This past weekend I played a little $2/4 Omaha High at a local Las Vegas casino. I sat down to the right of two guys who are both poker dealers. One of the two was in from out of state specifically to deal at the World Series of Poker which starts later this week. I was my usual friendly-talkative self and it didn’t take long to find out that the player 2 seats to my left, we’ll call him “Steve”, was stuck in the game for at least one full rack and maybe even two. The game was short handed and we ended up picking up a player who was waiting for a seat at the $2/4 holdem table to open up. He knew the very basics of Omaha, but other than that had no real idea how to play.

When you add all that up, you have the perfect recipe to send a player who is already losing in to a tailspin that should involve spewing chips all over the table. And, if things go right, a large portion of them should be able to land in my stack!

To make sure that “Steve” won as few pots as possible, I loosened up considerably on my starting hand selection. I saw more than 90% of the flops. My whole goal was to be in any hand that “Steve” was going to be in. Having one more hand to beat every time would make it that much harder for “Steve” to win pots. I was willing to pay the $2 to see the flop in on the chance that I would hit a big hand or big draw that would keep me interested. Otherwise, I’d fold to any bet on the flop.

The strategy worked in so much that we were able to get “Steve” to pull another buy-in out of his wallet and was well on his way to losing it all when I finally had to head home. This was one time where I really wish I could have stayed longer to see the final result. I’m not sure if “Steve” would have dug further in to his wallet, or if we had tapped him at that point.

Unfortunately for me, I wasn’t able to capitalize on “Steve’s” shower of chips. I won a few small-ish pots online pharmacy without a prescription off him, but the big money was split between the rookie and another player. They spent most of their time stacking “Steve’s” chips in their own piles.

When you see a player who is dangling precariously on the edge of tilt, do not be afraid to apply a small amount of pressure to his backside in order to get him to dive in head first!