The importance of the 'scoop'

With so many mixed games being played at the moment, I want to take a look at a concept which you simply cannot be a successful H.O.R.S.E player without understanding, that of the ‘scoop’. ‘Scooping’ refers to when you have a hand which is good enough to win both the high and low side of the pot in hi lo games. Two of the variants of H.O.R.S.E are hi lo split games, in the form of stud eight or better and Omaha eight or better. Both these games require a low to ‘qualify’ which means that you have to have at least five different cards below an eight to qualify for a low.

The first - and most important - point about hi lo games if that middle value cards are junk. Hands like 7s8s9d in stud 8/ob, or like 7d8d9h10s in Omaha 8/ob are complete rubbish. Although powerful hands in the regular forms of both of these games, they have basically zero chance of winning the low end of the pot, and only a small chance to win the high, and you are therefore sacrificing a huge amount of equity by playing them. Just throw them away.

The second key point is that low hands always have an advantage over high hands, as it is relatively easy for a low hand to also win the high pot (through developing into a straight or a flush for example), where as a high hand has much less chance of developing into a low (what kind of low will you make with hands like KsKcQh, or KsKcQsQc?). This means that in both games, the most powerful starting hands are low hands with a good chance of becoming high. Hands like Ad2d3d in stud 8/ob or AcAh2c3h in Omaha 8/ob are the hands you want to be looking at. These have great potential to develop into hands that can win the whole pot, not just half or a quarter of it.

Many players get carried away in these games and start thinking that a huge number of hands are playable just because they often get half the pot back with an ok high or low. The problem is that when you do get scooped you lose everything, just like you do in a regular pot, and it will bust you just as quickly as losing a couple of monster no limit hold’em pots every hour if you pursue it as a strategy. Just focus on the scoop and watch the dollars roll in...