PZ95: Greg Vail, Split Pot Expert

This year we have focused on very broad issues in poker, both in poker theory and in its statistics, but today we are going to get very specific. Scoop! is a series of detailed books focused on one game in two variants: PLO8 and Big O. Its author, Greg Vail, makes a living playing and teaching these games alone.

In Hold’em, there are often cards on the board that are considered to be blanks or bricks that should not help anyone’s hand. This is almost never the case in High Low. Since there are so many combinations of hands in play, most cards on the board are going to help or connect with something or someone. Therefore, we must consider how the “best” hand can fare against the entire deck and the entire run out. Once this is done, the “best” hand is the hand with the highest equity. Most of the time, this is not the hand that a Hold’em mind would consider to be “ahead” right now.

Vail, Greg. Scoop!: Big O and PLO8: Winning High Low Concepts for the Hold’em Mind (p. 13).

For whatever reason, splitting the pot into two simply blows away many poker players. While I have been preparing a modest class for Double Board Bomb Pots in particular, the Scoop! series by Greg, soon to be completed with volume four, is the seminal contemporary text for big bet omaha games and is emphatically built around split pot concepts.

Play for the scoop. We wouldn’t draw to chop in Hold’em, so why would we in split pot games? We will gain most of our profit by exploiting players who do exactly that. We’ve all seen someone River an inferior Flush in Hold’em, pay off a large bet to the nut Flush, and say, “I hate it when I was drawing dead and got there.” That happens all the time in split pot games. Do not be that guy.

It is a conceptual series but also a detailed one.

Breakdowns like this, of the entire combo, help clarify what you are looking for in a split pot hand.

A few more links:

Here’s the software Greg mentioned.

Greg can be found at doublesuited.com.

Here’s a Zoo episode where I argue with Limon about a split pot double board spot. What would Greg have to say about it?

Basically, this is a great series, I don’t have a lot to add here. You should just buy and read the books if you are going to play Big O and PLO8.

Enjoy the interview!

As for sourdough, I use allrecipes.com for everything these days. Maybe Dean will write out his own recipe and post it here.

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