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Pot Limit Omaha: General Tips and Strategies for Beginners Part 3

February 11, 2008

Don’t play any double suited hand
I can’t stress this point enough. So many people see a hand that is double suited, they say to themselves “Boy, this hand has a lot of potential,” and guess what – the hand is junk. Let’s take a look at a few examples: 2 :-s 7 :-s 9 :-h 4 :-h . This hand belongs in the muck, period. “But I have 2 flush draws” – but chances are there is a strong possibility that if you make your 9 high or 7 high flush, you’re going to wind up playing against an ace high or king high flush. Besides that, your hand has little connecting potential, and not many straights can be made from 2479. Let’s look at a not so obvious DS hand that looks good: Q :-s 2 :-s 9 :-h 6 :-h . This hand looks reasonable. I might even play it in the SB, sometimes. But if you aren’t in a blind, I would probably not play a hand like this. You don’t have much connecting value, and your flush draws are marginal. Sure, if you hit a queen high flush it could win, but you could also end up putting in a large amount of money against the nut flush or king high flush. Although these hands look tempting, they are usually junk and will make you a losing 2nd best hand.

Don’t value bet often
In Hold Em and other forms of poker, it is often common to see value bets go in on the last card to try and extract a few more chips. In Omaha, however, it isn’t too common. You generally want to keep your bets pot sized, or close to pot sized. If a pot is $15.35, I would probably bet anywhere from $12.50-$15.35, depending on the number of opponents in the pot. See, in hold em, if you have a $100 pot, you might see someone throw in $15 or $20 in the end to try and extract a few more chips. In Omaha, though, this is bad for 2 reasons: it looks suspicious. If you bet strong the whole way and then bet a small amount, it either looks like you’re trying to get paid off, so you’ll probably lose a call or 2 unless they have a very strong hand. Second, if it isn’t on the river, you are letting the many drawing hands in cheap, which is one of the biggest mistakes you can make. Sure, a flush draw with a wrap isn’t going anywhere, no matter how much you bet, but say he just has a flush draw – now you are giving him the right price to call and beat you. There are times when you can throw in a value bet, mainly against unaware players or heads up on occasion, but lean more towards pot sized bets than value bets.

Playing from a blind
In Omaha, you want to still remain pretty tight in the blinds, and use some judgment on the hands you choose to play. In the small blind you should still not be calling with junk:
2-7-9-6 is always junk, and you shouldn’t play it. However, you can call with some hands like Q :-s K :-s 5 :-h 6 :-h , as long as there hasn’t been any raises. This normally wouldn’t be a great starting hand, but you have some potential value so you might want to take a flop. Some dangler hands, such as J-9-8-2, or Q9106 can now be played if a few people have limped. In the big blind, and there has been a raise, you can play all the hands you normally would (high connectors, big pairs+connectors, etc) and you can add a few dangler hands, as long as the raise wasn’t huge. However, you don’t always want to call if you have a dangler hand, and no one else has called, you should probably just fold. You want as many people in the pot as possible if you are going to be playing junk so you have the opportunity to get paid off nicely.

Playing AA hands in early position
This is one last point I want to bring up. In early position with AA hands, you normally should just limp. The reason for this being is that the only people in the pot already are the small and big blind, so the pot isn’t very large. Your raise is accomplishing little to nothing, because your raise isn’t going to scare many people off who had the intention of limping anyways. In late position, there is some more money in the pot, so a raise can drive more people out. If you have a hand like AAJ10, double suited, you can stand a little more heat with it because it has strong connecting possibilities, 2 nut flush opportunities, and the pair of aces. With a hand like AA37, with no suits, your hand can’t stand that much heat. Your goal is to get the pot down to heads up. If you limp, there is an upside and a downside. The upside is that if someone decides to raise, you can now throw in a reraise, and most likely narrow the pot to the two of you, or win it right there. However, this will tip the strength of your hand, as most people will not reraise with out aces. The downside is that if everyone limps behind you, you don’t know where you stand in the hand. On the flop, you must use your judgment on where you stand. If you don’t hit a set or the nut flush draw, you are usually beat and should muck your hand if any decent action comes your way. Aces are not as nearly as strong as they are in Omaha as they are in Hold Em – in Hold Em, your opponent cannot have as many drawing possibilities as they have in Omaha. More often than not, someone will hit the flop in some way in Omaha, may it be a flush draw, a wrap, 2 pair, a set, a straight, or some other sort of hand. Therfore, your lone pair is not likely to be good and cannot stand action against several opponents. That is why it is best to isolate against one player with a big reraise preflop if someone raises before you. That way, you only have to beat out one person instead of several; not as many draws will be out against you.

Times to slowplay
Generally, you want to be betting your strong hands and folding your weak hands. However, there are times when you hand is strong enough where you can afford to slowplay your hand. Anytime you flop quads, you normally are going to slowplay the hand. The only exceptions are: A) You think your opponent has a strong hand, such as a full house, or B) You are an aggressive player, and therefore your opponent is going to be suspicious of your check.
Say you hold 10 :-c 10 :-d J :-h Q :-s . If the flop comes 10 :-s 10 :-h A :-d , and there was a raise preflop, and now your opponent is firing away at the pot, you can be pretty sure he either has a wrap, or more likely Aces full. Here you want to sit back and let your opponent give you his chips. On the turn or river, you want to fire in a medium to large sized raise to get him to put all his money in. Another example, is say, a straight flush. If you hold 6 :-s 7 :-s 5 :-h 4 :-d , and the flop comes 3 :-s 4 :-s 5 :-s , you may want to gear down and let them fire into you. But, if you believe they have the nut flush, you may be more inclined to fire away at the pot, making them think they have you beat. The last example is when you have Aces full of kings. Say you have AKJ10, and the flop comes AAK. Here you want to let your opponent try and take a free card to catch either a straight or a lower full house.

- Thomas Hardy