Expensive lessons in Omaha

I've had a decent week so far from a Texas Hold'em standpoint. Unfortunately, it's been more than just Texas Hold'em this week:

Tuesday - The Liz and Brandon $20 Freezeout was moved to Tuesday this week due to some of the players' scheduling conflicts. I busted out in 6th place, but I left the house with a picture of Liz's terrific (albeit unexposed) chest on my cell phone, so it was a winning session as far as I was concerned.

Wednesday - Some of the players I know from various games around the area happened to get the poker itch all on the same day, so I hosted an impromptu $.25/$.50 game to tide everyone over. At the suggestion of some of the more veteran poker players, we added Pot Limit Omaha Hi to the mix, alternating rounds with No Limit Hold'em. All I really knew about Omaha was that it was essentially a "game of the nuts", but the cards were extremely cooperative, so I managed to do well in both formats. I finished with a $17.64 hourly rate over the 5.5 hour session for a net profit of $97.

Thursday - In the Krumbine $100 game, I continued to minimize my mistakes and the deck continued to run me over, so the combination made for a very nice session. We played a couple of rounds of PL Omaha Hi, but it was NL Hold'em for the majority of the night. I finished the 10.5 hour session with a $40.29 hourly rate (net profit of $423).

After finally cashing out at 6 in the morning, the 5 remaining players (all of whom clearly need to get lives) decided to play a $40 freezeout to round out the 'evening'. Though I finished 2nd for a net profit of $10, I didn't do myself any favors by trying to make it through the rest of the day on absolutely zero sleep, and I'm not just talking about work...

Friday - This is where things took a real turn for the worse. After work, one of the Thursday regulars called to invite me to a game that was hosted by a player who had made the final table of a $1500 NLHE event in last year's WSOP. The format was $1/$2 with NL Hold'em and PL Omaha Hi rotating every other round. I played well during the NLHE rounds, but I seemed to have some real trouble taking my foot off the accelerator during the PL Omaha rounds. There was one key hand early on where I basically gave away my whole stack with trips versus a boat. I lost another half a buy-in against a baby flush when I overplayed top set on a suited flop. I finished the 5.5 hour session with a -$74.55 hourly rate, dropping a total of $410.

I probably would've exercised better judgement had I not been playing on zero sleep, but there's no denying that I am at a distinct disadvantage when playing anything other than Hold'em. I've always wanted to learn as many games as possible, but now that it appears I'll be playing Omaha for real money on a regular basis, it's really lit a fire under my ass. I'm absolutely determined to become one of the best players in that $1/$2 game, regardless of the format, so I'll be using this weekend to read as much material as I can possibly find about Omaha. Though I'll likely continue to lose money the next few sessions, I don't ever want to just give it away like I did last night.