly easy to read and interesting enough to go further. Concepts are presented with lots of information but I never felt overloaded at any time.

Several sample hands are provided for analysis and walk-through. I enjoy going through a few hands at times, but here it sometimes feels like too many are present. I found myself skipping several pages of them to get to more of Hwang's informative prose.

Overall a good book and a decent read. Certainly any Omaha player would find it useful and any poker player in general could find it informative.