In this article about strategies, the focus will be on Omaha High, not Omaha Hi/Lo. Yet, many of the strategies that are explained here works in both variants.
Starting hands - the importance of coordination
In Omaha, you will be given four cards that are matched against another five (the community cards on the table), which are as much as nine cards all together. In spite of this fact, you shouldn't treat your hole cards as abundance. If two of the cards are good, it doesn't make it a first-class hand.
There are exceptions, but remember the general rule that all the cards together must form a well coordinated hand before it’s suitable to play. How good is, for example, this hand: A♥A♣4♦7♠? There are two aces, but not much more. Hands like this is very limited in regard to development, and a pair of aces will seldom be enough to win a pot in Omaha, at least not a big one. The nearest possibility for this hand is making a set with another ace. In Omaha, however, trips often loses. The other chances for this hand is bleak: the chances for a straight are almost non-existing, and a flush cannot be made (see Omaha rules).
The conclusion is that you shouldn’t overestimate hands that contains strong parts, but doesn’t form a strong unity.
Gameplay: It should be noted that Chinese poker is usually played with 4 players total but can also accommodate between only 2 or 3 players.Each player is dealt 13 cards and must then divvy up their cards into 3 hands of various strengths: (1) their best 5-card hand; (2) a middle strength hand of 5 cards; and (3) their weakest hand that. With some hands, you raise before the flop. Whenever you do this, you should follow some rules for the size of your raises. Your basic raise is 4 big blinds. You will always raise to this size if no one entered the hand before you. For every player that called the blind before you, you add another big blind on top.
The strength of your starting hand in Texas Hold'em can help you determine your chances of winning, even before the remaining cards are dealt. From a pair of aces — the strongest starting hand — to a 2 and a 7, knowing the strength of your starting hand is an important part of your success at the table. Even so, J 10 suited is a favorite hand for any poker player based on the bounty of possibilities the hand offers on every flop. You’ll almost always flop some sort of draw or outs, with the chance to improve to strong hands on the turn or river, making J 10 suited a great hand to execute the float play that has become so popular of late. Pre Flop Hand Poker Odds Betting before the flop can sometimes be a blind bet, because when the flop comes things can change drastically. What can seem like a clear advantage can turn into a trap when the Turn or River or Flop cards hit the poker games.
Let us instead look at this hand: A♥A♣J♥T♣. This hand contains two aces and a lot more. Besides the possibility of a set, there are also chances for the highest possible straight (T-A) plus two possibilities for the nut flush (hearts and clubs).
What you wish for are starting hands that 1) includes two pairs and/or 2) offer many possibilities to make a straight or a flush or a combination of these. You should, however, be cautious with low pairs and low straight and flush draws. With a low pair you can hit a set but lose against higher trips. The same matter is it with low connected and suited, the risks are that your opponent hit a higher straight or flush. All these situations tend to be expensive.
After the flop - good timing and minimum of bluffing
There are some fundamental guidelines to be aware of after the flop:
1. Play aggressive when you have the best hand. This is necessary to prevent players with draws to call for free. You want to force them to pay more than the odds allow. If you play Omaha pot limit, the best bet is very often the maximal. There are some exceptions. If you hit a full house on the flop, your interest is probably not to drive away all players from the pot immediately, if not the chances for someone beating your full house is big enough.
2. Only call when it’s fully motivated. Single pairs and even two pairs are seldom worth calling bets with. It is often a good idea to be reluctant from calling if you have a drawing hand that can be beaten if you make the hand. For example, if you try to hit a straight when there are possibilities that another player can make a flush.
3. Since every player has four hole cards, there’s often some that have hopes for the next card and therefore will call a bet. These circumstances make bluffing less effective and you should bluff rarely. As a consequence, the bluff may be most effective when all the community cards already are on the table and especially if your bluff represent a straight or flush.
These guidelines are mostly based on games at full tables. If you play on shorthanded tables, it's advisable to modify these guidelines some. On a shorthanded table you can call with some more hands and bluffs can be used more often.
Related article:Omaha odds
Domination is a familiar concept for Texas Holdem players – this occurs when one players hand is a 70% or more favorite before the flop, and usually involves hands with Aces and different strength kickers or a pair vs a higher pair.
This article looks at the subject of Domination in Omaha Poker – looking at whether we get similar situations involving domination either before or after the flop, and then asking whether we can make use of this knowledge in terms of the way we play hands. One of the key factors, especially at the lower to mid-limits is that assuming our premium hand is against another strong holding is often an incorrect assumption – opponents tending to play all sorts of semi-coordinated hands alongside their real monsters, the match-ups below can thus be considered ‘worst case’ at a lot of tables.
Premium Pair Hands
Everyone knows that Omaha Starting Hands are closer in value before the flop. However, this does not preclude dominating situations from occurring. Here is one of the most extreme examples of a dominated pre-flop PLO hand match-up.
Player #1: A-A-10-10 (2 suits) = 80.51%
Player #2: K-K-10-10 (4 suits) = 19.30% (plus a small chance of a tie with broadway straights)
Of course having the same kickers and dominating suits for the aces would be very unusual – yet making both hands 4-suited and choosing random low cards for kickers does not actually make a huge difference to the pre-flop equity.
Player #1: A-A-5-8 (4 suits) = 72.61%
Player #2: K-K-4-9 (4 suits) = 27.39%
In fact we can swing things into balance for the kings quite easily by making this into a ‘quality’ hand and giving the aces junk kickers. Imagine that the Kings had position in this last example – there are actually many more flops this hand would like than the aces, which would you rather have after the flop?
Player #1 – A-A-2-8 (4 suits) = 55.36%
Player #2 – K-K-10-J (2 suits) = 44.64%
Comparing those same junky aces to a medium rundown hand will highlight just how dangerous it is to assume that your hand is a large favorite:
Player #1 – A-A-2-8 (4 suits) = 51.34%
Player #2 – 8-9-10-J (2 suits) = 48.66%
And in a 3 way pot with both opponent’s holding quality hands:
Player #1 – A-A-2-8 (4 suits) = 28.66%
Player #2 – 8-9-10-J (2 suits) = 39.45%
Player #3 – K-K-A-Q (2 suits) = 31.88%
These percentages show that before the flop with premium pairs the quality of your hand is a major determinant of whether it is likely to dominate the holdings of your opponents. However, premium pairs are only a small part of a balanced PLO starting hands range, there are many other holdings you will play including pairs with help, rundowns and double suited hands with gaps. Next we will look at the pre-flop matchups for these hands against each other and against premium pairs.
Rundowns
The next question is whether one rundown can dominate another – depending on the highest cards and gaps. We exclude suits for the time being by making all of the hands 4 suited.
Player #1 – 5-6-7-8 (4 suits) = 22.51%
Player #2 – 6-7-8-9 (4 suits) = 62.71%
Tie = 14.79%
Even with the tie potential included in the calculation we can see that player #2 is in a dominating position here. Making this hand double suited increases this further to 68% favorite before the flop. Again, this is an extreme (though plausible) example, with most rundown vs rundown hands we will see a larger spread – for example:
Player #1 – 5-6-7-8 (4 suits) = 37.35%
Player #2 – 8-9-10-J (4 suits) = 62.43%
Here the difference in equity is narrowed and the potential ties made almost negligible. This highlights an important aspect of PLO poker – those small rundowns are very rarely in terrible shape against the range of hands your opponent could be holding. In the above example we only need to make player #1 hold a double-suited hand and the matchup comes 45% / 55% – a coin-flip in common poker parlance.
Coordinated Middle Pair Hands
We would all love our starting hands to be made up of quality premium pairs and rundown hands… however real life is more complicated. Often we will be playing those pair + help combinations which are the ‘bread and butter’ of PLO games – think J-J-10-8 single suited and you will not be too far off. Here we will look at whether these hands easily dominate each other – and then compare them to the premium pair hands (quality and not) and the rundowns.
Player #1 – J-J-10-8 (single suited) = 68.65%
Player #2 – 7-7-5-6 (4 suits) = 31.35%
While the answer is yes to the domination question for these bread and butter hands the information is only useful when we ‘know’ our opponents hand. The best way to illustrate this is to compare the same hand to a broadway rundown hand, a premium pair with help and a small rundown – then compare the results.
Against A Broadway Hand
Player #1 – J-J-10-8 (single suited) = 48.44%
Player #2 – 10-J-K-Q (single suited) = 45.55%
Against A Premium Pair With Kickers
Best Poker Hands To Play Before The Flop
Player #1 – J-J-10-8 (single suited) = 30.88%
Player #2 – A-A-Q-K (double suited) = 69.11%
Against A Small Double Suited Rundown
Player #1 – J-J-10-8 (single suited) = 61.17%
Player #2 – 5-6-7-8 (double suited) = 38.68%
Best Poker Hands To Play Before The Flop
Here we are dominated by the premiums and broadway rundowns, and a small favorite over the small rundown and smaller combo – looks like one of those way-ahead / way-behind situations.
This sums up the article nicely, domination is possible in PLO – however the types of hands and ranges that your opponents will play will often make it unclear whether you are the one dominated or dominating. We now need to take into account the most important aspect of Pot Limit Omaha – the flop – while bearing in mind that your opponents could well be raising a semi-coordinated holding that you are crushing. The great thing about raising premium hands in PLO is not necessarily that you will always have the best of it – it is knowing that you are very unlikely to have the worst of it!