Omaha hold 'em (also known as Omaha holdem or simply Omaha) is a community card poker game similar to Texas hold 'em, where each player is dealt four cards and must make their best hand using exactly two of them, plus exactly three of the five community cards. Source He's an expert swordsman but a hard task master.Qui-Gon Jinn Plo Koon was a Kel Dor male from the planet Dorin who became a Jedi Master and a lifetime member of the Jedi High Council, holding the position from after the Stark Hyperspace War to the end of the Galactic Republic in 19 BBY. During the Clone Wars, Koon served as a Jedi General in the Grand Army of the Republic, leading. An Example of an Omaha Hi-Lo Split-8-or-Better Poker Hand Let's say a hand of Omaha hi-lo goes to showdown with the final board reading A ♦ 6 ♣ 3 ♠ K ♦ Q ♦. You hold A ♣ K ♠ 7 ♦ 4. Your Next Steps to Learn Better Pot Limit Omaha Strategy In this article I have made the case for building a meaningful conception of PLO to guide your play rather than imitating a machine-generated solver solution (or imitating an imitator of such solutions).
Are you new at poker and want to learn how to play Pot Limit Omaha (PLO)? Or is Texas Holdem your typical game and you want to add to your repretoire? If you are among the latter folks, pay special attention to the tips below because Omaha players are on the lookout for common Texas mistakes.
Below we introduce PLO strategies for starting hand selection and assessment, bankroll management, equity, backdoor outs and kill cards, and hand reading.
Basic PLO Strategy & Tips
Many players give PLO a try as a refreshing change from Texas Holdem. With 4 hole cards and betting limits fixed by the size of the pot, there are new strategy considerations to keep your mind fresh. This article covers some of the key strategy tips you’ll need to keep in mind when your first move over. Remember that experienced PLO players are on the lookout for people making ‘Holdem Player Mistakes’ and are ready to take advantage.
There are 3 main areas covered in this article. First the setup of starting hands and the importance of betting with combinations of cards that work together. Next you’ll find tips covering the relative strengths of hands at showdown. After that some advice on how to avoid giving away the content of your Omaha hand too early.
Pot Limit Omaha Strategy Tips – Starting Hand Selection
In PLO poker, a showdown has very specific rules. You can use 2 and only 2 cards from you own 4 hole-cards, and 3 and only 3 cards from the 5 community cards. Reading the board comes easily with practice, though the effect on starting hand selection is more subtle.
The best Omaha hands are those which have the largest possible number of 2-card combinations which work together – in addition to some high card strength. The best hands are A-A-J-10 with 2 ace high suited pairs, and A-A-K-K also double-suited. Both of these can make top set, straights and nut flushes. Other super-strong hands in PLO are called ‘Rundowns’ and include hands like 9-10-J-Q double suited. Here you have 6 combinations of hands working for you and you can flop draws with up to 21 outs – making you a favorite over a set.
Even one unconnected card halves the number of combinations you have working for you. The really dangerous Omaha starting hands contain small to medium pairs. Sure, you can flop a set now and again, but when the betting gets extra heavy in this game – middle or bottom set is a trap hand. If you are not already beaten by a higher set then you could be facing one or more massive draws which are favorite to beat you.
Pot Limit Omaha Strategy Tips- Relative Hand Strength At Showdown
Hands shown down in PLO are much stronger than you will be used to in Texas Holdem. If you think that each player starts with up to 6 potential 2-card combinations, then it makes sense that hands shown down will be close to the nuts. Just imagine betting into 3 players in Texas Holdem holding 18 hands – one of them must have hit the flop.
If you can get your aces all-in pre-flop then you should do that, however unimproved over-pairs are very unlikely to win the pot when there has been significant action.
Coordinated flops mean you need to make a decision on whether to continue immediately. The betting gets exponentially bigger on each round with pot-limit rules and ‘just calling to see what happens’ can lead you to hit a low straight, non-nut flush or two pair – which will cost you money more often than they make you any.
A good rule of thumb for new players is to only draw to nut hands. The highest straights, nut flushes and the best full-house should all be included. Once you get used to how different opponents are betting in different situations you can add in some non-nut draws like the underfull or King-high flushes.
Pot-Limit Omaha Strategy Tips – Don’t Give Away That Hand Too Early
A common mistake new Omaha players make is to limp or call pre-flop with a wide range of speculative hands – and then suddenly raise with a pair of aces or kings. This is so well known among regular players that many specifically watch for these raises. What you will find is that you instantly end up with 5 callers, and are quickly checked to on the flop.
If you did not improve on the flop you need to be wary, your opponents will know what you have (well, half of your hand at least) and will be ready to build a big pot if they have you beaten. Once you gain some PLO experience of your own you can join in the profitable pastime of watching for aces-only raisers.
Even players who raise a wider range of coordinated hands can fall into this trap sometimes. This happens when only aces are used to re-raise. If you are going to give away your hand in this way you need to make sure that you have no more than one pot-sized bet left after the flop – otherwise it is easily exploitable by observant opponents.
Omaha is a fantastic game and has developed a loyal following online. These tips should keep you from losing too many easy chips while you learn to beat the game.
Advanced PLO Strategy
Once you have learned the basics of starting hand selection, drawing to the nuts and pot-limit betting – you are ready to add some advanced strategies to your PLO armory. This article covers a range of tactics that will help you increase your win-rate in lower buy-in Omaha hi games online.
First you’ll find out how to spot situations where a combination of your current equity and ‘backdoor outs’ make it profitable to call when you are not favorite to win the hand. Next some notes on reading your opponent’s hands. After this I have covered how to distinguish hands which do better heads up from hands which perform well multi-way. Finally some notes on good bankroll management, which is a key skill in the high-variance game of pot-limit Omaha.
Equity, Backdoor Outs and Kill Cards
In Pot-Limit Omaha there are many situations where the pot has gotten so large that you have an easy call with a hand which is likely behind. This is not just for the mega-draws like wrap + flush draw hands, it can be for a simple flush with the pot offering you compelling odds.
What many new players miss is that there is often extra equity from backdoor draws. For example with a flush draw + top-pair hand, you will have chances of trips or even a runner-runner full-house, you may also have straight possibilities. These extras can often add the few percentage points to your equity, which make a fold into a call.
Conversely, there are often cards in the deck which are not clean outs. For example in a classic flush draw against set all-in on the flop, the set has outs to make a full house (7 on the turn and 10 on the river) which effectively kill your flush. Being outdrawn by a flush when you hold the nut straight has the additional risk of higher straight cards appearing as well as the board pairing.
You’ll need to spend some time with an Omaha poker calculator to get used to these kind of match-ups.
Hand Reading in PLO
In my article on Basic PLO Strategy Tips, I outlined how people who raise (or 3-bet) only with hands containing aces will find themselves in trouble in PLO games. There are several more ways you can learn to read the hands of your opponents in Omaha.
Key here is to start with the shape and strength of your opponents hands. You can often find bet sizing tells will give you a clue starting before the flop. For example, some players will only ever re-raise premium hands and will be more likely to raise pair or high card hands and instead call with their rundown hands.
After the flop some players will bet out every time they have a draw, while others will check and call with non-nut (though still strong) draws. With careful observation you can easily pick up patterns. If you are not used to this I recommend you start by focusing on how different opponent play their Aces hands – followed by double suited run-downs. Once you figure whether someone is drawing or ‘protecting’ a made hand from the bet sizing, your decision making process becomes significantly easier.
Multi-Way and Heads-Up Hands
Some Omaha hands perform better in multi-way pots, while others are at their strongest when heads-up. Examples of multi-way hands include the higher rundown hands, preferably double suited. If you hold a high pair with little in the way of coordinated backup then you will ideally find yourself heads-up and with the initiative in the betting. If you miss the flop and face resistance, then high pair hands should usually be ditched.
Simply deciding whether your hand would prefer to be heads-up or multi-way can help you choose a good pre-flop betting strategy. Make sure that you mix things up sometimes though – or observant opponents will know what type of hand you are holding from your betting style.
PLO Bankroll Management
PLO is a high-variance game. You can play great and find yourself missing big draws, having your big sets cracked and find your bankroll going down fast. Of course, this will be balanced by times when you run great too!
In Texas Holdem, the agreed safe bankroll level is 20x your buy-in, so you only have 5% of your bankroll in any one game. In PLO I recommend that you play a little more conservatively with your bankroll, instead opting for 3% on any single table or 30 buy-ins minimum. This will mean you can ride the variance which is natural in this game without having to worry about your entire bankroll disappearing.
Darryll Fish has accumulated just under $1.4 million in online and live-tournament cashes in his short four-year career. Having recently transitioned to playing only live poker, Fish is determined to make his mark at the 2011 World Series of Poker. So far, he has two cashes, one in the $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em Triple Chance, and the other in a $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em event. Not only is he well versed in no-limit hold’em, but he’s also very experienced in all variations of Omaha. Fish spoke to PokerNews about playing preflop in early position in limit Omaha hi-lo split eight-or-better.
What kind of hand ranges are you looking to play in early position, and how can you decide whether to limp in or raise?
A lot of it depends on your ability to play post-flop because a lot of players will get connected to just the low draw with no high possibilities, which is really bad. Doing that can lose you a lot of chips. Most beginning players see the nut-low draw and think that it’s the nuts. In reality, if you just have the nut-low draw with no high possibility, the majority of the time you’re going to lose a big pot either because either you don’t get there, or you get quartered. I’d say the biggest mistake is playing uncoordinated low hands if you’re not able to get away from a bad low on the flop. The better you become post-flop, the more hands you can play from early position. Hands like ace-three-six-seven, if played in early position, are going to get you in a lot of trouble.
In general, you want to have suited aces. Any suited ace-two is something you’re going to want to play. In this game you want to make sure your hand has strength on both the high and low so hands like ace-two-king-four. Any hands with three or four prime cards, which are ace-through-five, is going to be a good hand to possibly make a wheel. However, having three prime cards and any cards with an eight, nine, or ten really weakens your hand strength. Those are generally the worst cards to have in this game because they don’t usually apply to the board and they can’t go both ways. Once you decide to play a hand, then depending on your hand strength, what your plan is on the flop, stack size, and what you’re trying to accomplish, you can decide to limp or raise.
Plo 8 Or Better Rules
A hand like ace-king-two-six is going to do much better in a raised pot because if you get heads up, you have ace-king for the high, and ace-two for the low whereas a hand like ace-two-three-six, you want to go multi-way since you’re looking to win just one half of the pot. You have think about how your hand is going to connect to the board, and what kind of boards you’re going to want to put a lot of money in on, and whether it’s better to go heads up or multi-way with your hand. Hand ranges depends maybe not so much on your hand strength but on your hand strength post-flop and whether or not you're able to put in a bunch of bets drawing to half the pot.
Do you happen to have a hand you can tell us about that illustrates an early position preflop decision?
5 Card Plo Strategy
Actually, I have an interesting hand that my friend Steven Burkholder played. He had ace-two-three-six double suited. The blinds were 1,000/2,000, and he had a 20,000 stack. He was under the gun plus one. When he told me about the hand, my first instinct would be to limp with a hand like this because it’s going to play really well multi-way, whereas heads up, you’re not going to have as much high strength like you would if you had a king in your hand.
Like I said before, with a hand like ace-two-three-six, you want to go multi-way and hit a low, which is unable to get counterfeited. In this hand he told me about, he raised which, as a no-limit player, you tend to think that aggression is key. They’re not used to limping in. In Omaha hi-lo, there are a lot of spots like this one. If you limp in, you can encourage multiway action. After he raised, he got three-bet. Once he got three-bet, not only did that isolate him to go heads up, but also, he'd have to put at least 6,000 in preflop. At this point, as a no-limit hold'em tournament player, you might start to think, “Well, I don’t want to put this much of my chips in a pot and get away from the hand, so I'll reraise.' He thought he should four-bet to commit himself.
Plo 8 Or Better Strategy
Advanced Plo Strategy
What I told him was that in Omaha hi-lo specifically, you can afford to try and see the flop cheaply to see if you connect, and then get a bunch of bets in, whereas in hold’em, you want to see all five cards come out more often. In Omaha hi-lo, there are some flops that are so far away from you, that you can just get away from your hand and wait for a better spot.
So anyway, he four-bet to 8,000. The flop came jack-nine-three rainbow with one of his suits. He’s in a spot now where he has bottom pair with some backdoor lows, but he doesn’t really have much of a hand. If the guy has aces, he’s really in a bad spot with his hand. What happened in the hand was that he checked, the guy bet 2,000 and he called. The turn was a four which gave him a low wrap. He basically got all in on the turn. The river was high card and he had to get his last bet in there. His opponent ended up having top two pair, and he was out of the tournament.
Best Plo Strategy
The whole hand would have gone differently if he had limped in. Say he did and then the guy raised. It would still be possible for it to go multiway, and he could easily just call the raise to see a flop. If it is a good flop for him, he can still get a ton of money in. It’s just a good spot to try and see the flop with a lot of players, which is the something that most poker players who aren’t familiar with the game won’t think about because they’re used to trying to just take down pots by being aggressive. That’s not necessarily always the right way to go. This might look like a weak passive approach, but in reality, it’s the best way to play the hand. You want to preserve your stack.
Remember, follow us on Twitter for up-to-the-minute news.
Tags
Darryll FishTournament StrategyPoker StrategyOmahaIntermediate strategyAdvanced strategyRelated Players
Darryll Fish