Low Limit Omaha HiLow Limit Omaha Hi Strategy
By Don Lewis of Poker-Times.com
At the low limit Omaha games there is easy money if you have and
show good patience. Usually, these games are full of players who
are playing far too loose because they think that their two-pair
is a great hand. The best strategy is to play only hands that generally
do well in multi-way pots and to bet you need to do it good and
hard when you catch the nuts.
General Starting Hands
In Long handed Omaha there really isn't such a thing as a "dominant
starting hand” preflop. You could get two Aces and two Kings and
still easily get beat. That isn't to say that you should call to
the flop with just any hand. You should still play as tight as you
can preflop and wait for a good hand. Now keep in mind there are
many types of good hands, those are hands that become dominant after
the flop.
The best starting hands in Omaha are hands where you hit two pair
and have a draw to a straight or a flush, for example Ah Kc Qh Jc.
With A decent flop could be Kh Jh 7s. Those hands are rare, so another
good hand in a loose game would just be a hand with a lot of drawing
possibilities like pre flop 9 10 6 J and the flop comes 7 8 2 rainbow’ed.
If you are anticipating a multi-way pot, then it is important to
be drawing to the nuts or at least as close to the nuts as possible.
In other words, you want to draw to an Ace-high flush, not a Jack-high
flush. The same goes for straights, you don't wanna draw toward
straights if you have low end and are likely to end up at the low
end of the straight with another player dragging the pot with the
high end.
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You should simply call and not raise preflop with drawing hands.
This is to not scare away the loose passive players which equates
to more action for you later. This way you also risk less if you
don't hit your draw or a piece of it on the flop. On the other hand,
if you hold a hand that has good strength in high cards, such as
Ah Ad Kh Jd, then you should raise. You should in general raise
with several drawing possibilities to build up the pot, especially
if you feel that people are becoming calling
stations too much just for the big pots. If you find people
like this, make them pay often for there mistake.
Hands with only a high pair can sometimes be played. Play A A
x x, K K x x (x x stay for any 2 other cards that may be there)
most definitely; with A A x x you should raise if you believe that
you can knock people out and get the hand to heads-up or 3-way.
You may experiment with Q Q x x but that is very borderline and
you may find yourself in a bind quickly. A set would be a nice hand
in Texas
Hold’em, but sets aren't so great in Omaha due to the fact that
someone can easily draw to a flush or straight. With high pairs
your goal is to hit a high full house and steal the pot from the
players who think that their lower full house is the best hand.
The main reason high pairs are much less valuable than in Texas
hold’em is because having an over pair on the flop is worthless
in Omaha. Most likely someone else has flopped two-pair.
General Flop Play
In general, you want to fold any hand unless you have top 2 pair or a draw to the nuts or near-nuts. These requirements should be relaxed a little bit if the game is shorthanded: you can draw to slightly lower straights and or flushes. However, you still don't want to be calling with just a pair.
If there is a pair on board and you don't have trips, then do not continue to draw. Most likely someone has trips and you're unlikely to bluff other players out of the pot. If you call and hit your draw, you may be beat by a full house!
Bluffs are only useful if you think you can win the hand outright.
However, in many loose low-limit games you will get called all the
way to the showdown by more than one player. In this case, you don't
want to bluff or try to that much as this will cost you several
bets in a game. Maybe throw in one or two for deception only, but
avoid it otherwise.
Many times two pair and sets are more trouble than they are worth
because if there is a draw on board and several people in a hand,
there may be so many outs against you that more often than not you'll
lose the hand! Try to check raise and punish people on a draw. However
you must be prepared to fold on the turn if a draw hits and you
believe that you are beat. If you hit your full house, you can slow
play only if you have the nut full house and can not be beat. Not
the nut full house at the time and then you really hope someone
hits their straight or flush. However, don't overdo your slow playing,
you should only do it if you really can't be hurt by the turn or
the river card, and be more inclined to slow playing if the other
players will often fall for it and if you have proper position.
If you find your opponents to be call-stations then by all means
go ahead and bet on the turn anyway. If your opponents are new fish
to Omaha and they think their ace high flush is the nut hand even
when the board is paired, you don't want to slow play, make the
fish pay and pay big for not learning before he plays for money.
More often than not these players will cap out against you on the
turn and river because they completely disregard a full house despite
the full house possibility showing!
However, please note that full house is not guaranteed to be high
hand. It is quite common to see one full house beat by another at
the Omaha tables. Generally, you have a low full house if your set
is lower than the pair on the board, and you are probably safe to
win if your set is higher than the board pair. The best way to tell
if your full house is the best hand is by paying attention to your
opponents betting sequences. With a low full house, you may consider
trying to draw your opponents in by checking and calling instead
of betting out, on a small number of your hands.
General Turn Play
If you hit you’re flush or straight by the turn you most definitely should bet hard and fast, and you should even check-raise if you are certain someone will bet. However, you should bet outright if you have any doubt. There could easily be a set or two pair out there and they could easily make their full house on the river. Make sure they don't get a free card here and try to force them out.
General River Play
Often times the board will have no straight or flush showing and
you believe that your two pair or set is the high hand. Then a scare
card will come on the river. If this happens, you may want to check
on the river. After all, if you get check raised, you are doubling
the amount of money you have put into the pot. It depends on how
many opponents are still in the hand and how they played it, but
in a multi-way pot, checking is usually the right move. However,
if your opponent rarely check raises or if he has played the hand
like he had two pair, then you may consider betting. If you are
on the other side of the coin and you hit your hand on the river,
you may want to bet out instead of check raising, because your opponents
may check it as well. You should mix-up whether you bet or check
raise in that situation, depending on what you think your opponent
has, but also to add a certain amount of deception and uncertainty.
It is important to make your opponents fear your check raise so
that they are afraid to bet against you on the river, letting you
see several showdowns cheaply.
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