Omaha Poker Blog

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.

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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?