A game of the nuts

As many poker professionals have stated, Omaha is a game of the nuts. It's very difficult to win at showdown in Omaha without the nuts (the very best possible hand given the community cards). I realized this intellectually before, but now I'm learning it the hard way :-) Last night, I hit the felt on hand 37 when I had a very strong hand, but not the nuts. I was dealt 3d Jc Jh Ad, the flop came Kc Ks 5c, and the turn was Jd. This gave me a full house of jacks full of kings. Believing I had a very strong hand, I bet $3,400; one opponent called, and another raised to $17,125 to go all-in. I reraised to $22,299 to go all in, and the first opponent, who had me covered, called. It turned out I was actually drawing dead on the turn; the opponent who had me covered had been dealt Qd 4d Js Kd, giving her a full house of kings full of jacks on the turn. She ended up collecting both the side pot of $10,348 and the main pot of $58,775.

There's a poker expression relating to straights - "the ignorant end". The ignorant end of a straight is the low end. You rarely want to go to showdown in hold'em with the ignorant end of a straight, and I can say quite categorically that you never want to go to showdown in Omaha with the ignorant end of a straight. The concept of an ignorant end can also be applied to full houses. The ignorant end of a full house is when you have three of the card with the lower denomination, and only two of the card with the higher denomination. That's what I had in hand 37 last night. It's foolhardy to put any money on the ignorant end of a full house in Omaha, which is what I did. I compounded the error by going all in. After reupping for the max, I settled in for a long night of watching my stack slowly sink towards the felt. The only positive I took from the session was that I didn't hit the felt a second time.

During current Omaha session you were dealt 183 hands and saw flop:
 - 22 out of 43 times while in big blind (51%)
 - 20 out of 48 times while in small blind (41%)
 - 37 out of 92 times in other positions (40%)
 - a total of 79 out of 183 (43%)
 Pots won at showdown - 9 of 21 (42%)
 Pots won without showdown - 20

delta: $-55,315
cash game PLO balance: $-60,580
balance: $7,143,060