I sold a bunch of stuff. I sold Omaha Steaks, vacation packages... the worst, though, was Time Life Books, because no one wants Time Life Books. No one wants an 'Encyclopedia Brittanica' showing up at their house.
In a sense, 'Schmidt' is the most Omaha of my films. But have I gotten it right? I'm not sure. Did Fellini get Rome right? Did Ozu get Tokyo right?
For a Nebraska kid in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Nebraska football was a quasi-religion, so I ran out to get The Omaha World-Herald every morning, salivating for the sports page. My dad, however, required that I read one front page story and one editorial before I was allowed to turn to the sports.
My father grew up in Levittown, L.I., in the first tract housing built for G.I.'s. His dad had stormed the beaches of Omaha and died when my father was very young. My dad had to raise himself, pretty much.
I'm comfortable with the hold 'em, Omaha and stud high-low. But the other two games aren't my strongest games. I'm not comfortable at all with razz or stud.
I actually do quite well in Omaha. It's one of my better games. I love pot-limit Omaha and Omaha high-low. I do quite well in them. If I play in a casino, I usually play some kind of mixed game with Omaha and hold 'em.
Although Omaha is my birthplace and the place I grew up, I don't see myself spending extended amounts of time there. I feel almost more comfortable and more at peace in New York.
The biggest differences between Omaha and Hold'em is that you get four hole cards in Omaha as opposed to two in Hold'em, and in Omaha, you can only use two of your hole cards and must play three cards from the board.
One pair rarely wins an Omaha pot, even if that pair is aces. In Hold'em, on the other hand, a pair of aces is right around the average winning hand.
It's rare to find these true coin flip situations in Hold'em but surprisingly common in Omaha. That's one of the reasons why Omaha is the perfect game for action junkies who relish the notion of flipping coins for large sums of money.
