Omaha Poker Blog

Just a couple of weeks ago, Thang Luu, took down more than 900 other Omaha 8 players for his SECOND CONSECUTIVE gold bracelet. That’s probably two more bracelets than I would ever have in a lifetime, and he got them in two years? That’s why I call sick. And guess what, he came in second the year before his first. (more…)

I’m really enjoying myself while learning to play PLO8 cash. I too have only played hold’em tourneys before. I feel that with the percentage of people who are +ROI increasing in NLhold’em, my edge over my competition is getting smaller each year.

I think Omaha High will be the next game to capture the interest of poker players. I chose pot limit Omaha 8 cash because I can gain a large +EV over my opponents by playing tight and following some basic rules on every street. I’m playing micro limits against alot of former texas holdem players and it’s paying off as I learn.

I strongly advise everyone to get Omaha Indicator. I can’t say enough about how it increases the speed of learning. It will be invaluable when I move to a site whose software and player base will allow me to multi-table. I’m at Titan now and I can find two tables about 50% of the time. The other 50% I play one table and a 20-30 seater hold’em SNG.

For anyone who is getting a little bored…..try it. Omaha good.

Actually I was speaking of bet/raise or fold on the flop. I have been learning alot about Omaha using this principal. Unfortunately, becoming less passive has shown me how little I actually know about this game. I’m down to 20BB/100 after 2,000 hands. I expect to regain a higher win rate after learning more……(famous last words)

I will speak on preflop raising though. I too have read conflicting theories on this. I’m starting to believe that if I’m going to play a big pot game, I should start building the pot right away with my better hands and force people to put money in when they are behind. If I hit the flop hard, I have a pot big enough to do something with. If I miss, the pot is still large enough to discourage most draws with a pot size semi-bluff. I won’t bluff with nada….

Quote from my favorite Omaha mystery site:

“Myth: “Omaha Starting Hands Run Close Together in Value”
This is the silliest myth of all, especially when it comes to real game conditions. The root of this myth comes from the fact that head-up Omaha hands seldom have a dominating relationship in the same way that AA dominates A7 in Holdem. The head-up phenomenon means that you should liberally defend your big blind against a single raiser when you have any sort of reasonable hand. You will be getting correct pot equity to do so.

This head-up concept though has transmuted into the bizarre myth that Omaha starting hands run close together in value. It’s complete nonsense. Readers can run simulations, observe games or do whatever other study they want to “prove” this, but A23K is just a helluva lot better than J965. It will scoop more often, get a share of the pot much more often, it will be more “bettable” and win bigger pots because it makes the nuts more often and easier, etc.

The mass of Omaha hands are like J965 — random crap. The good and great Omaha hands stand head-and-shoulders above the random crap. They scoop more, split more, are more bettable, and make less “second best” losers. In Holdem, AA stands way above the other hands. KK, QQ and AK are not in AA’s league, but they also aren’t in the league of the rest of the hands either. Omaha has no equivalent of AA but there is a larger group of hands similar to KK-QQ-AK. And then there are also more hands in the same league with AQ-JJ-TT-AJ. Then there is a big drop off, because Omaha does not have the equivalent of 99 or KJ. There are excellent Omaha hands, good ones, a few speculative ones, and then there is garbage that is greatly inferior to the good hands.

This myth is silly enough on its own, but it begets another myth that leads to (thankfully) disastrous play on the part of lots and lots of mediocre players — they don’t raise before the flop.

Myth: “Don’t raise before the flop”
In most Omaha games a critical and basic concept is to get more money in before the flop when you have way the best of it. The most obvious profit in Omaha comes from opponents calling on the turn when drawing dead. This happens reasonably often but the profit that occurs every single hand, the most common way to create a profitable edge is to exploit the dramatically different pre-flop value of Omaha starting hands. Most Omaha games feature players who play too many garbage hands 789T, 23QJ and even J965. In many games, these mistakes occur before the flop all the time. This is where the money is to be made. Since the opportunities arise almost every hand, this is where you increase your profits hugely in Omaha.

Interestingly, many mediocre players who do understand Omaha is about starting hands don’t “get” that starting hands only exist before the flop. They passively limp and “wait to see the flop.” If a huge part of Omaha is starting hands, then aggressively betting your hands before the flop should be an obvious conclusion.

Of course, raising with a hand you want to raise with is not always the best choice. A234 first to act is just about the worst hand to raise with. You certainly wish you could raise a bunch of people playing random junk, but you can’t. You are first. The best choice available is to limp and invite everybody you can possibly get into the hand — and hopefully get a raise from another player. The principle here is that you want to raise, but often you are unable to. You want to play A234 for two (or more) bets against 789T, 23QJ and J965, but if raising causes all of them to muck and have you end up playing head-up against AQ65, you screwed up badly.

The peculiar combination of thinking hands run close in value and not raising before the flop encourages the notion that all pre-flop raising does is increase bankroll swings. Let’s look at how foolish that notion is in itself.

For the sake of simplicity, ignore split pots for a moment and let’s say we have a situation where our hand and the big blind run close together in value and we each win half the time. If this is the situation pre-flop… why would you ever play a hand in a raked game? You and the big blind hand will just lose out to the rake in the long run. Simply calling the big blind would make no sense if hands indeed ran close together in value.

But the myth-makers might say, if you have position on the big blind, after the flop when the hands are more fully defined you will be able to extract value from the player in the blind. Obviously there is no downside to pre-flop raising if this is true. Put another way, how would you like to play in a game where when you are out of position you put in $10, but when your opponent is out of position you put in $20? If you have a positional edge after the flop then making the pre-flop betting essentially a double-sized “ante” is very much favorable to you.

But even that isn’t the end of it. Suppose you have basically a coin-flip situation against the big blind. What is better, giving him infinite odds by calling (that is, he already has money in the pot via a forced bet, and he gets to continue playing for free while you have to place a bet), or raising so that he has to put another betting unit into the pot — where he at least has an option to fold?

Think about that. Suppose we have a literal 50/50 confrontation, but the big blind doesn’t know that. It would be frankly idiotic to call the blind and flip a coin for the total amount. That would be nothing but deliberately creating pointless bankroll fluctuation. Instead, if you raise, the big blind player will fold some amount of the time greater than zero — even if by accident! Even if the big blind only folds once out of 100 times, that is better than merely flipping a coin 100 times.

Much of winning poker involves exploiting small advantages repeatedly. If someone offers to flip a silver dollar with you 100 times, taking him up on it would be pointless gambling. But if the person walked up to you and handed you a dollar for you to put in your pocket at the start, it would be foolish not to go ahead and then flip 100 times. And if instead of 100-1 our reward was more like 10-1 or even 3-1, the more clearly obvious the sense of the wager becomes.

If hands truly did run close in value, then the blinds would become almost the whole game. Getting more than your share of equity in the blinds would be the road to victory, so clearly a key tactic would be to raise before the flop, so as to get the players in the blinds to fold any amount of time greater than zero.

But the basic myth clearly isn’t true. As2s3dKd is a dramatically better hand than Jh9d7s5c. It makes no sense at all to let J975 have a free flop when you have a playable hand. Either charge them to see the flop, or let them fold and you take (or share) their blind equity. Either way is better than giving them a complete freeroll, since their blind is already in the pot. Omaha HiLo has some drive-the-betting type hands, and it has hands that often lead to a player being trapped in pots, trying to protect equity invested in a previous betting round (like the above two hands on a 8s7d4c flop). If you don’t make use of one, and focus on punishing the other, you won’t be a very successful Omaha player.”

I really just cannot comment on Omaha Hi-Lo strategy (8) ATM. I have not played nearly enough of it. I can see the logic in betting the nut low if you can induce a fold though.

As far as pre-flop agression. If you can get it HU with the better hand, then I think you are getting positive EV. I used to run a strategy of re-raising raisers with AAxx double suited in PLO, aiming to make a big pot and then typically pot bet the flop. However you the pot bet only gets called by better hands and then you are in serious poo. So after losing too many TRs that way and not stacking people enough, I’ve gone off that approach.

There is another reason I tend not to get to agressive PF. Unless it is a raise and a re-raise, anyone who will call for a buck, usually calls for $3.5, so you don’t thin the field very much (and arguably the nature of the game says you don’t want to thin the field anyway). Secondly, if someone limped Aces and then has the chance to re-raise, you are suddenly faced with having to pay a very high entry fee for your premium drawing hand….and what’s worse is that you will be playing it against a smaller field where there is zero pot protection and drawing odds go out the window.

So I have chopped and changed heaps with pre flop agression in PLO but I keep coming back to limping is the best policy with all hands.

I am also in two minds about post flop agression. I have lost dozens of TRs re-raising and getting all in with wrap draws only to find that they either don’t hit, or do hit but make a flush. Its a pretty rare day when you get a wrap and nut flush draw but that would be about the only time I could justify huge agression on a drawing hand.

The other scenario I frequently encounter is trips with which you want to charge drawing hands. Best approach here I think is to make the big bet on the turn when there is only 1 card to come. Having said that, I lost $150 in a single hand yesterday when I smooth called top set on the flop and then check raised all-in over 3 players on the turn. One dude still called with a flush draw and hit his 5 to 1 shot with 2 to 1 odds. Technically I won alot of money on the hand and I don’t regret the way I played it. But that sort of calling is just too common. So I am happier to give 1 free or cheep card and then belt the pot on the turn which seems to force much bigger errors than progressively building on flop and turn. Because the pot becomes so large by the turn, compared to the call price, that implied odds can almost justify a legitimate call.

All in all, it is a game which rewards extreme patience with massive pots. Its just vitally important to remember that patience is the first ingredient.

Anyway, as usual for me, this is completely off topic, being only about PLO, but it was particuarly in response to your thoughts about agression.

I just finished 11th a few minutes ago in a Poker Stars Omaha FR (out of 6000+), qualifying me for Saturday’s big 2k. I do better at Omaha than Holdem. I know this will sound conceited, but Omaha requires a bit more analytical skill, and is not ‘as much’ the bluffing game as holdem. Omaha is typically limit (in HORSE), or pot limit. If you’re playing H/L, it adds a whole other dimension to the game. You need to be acutely aware of who might be betting what at ALL times, depending on the cards that come (low draw, low arrival or lack thereof). Some people raise all the time with pocket aces or ace-2 naked (no 3 or 4) (if H/L), usually a move that bites ‘em in the ass.

You might think it’s luck, but it’s really no different than texas holdem with regard to that. You simply must be aware that with 4 cards in the hold, more will be likely to get a str8 or flush or boat should almost ANY opportunity arise. Was in a hand this morning where 3 (!!!) people had flushes. This will never happen in holdem, not with just 3 of a suit on the board. And if your str8 isn’t the nut one (even with no flush or boat possibility), be wary if it’s not the NUT one. And you see people overvaluing all kinds of hands, particularly funny after the river, depending on it. And I’ve also mentioned this before, but people make mistakes when there are trips or 2 pair on the table. Simple as that (without going into detail ), mistakes.

Personally, Omaha is a far more interesting game than holdem, hi or H/L. I agree with KMC - more hands to play (sometimes FEWER though), you just got to learn, and that takes time & effort.

OK, So a bit of an update. A couple of nights back I had a shocking multi-table session playing PLO $20 at Cake and PLO50 @ Pacific

At Cake I had 3 rivers which paired the board putting my nut straight or flush in jeopardy. Each time, I had built a huge pot with the best hand and my stack was paltry compared to the pot at the river. When the board paired I checked each time and villain pot bets which is putting me all in. Based on pot odds I called every time and got stacked 3 times. I then went on tilt and lost a table roll at Pacific too after a flopped the nut straight, slow played (dumb) the turn paired the board and I got it all in drawing dead.

Point of this is not about tilt (but it was interesting to examine my emotions after the session to know that’s where I was - its a pretty rare thing for me). There are 2 things I learned from this session.

Firstly, suckouts are possible at PLO, and I’m fine with that, they are rarer than Holdem though in my limited experience.

Secondly (and by far more importantly), the blocking bet has an incredibly important place in Omaha. Since people can be on so many different types of draws, there are quite alot of potential scare cards. You can be sitting on the nut straight and the river can bring that 1 over card which now makes you 2nd to nut. Due to exponential pot growth, mistakes on the river are the ones you really really want to avoid. However the pot is so large by that time, that it can be very tempting to see whether your second to nut hand is good or not for just another $20. Problem is, that that final river bet is maybe 20 to 30 big blinds and mistakes of that order are really really bad for BB/100 WRs.

So my solution has been to throw out a blocking bet on the river when first to act in these situations. If I am popped I am now almost certain 2nd to nuts is a sucker hand that I can fold. When in Position and I am facing a pot sized bet on the river, its a little harder to respond to (ironically), but a full pot bet on the river mostly means the nuts it seems (without profiling to the contrary).

So caution as you go on the river is my new mantra.

One last thing…I have found yet another purpose for Omaha Poker….as a tournament satellite alternative Laughing

I tried to satellite into the $20K guaranteed at Pacific last night, however because I am pretty bad at SNGs, and especially bad at HU, I did not win (I was pretty unlucky actually but that’s another story). Anyhow, I enrolled in the tournament, resigned to paying $66 for my entry instead of $55, and decided to play some PLO100 while I waited. I cashed out with $236 so I paid for 2 buyins in less time than it takes to play a Sit and go satellite… Laughing Laughing

I’m not sure there is all that much logic to that approach, but I am certainly better at PLO than SNGs so I think that is how I will pay for my tournament entries from now on.

Full Tilt is taking advantage of the growing popularity of Omaha and inviting any player who can lay out $25,000 to participate in the 64 player heads-up shoot-out tournament that rewards 1st place with a staggering $540,000. Read Full Tilt`s Press release below:

This past May, 64 of the world’s top poker players took part in Full Tilt Poker’s $25K Heads-Up World Championship - the largest buy-in heads-up event in poker history. When it was all said and done, Full Tilt Poker pro David Singer took home the crown and $560,000 in prize money after defeating one of the toughest fields ever assembled.

Join us starting at 15:00 ET on Saturday, September 6th as we make history again with the $25K Heads-Up PLO World Championship. This will be the highest buy-in heads-up PLO tournament ever held, with a field of the world’s best live and online players ready to prove they’re number one when it comes to Pot-Limit Omaha. Look for top professionals including Team Full Tilt’s Phil Ivey, Gus Hansen and Patrik Antonius as well as a host of other big names.

The final two rounds of play will begin at 16:00 ET on Sunday, September 7th. Even if you’re not playing, be sure to watch the action unfold and root for your favorite player while competing for a share of $5,000 in added money in our Sweat Tournaments. If you miss any of the excitement of the semis or finals, we’ll be providing video highlights from the final two rounds.

Pot-Limit Omaha is the world’s biggest action game. Whether you’re playing in the event or watching from the rail, don’t miss a second of the $25K Heads-Up PLO World Championship.

Watch Mike Matusow at Full Tilt Poker get involved in a pot here where even though he has the nut low, it is a losing hand situation as he has to share the low with a single opponent, and has NO chance of winning the high hand.

One of the reasons you always want to be playing for both sides of the pot in Omaha high low, is because you may find yourself playing for a fraction of the pot, when you might have been anticipating winning at least half of the pot.

So many players play A2 hands, without regard for their other two cards to the point of playing themselves out of the tournament or losing money in a ring game, simply because they don’t realize that other players are playing the same cards, but with better potential for the high side of the pot as well. It’s true that A2 of the best regards to have for the low side, but if you call a lot of raising pre-flop and the flop doesn’t work for you - it’s a useless hand.

It isn’t going to work for you all the time if you don’t know how to control the pot size. This hand can also be useless, even if you are declared one of the winners. In particular, it is often a fight for a fraction of the pot when you are up against multiple opponents. Let’s say for example you hold Ac, 2h, Jh, 9s, on the button and you see the flop with three other opponents of 6d, 3d, and 8d. Against three other opponents, you can pretty much be assured with a flushed flop like this that you are instantly out of the running for the winning the high hand.

Since you do have the nut low however, a lot of players will think this is a good flop with your hole cards. That simply isn’t true, because this hand is only going to involve difficult decisions from here to the river, if you don’t get out of the hand altogether.

If you are in a sit and go tournament, I can assure you, that you are likely to lose money on this hand if you stay involved whenever you are in a situation like this. The reason for this is that although you may win the low side on the occasion, you can virtually never be putting money into this pot with the expectation of scooping. Scooping is the key to playing profitable Omaha high low in ring and tournament games.

So if you can’t scoop a pot, you are resigned to be playing for half the pot or less. It’s going to surprise you to know how many times, you will actually be playing for less than half the pot. Keep in mind here that on this hand in particular, there is a flushed board, so you would also likely expect some aggressive betting - in particular on the turn and river making this pot relatively huge. Think about it – you are going to have to commit more and more of your chips on the premise that you think you’re going to win half this pot with the nut low. That is a losing omaha hi-lo poker strategy, and you must have the discipline to throw away hands in this situation.

I have not played any O8 cash games yet. However after 1 SNG in O8 I can immediately see that Omaha Hi-Lo (O8) and Pot-Limit Omaha (PLO) are entirely different games as I posted in Marty’s thread.

I think at a theoretical level, there may be more to be made in O8 because a scoop hand has the ability to seriously skew drawing odds. Going back the the Fundamental Theorem (make money from your opponents mistakes) it seems likely that bigger mistakes can be made in O8.

However that same reasoning says to me that there is also more money to be lost by the inept and since I class myself in that category for the time being, I have made the decision to stick with PLO for cash games for the time being.

Very nice Session 2 hand! Notice that Hanibal seems to have used three hole cards to make a straight drawing to a crap flush? I can see no other explanation to his shove on the turn…

You hand also shows another of the concept I have some difficulty reconciling. Basically Hanibal was bluffing in this hand with squat but a bad flush draw. However his bet required you to call $9.05 into a pot of $17.15 (little less than 2 to 1). You had 9 outs to the nuts, 2 outs to trip Aces and 2 outs to second set. However if the all-in is the straight it represents (6 to 10 or 7 to J) then you really only have 9 outs making you a 4 to 1 dog (making the call incorrect).

The reason that I have trouble in spots like this is because I just find it nearly impossible to assess whether an opponent is bluffing with any degree of remote accuracy. It seems to be a game where bluffing is much less likely to be successful than in Holdem, however contrary to one of my previous posts, I think you still do need to bluff occasionally for meta game reasons. 1 opponent is better than 2 and semi bluffs are better than pure bluffs I think, but this board and the players in the hand have the right ingredients for a bluff.

As the hand actually played out, with perplexor in, you were in fact behind drawing to 11 outs making the 2 to 1 call incorrect. Am I reading this correctly?

Some newbie tips scrounged up by Phaedrus75:

I have been trying to watch as many David Eistein Videos as time will allow on RPT. He is the site’s Omaha specialist. So far I have watched all the cash game videos and only a couple of tournament videos.

Whilst I still have not played any multi-table tournaments, I do note that David suggests a few things of relevance to this thread. From memory these are:

1. Don’t preflop raise (much if at all).

2. Don’t chase draws unless they are to the nuts

3. Occasionally he will play a Hi only hands but mostly he is playing start cards which allow for a scoop.

4. He says on numerous occasions that patience is even more important in Omaha than hold’em.

Now, for some of my own strategic throughts….

We know that in Holdem Tournaments GCI, Mzone, Inflection Point Play and Structured Hand Analysis govern pre flop play considerably, usually in the form of all in moves when the blinds are high.

However in Holdem, there can be a pretty big difference between pre flop hand strengths. Accordingly, when Harrington runs through his structured hand analysis in HOH V2, to show that pushing 10-8s is positive EV from Red M, much of the positive EV comes from fold equity.

As Raz correctly points out, there is much less difference in pre flop hand strength in Omaha which should mean that you will have less fold equity. Accordingly, shoving and pre flop agression from low M is unlikely to have the same effectiveness (this coming from a guy who has never played a tournament though so I really am only guessing here).

If that is the case that you have less fold equity, then it stands to reason that you need to have more patience.

Or otherwise, the kind of strategy in one of my previous threads called “Is this SNG strategy a Stitch up? would make even more sense in Omaha. That is, when you are short stacked, calling liberally makes alot of sense since you have no fold equity anyway and at least you are calling for a guaranteed big pot.

The above comes from zero experience so I am just putting it out there as a hypothetical which might spark a line of theory from more experienced O8 tournament players.