Omaha High Low Strategy

Introduction to Omaha Hi Lo

People often ask me what book I'd recommend to a novice Omaha player. There are other
useful books, but my normal reply is: the Bible. Omaha does have the tendency to drive
beginning players to prayer, but it really need not be so.

I am also often asked about writing my own book on Omaha. This is not a book. Neither is it
meant to deal with the more advanced, complex and difficult skills that the strongest Omaha
players master. This is an introduction to the key strategies behind the game. While it's not
meant to deal with the most advanced concepts, it does deal with concepts that should
benefit many experienced players too, not just novices.

What I mean by "Omaha" here is the most common variation of Omaha Holdem: Limit
Omaha HiLo Split, Omaha8, Omaha/8, Omaha High-Low, Omaha Split, Omaha Eight-or-
Better. Omaha is also played Limit High Only, Pot Limit High, and Pot Limit HiLo Split. While
concepts here are sometimes applicable to the other variations, sometimes they are not.
Check out the above links for strategy ideas on the other variations. Some readers may want
to begin with the How to Play Poker page and the Omaha Rules page to go over game
basics, then return here. Also check out Omaha Myths, which deals with common
misconceptions.

Two cards, always two cards... Omaha hands consist of three of the five community board
cards, plus two cards from each player's hand -- always three off the board, always two out of
the hand. You can use the same or different card combinations to make your high hand and
your low hand (if any), but you always use two from your hand, three from the board. This is
important not just from the perspective that it is a rule and you have to do it, but also in
thinking about how your hand must integrate with the board. Your hand must cooperate with
the board. (Cooperation is a recurrent Omaha principle.) You should never think of your hand
in isolation. It needs three cards from the board for high, and needs three cards for low.
(Some new players find it helpful to focus more on "three from the board" rather than "two
from the hand.")

Nut low means best possible low... Reading low hands often confuses newbie players --
experienced ones too -- but there actually is a pretty easy way to do it. First, you must
remember the two cards from your hand, three from the board rule. A board like 87532 might
make 2367 somewhat hard to read but you read your low hand simply by taking the lowest
card combination to be found using three cards from the board and two from your hand.

But what is the lowest? What about when your cards are paired (counterfeited) on the board?
Think of it this way: the lowest/best possible hand is a wheel, a 54321 -- or 54,321. The
highest/worst possible qualifying low hand is 87654 -- or 87,654. Read your low hand as a
number, starting with the highest card and working down. The player with the hand/number
closest to 54,321 wins (or ties if someone else has the same hand/number). Omaha players
often speak of "the nut low." This is the best possible low in this particular hand. While A2
combined with an 876KQ board creates the best low possible, 54 combined with a board of
A23KQ makes the nut low in another case. And, 23 combined with a 764KA board makes the
nut low (64,321), not an A2, which only can make a 76,421. If you get confused by how your
cards are paired or counterfeited by the board, at the showdown, show your hand and ask
the dealer to read exactly what your low hand is.
Omaha is a game of nut hands, so as hands unfold, practice reading what the nut low hand
is. Then start thinking of your low hand in relation to the nut low. It's not important to know
how low your low is, what matters is how low your low is in comparison to the nut low.

Why play Omaha?... This website is called Play Winning Poker. While some newbies reading
this Introduction will be hard pressed to do it right away, the aim is to win at Omaha -- not
have fun, or even to irritate yourself. Frankly, at lower limits, winning at Omaha is easy, if you
really are trying to win because most Omaha players play terribly, much worse than they play
Holdem (which is not so good to start with).

In many ways, Omaha is mathematically simplistic. If you play only good starting hands and
your opponents see fit to play almost every hand, and don't care whether they play for one
bet or for four, soon the math of that will work in your favor. Omaha is the best game to make
money, especially when you have a small bankroll. $3/6 Omaha requires only about half the
bankroll of $3/6 Holdem, but your hourly win rate should be higher.

Bad players have virtually no chance to beat Omaha over any meaningful period of time, but
they can win big pots, and have really good sessions. This is true of Holdem too but to a
much smaller degree, because Holdem edges are generally small in loose games. Weak
Holdem players can "school" together and get pot odds on their poor draws and therefore not
be playing all that bad. On the other hand, there is no parallel schooling phenomenon in
Omaha where very often five players draw stone cold dead while two players have all the
outs between them (for example, on the turn the nut flush and the top set are the only live
hands, and five other players with two pairs and baby flushes are drawing dead).

Omaha is a game of massive edges; Holdem is a game of smallish edges. Low limit Omaha
games are the easiest poker games to beat -- if you play properly. Most players do not have
the ability, or more important, the desire to play properly in low limit Omaha games. If you are
playing to win, generally Omaha games are the place to play because they are cheaper (less
bankroll), more profitable (higher hourly win rates) and have weaker players playing much
more poorly. It's deadly dull tho. What winning loose-game Omaha is not is a barrel of
laughs.

So, for less experienced players, there are some contradictions at work here. Omaha is a
great game for good players... but most inexperienced players are not good... but it is very
easy to teach a player to play way-above-average Omaha... but the basic advice is to play
with great discipline... but having discipline is an advanced skill... and is boring as paste.

Omaha is a game of non-random accuracy... One thing to understand about Omaha is that
since you get a higher percentage of your final hand sooner, your hands are generally much
more defined than in Holdem or Stud. After all, 7/9ths of your hand is known on the flop.
Then, when it comes to the betting, the likely outcome of an Omaha hand is often precisely
known. A player with twenty, or twelve, or four outs has that many outs.

In Holdem random outcomes are common. Facing several opponents, they can win by hitting
oddball kickers or spiking their underpair. On the other hand, Omaha is far more concrete.
You know your outs -- how many cards make you the nut hand. In loose games there is very
little mystery. In tighter games you often don't need to make nut hands to win, since you face
fewer opponents, but in common lower limit situations (where most Omaha is played), there
is little randomness to the game. Unlike Holdem, before the river card is dealt, usually you
should know exactly how many possible cards make you the winner, and how many don't.
Omaha is a game of information. Holdem is a game of uncertainty. That's how they were
designed! Loose game Omaha is about ending up with the nuts. Loose game Holdem is far
more shadowy and difficult.

Many players seem to draw the wrong conclusions from the greater certainty that is part of
Omaha. They think because their nut flush on the turn gets beaten on the river when the
board pairs that Omaha has some mystical randomness to it. The opposite is true. There are
a precise number of cards that pair the board, and make you lose. There are a precise
number that do not pair the board, and make you win. On the turn, if you have the nut flush,
with no cards in your hand paired on the board, and your opponent has a set, with no other
cards paired on the board, there are exactly forty possible river cards. Exactly ten pair the
board to make you a loser. Exactly thirty do not pair the board and make you the winner.
That's it -- pure, simplistic math. In the long run, you win three out of four. This is known. This
is Omaha.

Do not let yourself be confused by irrelevant concepts. What matters in any form of poker,
but particularly in Omaha, is the probability of winning -- not who is temporarily in the lead.
Whether you flop a made hand or a draw or a backdoor draw is irrelevant, what matters are
your prospects, your probabilities, of having the winning hand on the river. What counts is
how many cards, in what combinations, make you the winning hand. Know how many cards
make your hand, and then know that in the long run you will win pots in the mathematically
appropriate percentage: if you have x% chance of making the winning hand, you better be
getting at least the correspondingly appropriate pot odds.

Omaha is a game of accuracy, clarity and concrete information. Sure, sometimes you will get
unlucky, and since Omaha edges are so huge, when you get unlucky it can be pretty hard to
swallow, but since the edges are usually so big, if you play good starting hands in Omaha,
and get unlucky, you can still win. You just have to keep your discipline.

Starting hands... Unlike Holdem, where post-flop play is far more critical, winning Omaha
fundamentally begins with starting hands. Starting hands exist before the flop, which is where
you get enormous edges in Omaha against a field. On the turn you will often have times
where some players are even drawing dead, and that is clearly the juiciest money in the
game, but the simplest, most direct, most necessary way to beat these games is to not play
crap hands and to get more money in the pot when you have A255 and several of your
opponents have hands like K965. Getting garbage hands with a low winning expectation to
pay before the flop when they are enormous dogs is a big part of winning Omaha.

Not counting AA and perhaps KK, in looser, multiway games Holdem hands run much closer
in value than Omaha hands do -- urban myths not to the contrary. If you don't know and
appreciate this basic concept, you are going to be in trouble in Omaha. Omaha has a fairly
large group of hands that will win at double the rate of randomish hands. Few Holdem hands
can say the same. Only playing good starting hands, and raising before the flop with many of
them, is the basics of winning in loose-game, low to middle limit Omaha.

Schooling in Omaha... "Schooling" is a common phenomenon in loose-game Holdem. When

several players play badly by calling with weak draws, like gutshot straights or backdoor
flushes, these players partially protect each other by making the "price" on each of their calls
better. If only one player calls with a gutshot draw, usually that is a significant mistake, but if
several players make similar calls, now the pot is big enough to make the calls profitable, or
at least much less bad. Properly understanding the strategy involved in schooling is a key
skill in loose-game Holdem. (See article on Holdem Schooling here.)
There is no parallel schooling phenomenon in Omaha -- quite the contrary. In Omaha,
schooling benefits the favorites, not the underdogs. This reverse schooling phenomenon is
what makes Omaha often mindlessly profitable. Players with four outs or less call bets from
players with twenty outs, and no matter how many people call, the twenty outs player
continues to have twenty outs. Despite the definite reverse profitability of "schooling" in
Omaha, poor players engage in it all the time. They look at a big pot and call bets hoping to
get lucky, even though they may be drawing totally dead.

Suppose you flop a top set of three kings against seven opponents. The true enemies of your
KKK (or any strong Omaha hand) are the first two callers (meaning the two opponents with
the most outs). On a flop of KsQd7c for example, we are afraid of AJTx wrap-straight draws.
That's the first caller or two. Then we have open-end straight draws. We are the favorite over
those (and all the rest of the draws). Next are backdoor flush draws. Then we worry about the
lame backdoor straight draws around the seven. Naturally, many of these longshot draws
overlap each other. For instance, if the Ace-high spade flush draw calls us, we certainly love
the five-high spade flush draw to call, drawing dead. Yes, they may win sometimes, but we
love these sixth, seventh, and eighth callers!

With the KKK, if we assume we won't win unless we fill up, and we don't fill up on the turn, we
will have ten outs of the forty-four possible cards, meaning we will fill up 23% of the time.
Even if we lose to quads the 3% part of that, that's still a one out of five win percentage, for a
scoop, while getting six, seven or eight way action. Additionally, we'll normally have our own
backdoor draws. If we have two backdoor King-high flush draws, this will further destroy what
little power the sixth, seventh and eight callers have, as their backdoor baby flush draws in
our suits are contributing totally dead money on that aspect of their hands.

So, building a pot with a raise before the flop in Omaha does not benefit schooling
opponents, it benefits players with the good hands. The flip side of this phenomenon exposes
another key difference between Omaha and Holdem.

In loose Holdem games, there are a lot of hands you can profitably add to your arsenal, most
obviously Ace-rag suited and suited connectors. This is not true in Omaha. Again, the
difference in value of hands multiway in Omaha is much more dramatic than in Holdem. The
majority of hands simply are never playable (outside the blinds). If you are on the button and
everybody limps in, 3456 is still a worthless piece of garbage. It does not matter if you have
three opponents or seven, the hand stinks. You can play a small number of additional hands,
but for the most part, no matter how loose or weak your opponents are, you can't add too
many more hands to your playable repertoire.

The thing to "loosen up" in such a game is to want to play for a raise most hands you play. In
tight games, calling when someone limps in front of you is often the right play. In a loose
game, raising is usually the correct play because you are playing a hand with way the best of
it. You want dead money in the pot, and you want dead hands hopelessly chasing it! And
they will.

A "river" game?... Some players like to call Omaha a "river game" because the final card
often determines the winning hand. While that is true, the thinking behind this "river game"
idea is very flawed. Poor Omaha players wait to the river to bet -- when they know they are
going to win (or lose). That's just not sensible or profitable. Omaha is not a "river game"; it is
a game of preparation.

Before the flop: you should play hands that have a high expectation; you should manipulate
the pot size; you should try to manipulate your opponents so that when you have a hand that
plays well against fewer opponents you are playing against fewer opponents and when you
have a hand that plays well against a full field you are playing against a full field.

After the flop: the flop is critical. Here you should begin to roughly calculate the probabilities
and deduce how favorable your chances are to win. Again, here a player should be
manipulating the pot -- get more chips in when the odds favor you, try to minimize when you
have a longer shot.

The turn card is the least important aspect of Omaha but it's the end of the main math part of
the game. In loose games, you can pretty much calculate precisely your chances of winning
some or all of the pot.

Whether a player then makes or doesn't make their hand on the river really doesn't matter.
You do everything right mathematically up to this point, and lose to a one outer, that is fine --
just do the same things again and again the next times. Omaha (and all the other games) is
about having the best of it in the longrun. There is no "leader money" in poker. The "best"
hand is the one with the highest winning potential (including the understanding that some
hands will win more bets than others). Don't think what just happened was an aspect of a
"river game". I can't emphasize this strongly enough: All the truly important actions in this
hand occurred before that river card happened to bring you bad luck.

Another thing to consider is that only a tiny percentage of money action is on the river in
Omaha. Poker is about money. Omaha is not about the river. That's naive. Omaha is about
getting money in the pot in a mathematically advantageous way before the river. Limit
Omaha High Low is an anti-river game!

Put another way, if you play a coin flip game against a guy, and he says he'll give you $5 for
every time it comes up heads, but you have to give him $1 for every time it comes up tails, it
would be wrong to refer to this situation as "a flip game"! The key part of the game was in the
pre-negotiation, not in the flip itself.

Driving the pot... Loose game Omaha is mostly about nut hands. If there is a flush, you sure
want the nut flush. If there is a low, you sure want the nut low. The obvious reason, of course,
is because you have the winning hand rather than the second or third best hand. But that's
not the only value to playing nut hands.

Again, winning Omaha requires pot manipulation -- get more money in when you have clearly
the best of it; play for cheap when you don't. Nut hands and nut draws using quality cards
can "drive the betting" where non-nut hands cannot.

For instance, let's look at the enormous difference between KK and JJ -- not in terms of how
much more often KK makes the winning hand, but in terms of the difference in the pot sizes.
KK is a much more valuable holding in part because KK can drive the betting in many pots
that JJ can't -- like on a turn board of KQQ7 versus a board of JQQ7. The difference between
those two situations is enormous. There are other reasons why KK is a major holding while
JJ is a minor one, but the difference in how each can drive the betting (or not) offers an
excellent illustration of what situations you want to be in when playing Omaha.

Likewise, there is a very large difference between A23x and A2xx on a 87K flop. The latter
hand should win less money, not just because it will be counterfeited sometimes and not
make the winning hand, but because it cannot drive the betting nearly as much (if at all) as
the A23x can. A256, A247, A269, all these hands should win extra money not just because
you make winners more often, but because you should be driving the betting with them far
stronger than with the one-dimensional A2.

Cooperation... Greedy players make lousy Omaha players. Foolish greed often costs players
bets because they simply don't recognize that the game frequently requires cooperative
betting. Suppose there are three people in a pot. On an 8s7s5c flop, Player A bets and is
called. The 9h comes on the turn. Player A bets again, Player B calls, Player C raises, Player
A reraises, B calls, C caps, A and B call. Now the river card pairs the board with a flush card,
the 9s. What now? Often Player A will bet, with no high hand, and Player B will raise, with no
low hand. This will drive Player C with a straight and a weak low out of the pot. Translation:
stupid Player A and Player B. Instead of cooperating to get at least one bet from Player C,
they got none. If Player A stupidly bets, Player B should call, and hope to get one bet from
Player C, or perhaps an idiotic raise. The better play though would be for Player A to check,
have Player B bet, get Player C to call, then have Player A checkraise, and have Player B
now call. This way you get at least one bet from Player C, and perhaps two. Think about how
you can use cooperative betting between high and low hands to extract bets from players in
the middle. Don't be greedy and cost yourself money.

Luck... While the emphasis on the non-random mathematical nature of the game above
makes the point, I'll mention a few things about luck as it applies to Omaha. All poker has
luck involved. Omaha is the most mathematically straightforward poker game -- very little
randomness, very much known information. So, when someone makes a miracle one-outer
on the river, some people will mistakenly think of Omaha as having a high degree of luck,
when the opposite is plainly true. Omaha is a bit like a roulette wheel. If you have bets on all
the numbers except one, when it happens to come up that other number that is really bad
luck. But, now suppose the person who bet on that one number also put up as much money
as you did. You had thirty-six chances to win, he had one, playing for the same prize. The
longrun outcome of this game is surely not going to be determined by luck! You will crush
your opponent, either very soon, or a little while later. When he gets lucky, he gets super-
lucky, but that's just fine, as long as he is willing to keep making the same bet over and over.

Holdem has far more random luck than Omaha (or Stud). That's why it's the most popular
game. Poor players can do better, longer. Somewhat bizarrely, Holdem also has more long-
term skill. Winning Holdem is a game of exploiting tiny edges often. Winning Omaha is a
game of exploiting huge edges less often.

In most ways, Omaha is a far simpler game. When played by good players, Omaha games
are horrible -- unless the blinds are huge, forcing players to gamble. This is why Omaha is
often played with a kill, to generate action in a game that should have very little. This is also
why Omaha will never be "the game of the future." Poor players have no chance. Good
players eat them alive. In many localities, Omaha games burn brightly for a while, and then
burn out as the bad players go back to Holdem games where random luck gives them a
fighting chance.

Quartered... In loose games you should hardly ever think about being quartered (when you
have the same low hand as another player). It's almost never very costly to be quartered in
limit Omaha. In loose games, one of the principal plays you should always have on your mind
is how you can get three-quarters of a pot with hands like nut low and one pair. Too many
weaker players obsessively fixate on being quartered with this sort of hand instead of
focusing on getting three-quarters of the pot occasionally. The quickest way to get over a
pathological fear of being quartered is to just do the math on various situations where you get
one-quarter. It's hardly ever much of a loss. Now compare that to similar hands where you
manage to get three-quarters of different size pots. You'll quickly see that many tiny losses
getting quartered are more than compensated for by a few occasions where you can snatch
three-quarters.

Scooping... High-Low Split poker is about scooping the pot -- winning it all, not splitting. Many
weak and beginning players think they are playing decently because they focus on hands
with A2 or A3 that make the nut low. These hands are playable obviously, and getting half a
loaf is better than none, but this is most definitely not why you should be showing up to play
Omaha (or Stud HiLo for that matter).

Once again, just doing some simple math is very illuminating. Scooping a pot is not merely
twice as good as splitting. Suppose you play a five-way pot. Everyone puts in $80. If you split
the $400 pot, you get back $200, a profit of $120. But if you scoop, you get $400, for a profit
of $320. That's not twice as good, it is 2.67 times as good. In a three-way pot where you all
invest $80, if you split you get $120 for a profit of $40. If you scoop, you get $240 for a profit
of $160 -- four times as good as splitting.

The real reason to play A2 hands is not for the benefit of making the nut low and splitting a
pot. The reason to play this hand is because while it is splitting the pot some of the time, it
allows other parts of your hand to be aiming to scoop the pot. When you play A2, you actually
want to be using some other aspect of your hand, something that will scoop. A2 just makes it
safe for you to play, including often giving you the chance to make backdoor straights and
flushes that you otherwise would not have stayed in the pot to make. This again goes back to
"driving the pot". A2 allows you to drive the pot in situations like where you have A2JT with
the nut flush draw and the board is 4678. Your A2 allows you to stick around for the gutshot
straight draw, and allows you to aggressively bet your nut flush draw. That is where the
money is, not in splitting the pot with the nut low.

Four card units... The above illustration also should help make the point that Omaha hands
are four-card units. Despite the "must play two" aspect of the game, Omaha hands should
not be looked at as six two-card holdings. Doing so is to fundamentally misunderstand the
game. The RGP Posts section of this website addresses several fallacies involving Omaha
point count systems, and starting hand charts in general. There are a lot of reasons these
systems are a bad idea but one basic flaw is they view Omaha hands as several two-card
units.

It should be easy enough to see though that while 3d3h is a basically useless Omaha holding
on its own, when combined with an As2s it now becomes a powerful aspect of a coordinated
hand! Viewing the 33 out of the context of the A2 is a serious error.

Beyond the simplistic thinking about starting hands, it is critical to think of Omaha hands as
four card units after the flop. You may play As2s3dQd, but end up with a flop of Qs9c2c.
Before the flop no point-count system would assign the Qd2s aspect of your hand any value,
but now here on the flop it is part of your whole hand, and you must think in terms of how you
have two pair, a backdoor flush draw, a back door nut low draw, a backdoor wheel draw, etc.
Omaha hands are multifaceted and multi-dimensional. They should be viewed and analyzed
as integrated wholes, not separate parts. An Omaha hand can be greater than the sum of its
parts, sometimes even less, but Omaha hands are always four cards.

Situational analysis & starting hands... All winning poker requires situational judgments.
Some folks just hate that. They want easy, cookie-cutter answers. Sometimes difficult
problems do have easy answers, but more often they don't. Holdem is a more situational
game than Omaha, but because of that, when situational judgments are needed in Omaha,
they are usually very critical -- inspirational even. For example, bluffing is not something that
you should do much of in loose game Omaha, but there still is a lot of profit to be made from
bluffing, precisely because nobody thinks it is a big part of the game!

Most players play a lot of hands in Omaha, more hands than they play in Holdem. The proper
play is the reverse. However many hands you play in Holdem, you should play less in
Omaha. (Again, Holdem is a post-flop game where playing junk before the flop can often be
situationally correct.) If you are in an Omaha game with people violating this concept, as
most Omaha players do, then you should only be focusing on playing strong hands and, in
the correct situations, a few highly speculative hands that make for big scoops. The latter
group boils down to KKxx, and QQ with two decent other cards. All other hands should either
contain A2, A3, Ax suited, or be highly coordinated (KQJT, QJJT, 2345). The weakest of
these are also more speculative (like the three examples). They aren't very good, and don't
hit that often, so you want to try and play for only one bet, but when they do hit, they pay off
nicely, so in weak, loose games they should be played. In tougher games they should
normally be mucked.

A very good, but not spectacular, hand like A23K with a suit on the King will scoop
somewhere between 20 and 50% more than a random hand, depending on number of
players and positional factors (and will split far more than random hands). If you are on the
button and don't raise with this hand when everybody limps in, you are playing lousy poker.
On the other hand you normally don't want to raise under the gun with hands like A234
because you want players. You want to play your very good hands for a raise, you want to try
to put in an extra bet when you can, but sometimes you can't.

A very general starting point for loose-ish games is: AAxx, A2xx, Ax suited, A3xx, four cards
ten or bigger (except trips), KK with two decent cards. That's mostly it, but there are definite
exceptions like AKsQs4. Don't look at these as rigid rules. AK54 is a far superior hand to
A397 offsuit. Solid "one-way" hands are okay. You want to win the whole pot. Big cards win
big pots, but they have bigger fluctuations.

The end of the beginning... Advanced Omaha strategy goes quite a bit beyond the above, but
most Omaha players go nowhere near as far as we go here. Once you think correctly about
your approach to the game, like correctly viewing how much better scooping is than splitting
for instance, advanced strategy concepts become more readily apparent, and your play will
evolve and adapt.

One big reason good players beat bad players at Omaha is because good players are
thinking about the right game. Don't be concerned about losing pots. That's defeatist tunnel
vision. Instead, be concerned with getting money in with the best of it time and time and time
again, and then letting the math take care of things in the longrun. That is Omaha. The
introduction to it anyway...
 Omaha Holdem Myths
Mistaken Omaha High Low Beliefs

This companion to the Introduction to Omaha Poker Strategy is needed because

something about Omaha HiLo seems to lead to the true nature of the game being concealed
beneath a shroud of fantasies. New myths pop up every day. This is surprising since Omaha
is mostly a straightforward game. In fact, this is first Omaha myth to expose:

Myth: "Omaha is a complicated game."

Obviously all poker games have levels of complexity, but the contrasts between Omaha and
its closest cousin, Texas Hold'em, reveal Omaha to be much simpler. Texas Hold'em
decisions are full of uncertainty, randomness, and the complexity born of one simple fact -- in
many hands, all players involved have basically nothing. Suppose AcTs raises before the flop
from one in front of the button, QhJh calls on the button, and 7d6d calls in the big blind.
Suppose a flop comes down of 9d8h8c. The winner of this pot will often be determined by
who plays the craftiest from the flop on. Situations like this occur all the time in Hold'em.

In contrast, in most Omaha games you seldom play hands head-up on the flop, and anytime
there are three or more players in a pot either: one player will have a clearly better hand than
the others, or more than one player will have a solid hand, or any bet from any player will be
able to win the pot on a bluff (because no one has anything at all). Each Omaha hand has
many more ways to connect with a flop. Twelve cards in three hands don’t just have double
the ways to hit a three card flop, if only because Omaha8 offers players the chance to “win”
by either making a high hand or a low hand.

Very often Omaha hands come down to simply calculating your chances of winning all or part
of a pot. The principle variable becomes how you manipulate the size of the pot via the
betting. True, situations do occur that are similar to the one facing the QJ in the Hold'em
example above, where getting the AT to fold greatly increases the value of the hand (even if
the player doesn’t know it). Correctly playing in these situations does separate great players
from average ones, and a significant chunk of Omaha profit comes here, but these situations
are rare. They don’t occur every hand, or maybe even every nine hands. Most Omaha
situations come down to calculating your "outs" -- counting the number of cards that make
your hand and translating that into a percentage. The rare, complicated situations are very
important, but the common situations are quite uncomplicated. Omaha is usually a simple
game: play hands before the flop that can easily make a straightforward nut hand, and play
hands after the flop where you are getting correct odds on making the nut hand. (And again,
manipulate the betting as favorably as you can.)

Handling the complex aspects of the game can only come after understanding the basic
simplicity of most of the game. The problem that most Omaha players run into is screwing up
(and unnecessarily complicating) the simple aspects of the game. If you play QJT4, and get a
flop of KJ4, you’ll likely spend a lot of time thinking about how "complicated" Omaha is. You
throw that garbage in the muck before the flop, and the game is much simpler.

Again, there are complicated aspects to the game, but most players don’t ever even get to
the point of seeing the real complexities because they get themselves involved in situations
that are only complicated in the same way as: "if I throw my car keys into the ocean, how will
I ever find them?" Or, "if I throw a handful of quarters out the front door, how will I ever find
them all?" Both of those are incredibly difficult problems to solve -- except the solution is to
simply never throw your car keys in the ocean or your quarters out the front door.

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.
Myth: "Never raise with low"
This bit of gibberish is almost too good to expose. A very common sight in online Omaha
Holdem games is to see terrible players raising on a flop of AJ8 with their naked 23 draws,
and then freezing up like a deer in the headlights when they make their hand on the turn or
river. Now, when they HAVE something they shut down and become callers. In the case of a
23 shutting down is a good idea (the come-betting and raising is insane), but very often “the
never raise with low” myth will cause players to lose money because they are absolutely
mortified of getting quartered. In Limit Omaha HiLo getting quartered is seldom a big deal,
except head-up. (Pot Limit is a different story.)

Playing $10/20, if betting is capped on all streets three ways, a player will put $240 into a pot
(playing with a bet and three raises). This will make a total pot of $720. One quarter of that is
$180. So, the absolute worst case when getting quartered is to lose three big bets. Of course,
more often the betting will not be capped on every single street, and there will be dead
money in the pot from other players or from the blinds. You should be aware of situations
where you are likely to get quartered, and bet accordingly, but the obsession most players
have with being quartered is a very big hole in their game.

You should not be thinking about getting quartered. You should be thinking: “Can I get three-
quarters, and if I can, how can I?” You should be raising often when you have the nut low
hand and any sort of high, including as little as AK. Getting quartered on river raises in three
way pots will often cost you one chip. But when you win three-quarters of a pot by making the
better high hand lay down because of your raise, you will win many chips. For instance, again
playing $10/20, suppose a pot is $200 on the turn. A player you believe has nut low bets into
a K7487 board. You raise with your A24J. Both players call and you lose to a high hand with
Kings up (but you do have the other low hand beat for high). Your raise will have cost you $5.
But now if the player with Kings up folds, the pot will be $280 and you will get $210 of it
(instead of $80 when you get a quarter of a $320 pot). You risked $5 to win much more than
that. Even if the play works one out of ten times, you make money. More likely it will work
about half the time.

"Never raise with low" is a nonsense statement. When the words pass through someone's
lips, it marks them as a poor player. Omaha hands are always four cards. Your hand always
has more to it than just "low".

Sometimes you won’t have any high hand value yourself, or you will face an obvious high
hand that will not fold, but anytime you have ANYTHING at all for high, you should be
thinking about how might manipulate the betting (usually by raising) so that you get three-
quarters and not one-quarter.

Myth: "You play more Omaha hands than Holdem ones"

This is true of bad players but not good ones. Winning Omaha causes much smaller bankroll
fluctuations than Holdem because that marginal group of hands that exists in Holdem is
largely absent from Omaha. If you only played AA, KK, QQ, AK, AQ and JJ you would not
have huge fluctuations if only because you would fall into a coma between hands. This would
be an awful way to play Holdem because you would be eaten alive by the blinds, but you
sure wouldn’t fluctuate a lot. The playable Omaha hands are on par with the weakest of these
Holdem hands, but there are more of the Omaha hands. You don’t go into a coma (well,
maybe you get close to a coma), and more important, you don’t lose to the blinds. To beat
Holdem you have to play many of second and third tier hands and situations. These mostly
do not exist in Omaha. There are more good or better Omaha hands, but less playable
Omaha hands in total.
Holdem is a game where inspired post-flop play will win a lot of pots without a showdown.
Great players can play more hands profitably than average players because they can extract
profit from inspired play. Opportunities for inspired play do exist in Omaha, let’s be clear
about that, but they are fewer -- and very rare in "normal" loose games.

A sensible betting strategy can greatly increase your Omaha profit. For instance if on the
river you have nut low and one pair, but when another nut low (who has no pair) bets, you
raise and knock out a player who has you beat for high. There is a lot to Omaha post-flop
play, but it pales in comparison to Holdem.

Outplaying opponents is a cornerstone of Texas Holdem. Showing down the winning hand is
a cornerstone of Omaha Holdem.

Great players will often be able to identify exploitable situations where the actual cards they
hold mean very little. This can happen on rare occasions in Omaha, but for the most part you
simply can’t make silk out of a sow’s ear. Crappy Omaha hands are crappy Omaha hands.
Before the flop, if your hand is one that normally does not have a solid positive expectation,
you will seldom face situations where that hand is transformed into a positive expectation
one. In contrast, KTo on the button in Holdem becomes a fine hand if everyone folds to you.
Weak Omaha hands very seldom suddenly become similarly "fine."

Of course, in thinking about this topic, we need to compare apples to apples, not apples to
oranges. In a very weak, loose, passive Omaha game you should play more hands than a
Holdem game with tight, aggressive, excellent opponents. The idea here is to compare
parallel/similar type games.

The principal point however is not about how many starting hands to play comparing one
game to another. In itself, that is a nothingism. What you should consider is that Holdem is a
game of situational post-flop play, while Omaha is a game of making showdownable, nut
hands. Choose your starting hands accordingly.

Myth: "You can’t bluff in Omaha"

Translation: "Bad players can’t bluff in Omaha." Bluffing and semi-bluffing are very important
parts of winning Omaha, even if rare. Suppose you play in a game where the average pot is
six big bets, $120 in a $10/20 game. Now suppose you successfully bluff one of these pots a
week. That is $6240 for a year. Suppose you even win only one out of three of your bluff
attempts. A successful bluff one-third of the time once a week would earn you $4160 in a
year. That’s 208 big bets. For players attempting to win one big bet an hour, that is profit for
four hours a week for a year. The actual numbers aren’t important, but this should illustrate
that even rare successful bluffs can earn you a significant amount of money.

Average Omaha players are trained to assume that bluffing in Omaha isn’t possible (even if
they do occasionally try). People who think bluffing is impossible make good bluffing targets,
but the more critical thing to keep in mind is the nature of Omaha itself. Bluffing is difficult
because complete, nut hands happen easily. However, when a complete nut hand is difficult
to make, bluffing becomes easier against non-savvy opponents. Flops of QcQsJh or KcQc9c
are prime candidates for bluffing. Your opponent(s) may have something, but it is easy for
them to have very little -- very little, but still better than what you hold. Small pots with
coordinated flops are extremely bluffable from early position. (The terrible players like to bluff
from last position in Omaha.) Flop bluffing won’t yield six big bets, but the ratios should be
similar. One small bet that earns four small bets is a very nice small bet.
Myth: "You can't win with a set"
Translation: "I misplay flopped sets so I usually lose with them, and lose the maximum when I
do lose." Flopping a set (for example, you hold KQQJ and the flop is QJ3) in Omaha is
flopping a draw. That’s it. A draw. One reason pocket pairs are weak in Omaha is because
not only do you have to spike your set card, you have to also pair the board -- unless of
course you drive enough opponents out of the pot so that you also pick up some of the
“blank” cards. Still, you continue to only be drawing, to either a full house or to catch a blank.
A draw is a draw. To put it mildly, there is no guarantee you will make your draws. When you
flop a set, you will often lose, but when you win you will often scoop. Scooping the whole pot
is the aim of the game. However, there is a world of difference between flopping three Kings
and flopping three jacks... and a universe of difference between three Kings and three fives.
QQQ on the QJ3 flop should normally be played aggressively and viewed as a great hand.
555 on an 875 flop should normally be folded without a second thought.

Checking and calling when you flop a set is usually suicide. Either bet aggressively (or if you
check, do it from strength, intending to raise the turn, etc.) or probably fold. Sure, there will be
some times checking and calling will make sense, but those should be exceptions. Passively
allowing everybody and their brother to draw to every draw under the sun will lead to flopped
sets being shoveled into the muck as the pots are being pushed to gutshot straights and
backdoor flushes -- as well as half pots being pushed to garbage low hands.

Myth: "Aces never win"

Here’s a companion to the above myth. Some players cuss that they can’t win with pocket
aces, as if aces should have some mystical powers. Pocket aces are a two-card hand in a
game where five card hands win. Other folks think aces are nothing special, often not even
part of a playable hand. Similar to flopping a set, playing aces passively is the road to their
doom. Aces tend to dominate good Omaha hands, meaning Omaha hands with one ace in
them. But aces have a harder time dealing with situations where one or more random crapola
hands are added to the mix. In these cases it is easy for aces to take the worst of it in the
post-flop betting. While it is silly to generalize the same behavior for AAJ9 with no suit and
AA35 double-suited, aces are the prime pre-flop raising hand in Omaha HiLo. If everybody
plays or everybody folds, that’s fine, but generally you would like to play against hands that
are normally very good hands (hands that call raises), but that happen to play relatively
poorly against aces. Raising before the flop (and reraising especially) will make it more likely
that you will face a single opponent or opponents that is profitable for you to face. (Check out
the Pot Limit Omaha High link at the top of the page for a bit on playing aces in that game.)

Many of these myths are interrelated and self-perpetuating. Passive, weak play leads to
multi-way situations where most Omaha players end up befuddled. They only have
themselves to blame. If you don’t stick your tongue against a frozen lamppost, it is unlikely
your tongue will ever get stuck against a frozen lamppost. Omaha Holdem players who invite
trouble situations end up in trouble situations, and then draw the wrong conclusions about the
trouble. The "why" of why they are in trouble is simply that they put themselves into the
trouble. It’s not that aces don’t win, or that sets don’t hold up, or that Omaha Holdem is a
complicated game. Playing poorly gets you in difficult trouble.

Approach the game properly and the myths soon evaporate. Embracing the fundamentals of
solid Omaha Holdem play leads to an uncomplicated, clear horizon, not one shrouded in
myths. Few Omaha players ever reach this point. Once you do, then you can focus on the
more subtle challenges of advanced play.
 Pot Limit Omaha HiLo Split
Three Key Concepts

Pot Limit Omaha8 (PLO8) is a different animal from its two closest relatives, Limit Omaha
HiLo and Pot Limit Omaha High. The key Limit Omaha8 concept is playing appropriate
starting hands. The key Pot Limit Omaha High concept is position, position, position. Of
course, all games value many concepts, but the key PLO8 concept is the betability of hands
on the later streets, when the pots (and thus the bet sizes) are bigger.

One reason PLO8 isn't played much in casinos is because skill wins. Bad play and bad
players are annihilated, and fast too. PLO8 games peopled only with good players are
hideously bad. The game becomes pointless and tedious. It comes down to exploiting
extremely rare flukes (like top full house losing to quads).

While there aren't that many available, some good PLO8 games are available at a few online
cardrooms. One reason that PLO8 continues to exist online is simply because online games
have the whole world to draw on in terms of players. Another reason is that online PLO8
games have a cap on the amount players can buy-in for. This leveling the playing field
mitigates, a lot, against the standard pot limit phenomenon of good players buying lots of
chips and poor players buying tiny stacks. Money goes to money in big bet poker.

However, the most important reason PLO8 games exist as much as they do online is: a high
percentage of online poker players drastically overestimate their skill level. While this is true
of all games online, this overestimation is more concentrated in big bet games. Mediocre
players suddenly think they are God's gift to poker, the second coming of Bret Maverick,
when confronted with the pseudo-complexities of PLO8 -- lots of cards, variable/progressive
betting. It's one thing to be a mediocre juggler. It's another thing indeed to be a mediocre
juggler who insists on juggling seven flaming machetes. (The other place online where
mediocre players drastically overate themselves is at head-up games.)

So, the first thing to understand about online PLO8 games is many of your opponents have
poor judgment in terms of true value. People with poor value skills are good people to play
against in big bet poker. That understanding should underlie everything you do in the game.

You should be playing more hands in most PLO8 games than you do in limit Omaha8 or PLO
High (unless a game has an unusual amount of pre-flop raising). Speculative hands that are
garbage in Limit can be nicely profitable in PLO8. The most obvious one is 23xx. In Limit this
is the #1 sucker hand. In pot limit the hand can be played, if you play well, because of the
implied action you will get. Compare having A2xx on a flop of 873 to having 23xx on a flop of
A87. You WILL get more action from players holding aces and eights or aces and sevens
than you will from players holding eights and sevens or eights and threes. I've seen a player
go for all his chips, putting in the fourth raise on a flop like this where he had AAA. Suicide.
He put in all his money just to get it back. Aces have the magical ability to make people play
worse.

Most players greatly over-fixate on winning pots. If they put a nickel into a pot, you darn near
need a crowbar to pry them away from pouring millions in to chase that nickel. Proper PLO8
play is directly counter to this, which is why most players are not suited for the game. You
should easily fold most of the hands you play. PLO8 is mostly a game of homeruns. Big pots.
Big edges. Big betting. You aren't looking to hit many PLO8 doubles. You don't want to mix it
up in a lot of pots. You want to get out early, or be gladly shoving all your chips in by the end.
The only way you want to hit singles in PLO8 is by making bets on the flop that nobody calls.
This can occur two ways. The first is obvious, you bet a hand that should be bet and nobody
calls. You can't put a gun to people's heads and make them call, so just take the pot and wait
for the next time. The other small pot/singles to look for are "orphan" pots -- pots nobody
seems to want. These are pots you can make one bet at, and then you are done. If you win
the pot, great, if you get called you back off and very seldom continue to try to win the pot. A
simple example, the flops is QsJs9s. You have Ad2d5hKs. You have two opponents. The first
opponent checks. You bet. You should win this pot right here more than half the time. If you
get called or raised, you just give up. You are bluffing these pots, but you are bluffing when
your opponents have very little. Their very little just happens to beat your very little.

Betting and taking orphans should keep you hovering around playing breakeven poker. The
key pots are where you look to get your profit. Also, you need to bet at orphan pots because
you don't want to always and only be betting when you have an enormous hand.

While betability is the overriding concept at work in PLO8, there are two specific situations
that you should look for: the freeroll and the 3/4. Getting in situations where you can do one
or the other of these is the reason to play the game.

The Freeroll. While 3/4ing is important, freerolling is much more so. Freerolls come in a
variety of types, but the common theme is you are getting a free shot at your opponent's
money. (For practical purposes, the idea of a freeroll should also include "near freerolls" like
on a flop of QJT and you have AKQQ while your opponent has AK22. He can beat you by
making four deuces, but despite that ability to make a 1000-to-1 shot, we will still consider
that near freeroll to be a "freeroll".)

Some freeroll examples:

Flop - QsJdTc; Opponent - AcKd2h3s; You - AsKsQcJc
Flop - 3s4d5c; Opponent - AcKd2hQs; You - As2s7c8c
Flop - As8h7h; Opponent - AhAdKhQs; You - 2s3s5d6c

In each of these examples, your opponent is drawing 100% dead. He cannot beat you no
matter what cards come on the turn and river. AND, you will get action from most opponents
who hold these hands... especially from bad players who will often intentionally go for all their
chips, particularly with the first hand.

The Ace-high Broadway straight is similar to how 23xx is in Limit Omaha8. Weak players lose
more money with this hand than any other. Good players win their money when freerolling
these hands. AK on a QJT flop, AQ on a KJT one, AJ on a KQT one, AT on a KQJ one...
these are the hands that separate the adults from the kiddies. Weak players not only commit
suicide on these hands, but also can't even comprehend that they should often be folding the
current-nut-hands like they were poison. All forms of Omaha are about making the best hand,
not what is currently best. There is no leader money in poker. The ability to fold the current
nut hand is absolutely critical in PLO8... and fortunately, most players are simply incapable of
it. When you flop one of these Broadway straights, you should ask yourself "what am I trying
to make?" If the answer is "I want to make only the same straight as I have now", in other
words, you are drawing to a blank on the turn and a blank on the river, you don't have much
of a hand.

Another type of freeroll is the "freeroll to a bluff":

Flop - 6s7s8d; Opponent - 9sTdJcJh; You - As2h3d4c
In this hand, neither one of you has any chance at all of making a hand that beats the other
one. Big, fat zero. But you have a freeroll to a river bet where you should be making
significant money. No matter what the action is on the flop and turn, if the river card comes a
board pair, or a flush card (especially if it is a flush card that pairs the board), a pot-size bet
by you will force your opponent to fold -- and even if he calls, that is fine because that means
he will call you when you happen to have the flush or full house.

Notice in this example how important pot manipulation is. If you have intentionally bet
yourself all-in before the river card, you are an idiot. Your chance to win money here is by
betting the river (or turn) card and getting a fold. You can't get a fold if either you or he is all-
in! On the other hand, you want the pot big enough so that you can make a large enough bet
to get him to fold. There is a definite science to getting pots the right size when you are on a
freeroll to a bluff. Also notice, it is much better to error on the side of not building the pot big
enough, and thus not being able to make a big enough bet to get a fold. That error is much
less bad than the error of getting one or the other of you all-in. You can never win when
somebody is all-in. When you can make a river bet of any size, you will win sometimes. Even
if a pot is $400 and you can only bet $100 on the river, you will still win some percentage of
the time greater than the 0% of the time you win when one of you is all-in.

A final freeroll example is the most obvious:

Flop - 6s7s8d; Opponent - 9cTdJsJd; You - As2s3d4c

Here, opposite of the freeroll to a bluff, you want to get all the money into the pot as soon as
you can. Your opponent can never beat you, but you will scoop him once in awhile. Notice in
the above example I've contrived the hands to where your opponent would make a backdoor
flush if it came, which would make your ability to bluff a river card that didn't make you a
winner much tougher. Suppose he didn't have those diamonds. Now, by betting him all-in and
winning when you make your spade flush, you are GIVING UP your chance to win the pot via
a freeroll bluff on the river if it comes a diamond or board pair. What you have is TWO freeroll
opportunities that work against each other! This game is starting to get complicated... :) You
have two betability issues here that you have to balance given your opponent, his betting
habits, how deep the stack sizes are, how poorly your opponent plays (a terrible opponent
could easily go broke the very next hand, so I would lean to putting him all-in and hope I
make my flush and get all his chips, rather than look to make a smaller amount of chips via
occasional river bluffs when I miss but it comes a card he doesn't like), etc.

Of course, not all freerolls are this obvious. In the previous example you are vulnerable to
being 3/4ed by hands like A238. You can't see your opponent's cards, so you seldom get
super-obvious freerolls. However, not only do fairly clear freerolls present themselves, you
need to be thinking how sometimes you ARE freerolling when you don't know it. The freeroll
should be the concept in the front of your mind... which also means: DON'T GET
FREEROLLED! On a 678 flop, you should fold 9TJJ to almost any bet. It may be the nuts, but
you are probably drawing dead. You may have to put in many chips to split a puny amount
already in play. You may be freerolled and 3/4ed at the same time by A29T.

Folding the nuts is something you should do fairly often in PLO8, and it doesn't have to be
high-type hands like the JJT9. On a flop of 8s7s6s you should usually toss Ad2dKhQh into
the muck when faced with any bet. Don't get freerolled.

3/4ing a pot. Though dwarfed in significance by freerolls, 3/4ing is more common. 3/4ing
usually occurs when two people both have the nut low, but it also happens sometimes when
both players have the same high and one makes some kind of low. A much longer discussion
than we have space for here, clearly it is a huge skill in being able to correctly discern when
you are getting 3/4s as opposed to when you are getting 3/4ed. Some situations are obvious,
like when you make the nut flush to go with a nut low, but most of the time your hand won't
be nearly so defined. When you have A238 and the board is 348QK, are you getting 3/4s or
getting 3/4ed? How about 348Q4? Do you bet the pot? Do you make a smaller bet? Check?
Raise if an opponent makes a small bet? There is a bottomless pit of situations and subtleties
to be considered, but a player who makes bets when 3/4ing and who checks when being
3/4ed will do a helluva lot better than a person who does it the other way around!

Just like when you have the nut Broadway straight you should ask yourself what you are
drawing to, when you have the nut low the first thing you should ask yourself is: what is my
high hand? And then, what is the high hand I am trying to make? The nut low aspect of the
hand is relatively unimportant (even if most players fixate on low).

The key word in PLO8 is "and". When you show down you want to be saying, "I have low
AND..." If there is no "and", you usually don't have much. "And" is what to focus on when you
have nut low. If you have no "and", checking and even check/folding will often be your correct
action. Don't get me wrong though, before the showdown "and" can include the fact that you
are drawing to a bluff. A naked nut low plays just fine against people who don't have nut low!

Correctly value-betting hands like two pair, like when you hold A24Q and the board is 478KQ,
or even one pair like when you have A237 and a board is 457KQ, is a challenge you have to
strive to accomplish. Reading opponents, especially when you are out of hand, is a task you
should always be working on when playing PLO8. "Better betting" when doing the 3/4ing and
when getting 3/4ed should be the result of a never-ending study of your PLO8 opponents. It
is the ongoing challenge that every player can do better and better.

One thing that should be clear from both the discussion of freerolling and 3/4ing is the
dramatically more important role suited cards play in PLO8 compared to Limit. You want
"and". Flushes are just another way to make a bettable "and". And flushes are never 3/4ed.
They are either good or they aren't.

Besides their 3/4ing value, flushes can turn splits into scoops. Suppose you make the nut
flush on the river against an opponent who only has the nut low: Board - 4s5c8dKsQs;
Opponent - Ac2c3dJh; You - As3s6d7c
In this case the river card changed things not at all, but you now can safely make a pot size
bet. Say the pot is $1000, and you bet that. The best your opponent can do is get half. If he
calls, he gets $1500. But he has to consider that if he calls and gets 3/4ed, he gets back
$750, so calling the $1000 bet costs him $250. You will get your opponents to fold some
amount of time over 0% in situations like this. Pure profit.

Similarly, suppose instead you hold As2s4dTc. In this case the river card again didn't change
things. You had your opponent 3/4ed already with a pair of fours. But how often are you
going to be able to value bet a pair of fours? How often should you TRY to value bet a pair of
fours? By making a much more bettable flush than your measly pair of fours you now can bet
the $1000 pot. When you do, if your opponent calls, you make that extra $250. And, if he
doesn't call, making the flush won you the $250 that was already in the pot (his 1/4 share of
the pre-bet $1000 pot).

Suitedness makes hands more bettable, and it makes another way you can make an "and".
As2s3d4d is a much more profitable hand than As2c3d4h. If you could just wish it and have it
be so, you would want your cards to always be suited and your opponent's cards to never be
suited. Don't fall into the trap some inexperienced players do when they see "action-killing
flops" of three of the same suit. They wrongly conclude suits won't bring you much. That is
silly. Pots on the flop are relatively small. We don't much care about on-the-flop pots. We
care about being in a position to bet hands on the river, when the pot and bets are biggest.
Make-a-flush-on-the-river boards are where the clearest exchange of money/value takes
place in PLO8. You can't tie flushes, only one winner. And, betting/pseudo-bluffing
opportunities present themselves where pure low hands can blow high hands out of pots. It's
an oversimplification, but it could be asserted that when you aren't suited you want pots to be
decided on the flop and turn; when you are suited, you want to be putting in action on the
river -- and again, the money in the game is in making river bets when the pots and possible
bets are biggest.

If any game is NOT the game of the future, this is it. But when the game is played, and non-
good players are involved, it presents an excellent opportunity for solid, positive expectation
poker by focusing on a few key concepts: betability, "and", suitedness, 3/4ing, freerolling.
 Pot Limit Omaha High
PLO Strategy

"Philadelphia fans would boo funerals, an Easter egg hunt,

a parade of armless war vets, and the Liberty Bell."
-- Bo Belinsky

Rec.gambling.poker once had a discussion about Pot Limit Omaha High worth repeating
here. Peter Lizak started it by writing: "I would rather play AKQJ over AA24. AA kinda sucks
alone. It needs back up. Think of it like chess. The queen is powerful, but you don't shove her
into enemy territory without support."

My view is that if a player would rather play AKQJ for all his chips head-up, then he needs to
hit the lottery quick. Full table Pot Limit Omaha is not about cards very much. It is first and
foremost position, position, position. If the chips are deep, position renders everything else
trivial. If the chips are not deep, you want to get all-in or close to it before the flop with AAxx.
You are a significant dog to nothing, besides a dominating other AA hand, and a good
favorite over most.

Raising first under the gun with AAxx is suicide, not because AAxx is bad, but because
raising under the gun in PLO is foolish with any hand. Limp and reraise if the chips are short
and you can get all-in. If the chips are deep you should be limp/fold almost everything --
though the weaker your opponent, the more likely he is to foolishly dump chips post-flop
while drawing near dead, the more hands you can call with. If you are playing with players in
the same skill ballpark as you, the main reason to play hands out of position in PLO is to
encourage other people to play out of position. That is really and truly the main reason. You
want to limp and fold, while they limp and call your raises when you are in position. If you
limp and are allowed to see the flop cheaply, then you just play poker with the hand you flop
-- which should be a strong one since you should not play terribly weak hands out of position.
(Of course, if you are playing against opponents much weaker than yourself, then you can
play more hands out of position and play them more aggressively, but still, even against very
weak opponents your edge will be far greater when you are in position versus out of
position.)

One thing to keep in mind though is that PLO is the game most different in casinos compared
to online. The online cardrooms have buy-in limits that prevent you from playing the normally
sensible way -- buying yourself a big stack of chips. They have capped buy-in amounts and
thus require you to play small stack PLO (until you win your way to a big stack). In that way,
AAxx is a much better hand online than in a casino, since any pot size reraise will often be
over half your stack.

But again, assuming deepish stacks, PLO is position and betting. A solid player who
understands the game and has deep chips, can play 3579 in position and eat up AAKK, while
also playing AAKK in position to eat up 3579.

Most any hand can eat up a better hand that is out of position.

If someone wants to make a pot raise under the gun with AAKK or AAJT, I'll play the big
majority of hands against them if we have deep chips. This is especially true if I can put the
player on AA with great confidence. The player in position will generally lose small pots and
win much bigger ones. This is why you can't get good PLO games with only good players.
They become utterly pointless. You need players playing out of position for a lot of chips for
the game to exist.

Another person then wrote that in a multiplayer pot you can get more out of the AKQJ, and
that such multiplayer pots weaken AA42 quite a lot.

I replied that this was not saying much, unless we know specific hands, and the position of
those hands. AKQJ offsuit is a very lame hand multiway when AA is also out, and more so
when you have other big card players in the pot. The Broadway straight is the #1 sucker
hand of PLO where people get freerolled for all their chips. Also, a hand like AdKdQJ is not
great because you have the key payoff card that you want in an opponent's hand, the K of
diamonds.

AAxx should be looking to play pots headup, via a pot raise in position or a pot reraise out of
position. If it can't manage one of these scenarios it should commonly be limped before the
flop, then folded when the flop misses. If you do see a flop out of position for a limp multiway,
AAxx is vastly superior to AKQJ because the way AA will hit the flop is either an Ace, or a nut
flush draw with a small pot. In either case you are in fine shape. AKQJ hits sucker flops, two
pair against sets, straights against the same straights with flush outs. Only very rarely will you
have the best freeroll with the nut straight and top two pair, and that is only four outs. A suited
ace, flopping the Broadway straight and having the nut flush draw, there you have a hand,
and it comes along pretty rarely!

Like No Limit Hold'em, even more so, Pot Limit Omaha is a card game that is only a little
about cards. Personalities, chip stack size and table position dictate play much more than the
spots on the pasteboards.

In response to two recent emails I thought I better clarify a few things... The above article is
written about full table PLO. In a full game, three off the button is in position; in a six-handed
game, three off the button is first to act. These situations are not similar. The less players,
the more blinds you have to pay, so the impact of the blinds on your play will be greater, as it
will on other players too. Also, as stated above, online games with restricted buy-ins are a
different sort of game than casino games where players often have 1000x big blinds or more
in front of them. And of course, the level of play in online games is far weaker than full,
casino PLO games (where tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars can be in play with some
of the best all-around players in the world), so you can typically play many more hands.

You make money in poker by playing when you have a positive mathematical expectation.
The weaker the players, the more often you will be able to get a positive expectation... so
you can limp with more hands, bluff more hands from both out of position and in position,
play more hands out of position for a raise, raise with weaker hands, etc. A winning PLO
player can win from every seat at the table, but generally when out of position you should be
playing smaller pots before the flop, while in position you want to be looking for pots to play
for all your chips, while ALSO doing what is the core principal of winning poker: achieving
and identifying when you have a mathematical advantage over your opponents. This can be
from having position, from a liveone being drunk, from an opponent misreading a hand or a
lot of other things. The key to PLO is position, but the key to all poker is to play when the
math is on your side.
 Texas Versus Omaha
Comparison of Holdem Games

The hottest fires in hell are reserved for those

who remain neutral in times of moral crisis.
-- Edmund Burke

Technically, the word "Holdem" refers to the some-cards-in-your-hand/some-cards-on-the-

board, four betting rounds structure. But it has commonly become associated with the Texas
version. Texas Holdem is generally considered "Holdem", while Omaha Holdem is merely
"Omaha." Birthed of the same mother structure, Omaha and Holdem have similarities, but
like siblings they also have dramatic differences when it comes to winning strategy.
Understanding these sibling differences can lead to each of us making better game
selection choices and recognizing our own strengths as poker players.

Some of the differences stem from logistics. When playing in a casino, approximately twice
as many hands are dealt an hour in Holdem. Omaha is usually played HiLo. Holdem players
usually have a wider variety of games to choose from. Omaha games have more regulars.
Besides these things, there are many more complicated differences.

If your aim is to win, Holdem requires more risk-taking, more variance. Winning Holdem is all
about exploiting tiny edges, and even more, creating tiny edges. Holdem skill often comes
into play in turning 55/45 edges into 60/40 ones. Obviously that is a good, profitable thing to
do, but just as obviously it takes something of a long run to make these small edges add up.
Great Holdem players find nickels and dimes and dollars of value in hand after hand --
getting free cards, protecting (or not protecting) blinds, value betting, inducing bluffs, etc.
Very good winning players don’t depend on showing down AK against KQ on a KJ742 board.
Showing the best hand is the bedrock of winning, but it is merely the tip of the iceberg.

Omaha has quite a lot of differences. For very good players, Omaha edges are usually huge.
Against weak Texas Hold'em opponents, a very good player can play a lot more hands. This
is not the case in Omaha. While 76s can sometimes become playable in Holdem, 9764 is
never playable in Omaha High Low (outside of maybe putting in one more chip in a two chip
small blind) regardless of how lousy your opponents are. While the faster-paced Holdem is all
about the application of many tiny edges time and again, glacier-paced Omaha is more about
waiting for rare instances of enormous advantage. These huge advantages occur because
most players simply do not "get" that when played properly Omaha has very little gamble to
it, with less playable hands than Holdem -- especially "playable hands per hour". Loose-ish
Omaha games mostly come down to simple math. A pot has so many chips in it, and you
have so many outs to make the winning hand. You are either getting the right price, the
wrong price, or the very, very right price.

Omaha is tortoise poker. Holdem is for the rabbits. Generally, winning Omaha players make
more money per hour (with less variance) than their equally skilled Holdem counterparts.
This occurs despite more Holdem hands being played simply because most Omaha players
play far worse than the average Holdem player. If a weak player is taking the 40/60 worst of it
in Holdem many times, that player is taking the worst of it fewer times against Omaha
opponents but the worst of it now is more likely to be 10/90.
Your personal temperament might be better suited for one than the other, but one game is
not "better" than the other. While Omaha remains easier money, these days Texas Hold'em
offers a much wider array of opportunities to win. Omaha tournaments are still peopled with
very weak Omaha players, but the sheer number of Holdem tournaments and the larger
amount of people playing Holdem events offsets that. Smaller edges in more events with
more people simply returns us to the basic difference between Omaha and Holdem -- you get
to apply a small advantage much more often for larger bets. These days, being properly
bankrolled is even more important in the past. If you can afford to every five seconds bet
$990 on a coin flip to win $1000, soon you will have an awful lot of money. But if you only
have $640 to your name, you aren't going to even be able to play, let alone play with an
expectation of not going broke due to bad luck. If you are a Holdem player, especially a
Holdem tournament player, keep your powder dry... take loving care of your bankroll.

Profit comes in different ways, and you have to be capable of catching it.
 Online Omaha8
Weak Tight Poker - Let It Shine

This following article was illegally used without attribution or permission by Gambling Online
Magazine. Below is the original version.

"You can be a beacon if you let it shine"

-- Donna Fargo

On Rec.Gambling.Poker, a poster asked about his play of an Omaha High Low hand. He
asked if he played it right. In my view, he played every street wrong. The only way to play the
hand worse at any point was to fold. The point here is not to rag on a series of poor choices,
but to emphasize how you need to act to extract value from situations, not passively accept
what value that other players will just give you. You can't be a beacon, a shining example of
success, if you don't let your value shine.

> Omaha Hi/Low $0.50-$1

> Seat 1 ($54.15 chips)
> Seat 2 ($14.50 chips)
> Seat 3 ($25.05 chips)
> Seat 4 [Ad4sAc2s] ($42.15 chips) -- has the dealer button
> Seat 5 ($14 chips)
> Seat 6 ($24.70 chips)
> Seat 7 ($51.30 chips)
> ANTES/BLINDS
> Seat5 posts ($0.25), Seat6 posts ($0.50), Seat3 posts ($0.50)

The first thing to note here is that there is an extra blind being posted by a new player. Seat5
is behind the button, but the game is only seven handed. With an extra posted blind, virtually
any hand Our Player chooses to play should be raised before the flop from the button. When
there is that extra dead money out there, it is simply terrible to give two people free rides, and
the small blind a cheap look, when you have a playable hand in best position.

> PRE-FLOP
> Seat7 folds, Seat1 calls $0.50, Seat2 calls $0.50, Seat3 checks
> Our Player calls $0.50, Seat5 calls $0.25, Seat6 checks

Here we have the most basic mistake in playing Omaha. Our Player had the best of it at this
point, but did not raise to put more money in the pot when he had the best of it. In fact, he
had five opponents but only two had to put in a bet the size he did. This makes no logical
sense. The point is to make other people put in money when you have the best hand, not the
other way around.

> FLOP: Qh6c7c

> Seat5 bets $0.50, Seat6 calls $0.50, Seat1 folds,
> Seat2 calls $0.50, Seat3 calls $0.50, Our Player calls $0.50.

As horrible as the preflop call is, this is worse. Seat1, the person who opened under the gun
and thus (all other things being equal) is most likely to have the best hand, or in this case
A2xx, folds. Our Player's hand looks even better now. Additionally, it was the small blind who
bet. If Our Player raises, we might get a reraise, which will lead to a much bigger pot, or
everyone else folding and getting a pot with a lot of dead money in it. Either is fine. Merely
calling and again minimizing the pot has no advantages. Then also, Our Player has the ace
of clubs. He must raise here. If it comes a big club on the turn or river, we certainly don't want
an opponent to either bet a small flush, or bluff because no one but the small blind has
shown strength. Ideally the original bettor will reraise with a hand that Our Player dominates
(like AQ42).

Of course, the key problem remains that there was no preflop raise which makes further play
a lot of clueless bumping around in the dark involving a smallish pot, rather than easier to
read action involving a larger pot.

> TURN: Qh6c7c8s

> Seat5 bets $1, Seat6 calls $1, Seat2 raises to $2, Seat3 calls $2
> Our Player calls $2, Seat5 calls $1, Seat6 calls $1

Here we have a real hatred of money call. What was Our Player waiting for? His hand is as
good as it is going to get. If one player has a straight, we can't beat that for high, but
presumably some of the other players are drawing live to flushes or full houses or bigger
straights. We need to get value out of them now, because if they miss their draws on the river
they aren't going to pay.

Even in the worst case scenario, where Our Player is getting 1/6 of the pot, there are five
players, so if the betting is capped at $4, and Our Player got 1/6... Our Player would only lose
.67 cents ($20 bet from five people, 1/6th = $3.33). Compare that to if Our Player gets 1/4 of
the pot (1/4 of $20 = $5) where he wins $1, or where he gets half the pot (1/2 = $10), where
his profit is $6. Clearly the loss you have when you get a sixth is more than made up for in
the times you get 1/4 or 1/2 the pot.

> RIVER: Qh6c7c8sQs

> Seat5 checks, Seat6 bets $1, Seat2 calls $1, Seat3 folds,
> Our Player calls $1, Seat5 checkraises to $2, Seat6 calls $1,
> Seat2 calls $1, Our Player calls $1.

How does Our Player's action here make any sense? What does he think these people have,
based on how they bet. Seat6 called the turn but now bets? Seat5 bet the flop and turn and
now checks, and then checkraises? Seat2 raises the turn and now calls the new bettor? How
can Our Player possibly put any of them on A2, let alone more than one? If we get quartered
four way, we lose nothing. If we get 1/6 four way, we lose $1.50. If we get half, we win $4. To
not raise, Our Player has to think it is nearly three times more likely that he will get 1/6 than
he will get 1/2!

Even the terrible play previous rounds should not have left Our Player so in the dark that he
could not conclude that at least two of these players were playing high hands.

> SHOWDOWN
> Seat5 shows 7s7h6sKh
> Seat6 shows 6d9hQc6h
> Seat2 shows 4d2c5hJs
> Our Player shows Ad4sAc2s
> Our Player wins low $11.15, Redhanded01 wins high $11.20.

Most tellingly, presuming this was not Our Player's second hand in the game, he should have
observed the above players previously, which now makes not raising pre-flop to be even
worse. The way each played these garbage hands should make Our Player aggressive on
the button with even some fairly mediocre hands like A39J.

Online Omaha HiLo games continue to be populated with some of the worst poker playing in
the galaxy, and that poor play comes in many forms, including hopelessly passive weak-tight
play.

Hopefully Our Player will learn from his mistakes on this hand, but sadly such straightforward,
hyper-profitable situations don't come up often. When they do though, it is critical that you "let
it shine" and get your money in when you have massively the best of it.
 Omaha Point Count System

Steve, the intro that you wrote is very good. It just about sums up my entire knowledge of the
game and how I try to play in the local Mississippi HiLo games. The games are usually 3-6
Kill, 4-8 half kill, 5-10 Kill and 10-20 Kill. The game I play in most is a 3-6 Kill at the Silver Star
in central Mississippi. Most of the other games are about 3 hours away in Tunica and on the
Coast.

My game is still developing, but I am still an overall winner the last three years. Omaha HiLo
has been the most consistent money maker for me since I realized the edge Omaha
presents. You and Dr. Ed Hutchison have been my mentors. I kept seeing Doc Hutchison
constantly stacking up his chips and going home a winner. I flat out asked for help. He
pointed me to his webpage with the point count system. Your Lee Munzer interview in
Poker Digest also played a significant role. I studied Doc's system and used it for 4-5
sessions. It worked. I won. I haven't used it in a game in over 2 years.

Before I started using Doc's system I had no clue about what a good starting hand could be. I
knew A-2 was good. I also thought 2-5 was nice. Doc's system helped me focus on what the
good hands are in Omaha. I really had no other way to learn.

The tuition for learning Omaha in live games can be rather expensive. Doc's system in effect
gave me a scholarship. In addition, I was able to skip a few elementary grades because I
now had learned the basic starting hands that are profitable in Omaha. Sure a point count
system is a crutch, but the long term goal is to throw away the crutch and walk on your own
two feet.

A few comments on sections from your fine introduction:

INTRODUCTION TO OMAHA STRATEGY (ITOS) - "but it is very easy to teach a player to

play way-above-average Omaha... but the basic advice is to play with great discipline... but
having discipline is an advanced skill... and is boring as paste."

COMMENT - Right on the mark. This also gives some justification for early use of Doc's
system. It is rather tight and if a player follows it they will have great discipline before the flop.

ITOS - "Starting hands... Unlike Holdem, where post-flop play is far more critical, winning
Omaha fundamentally begins with starting hands. Starting hands exist before the flop, which
is where you get enormous edges in Omaha against a field."

COMMENT - I hate to use your words to back up my belief in Doc's system as a learner's
tool, but the strong starting hand nature of Omaha makes Doc's system useful for a beginner.
Of course, you get your edge by knowing what to do with a starting hand. At least, a beginner
can start with a hand with an edge.

ITOS - "Not counting AA and perhaps KK, Holdem hands run much closer in value than
Omaha hands do -- urban myths not to the contrary. If you don't know and appreciate this
basic concept, you are going to be in trouble in Omaha. Omaha has a fairly large group of
hands that will win at double the rate of randomish hands. Few Holdem hands can say the
same."
COMMENT - This may be what is deceiving some people. Omaha has more hands that can
be big winners. Holdem probably has more hands can just be a small winner. Thus, I will play
more hands before the flop in Holdem. I just will not win big with many of them.

ITOS - "Before the flop: you should play hands that have a high expectation; you should
manipulate the pot size; you should try to manipulate your opponents so that when you have
a hand that plays well against fewer opponents you are playing against fewer opponents and
when you have a hand that plays well against a full field you are playing against a full field."

"After the flop: the flop is critical. Here you should begin to roughly calculate the probabilities
and deduce how favorable your chances are to win. Again, here a player should be
manipulating the pot -- get more chips in when the odds favor you, try to minimize when you
have a longer shot."

COMMENT - I don't think there have been two paragraphs written that better state the
"Essence of Winning Low Limit Omaha."

ITOS - "The RGP Posts section of this website addresses several fallacies involving Omaha
point count systems, and starting hand charts in general. There are a lot of reasons these
systems are a bad idea, but the most basic flaw is they view Omaha hands as several two-
card units."

"It should be easy enough to see though that while 3d3h is a basically useless Omaha
holding on its own, when combined with an As2s it now becomes a powerful aspect of a
coordinated hand! Viewing the 33 out of the context of the A2 is a serious error."

COMMENT - Doc Hutchison's system does not look at an Omaha hand as a series of two
card units. It takes into account all four cards at once and awards points based on the basic
two card low and gives additional points for kickers, pairs and suited cards.

ITOS - "Beyond the simplistic thinking about starting hands, it is critical to think of Omaha
hands as four card units after the flop. You might play As2s3dQd, but end up with a flop of
Qs9c2c. Before the flop no point-count system would assign the Qd2s aspect of your hand
any value, but now here on the flop it is part of your whole hand, and you must think in terms
of how you have two pair, a backdoor flush draw, a back door nut low draw, a backdoor
wheel draw, etc. Omaha hands are multifaceted and multi-dimensional. They should be
viewed and analyzed as integrated wholes, not separate parts. An Omaha hand can be
greater than the sum of its parts, or sometimes even less, but Omaha hands are always four
cards."

COMMENT - Doc's system, of course, recognizes the power of A-2-3. It also gives additional
credence to the suited A, the suited Q and the Q as a kicker. I've dug up my old cheat sheet
to show you the actual points here on this hand. A2 = 20 points, 3 kicker = 9 points., suited
Ace = 4 points, suited Queen = 2 points, Queen kicker = 2 pts. For a total of 37 points.
Twenty points are considered the lower limit for calling in early position. This hand screams
raise to build a pot. If I changed the Q kicker to an unsuited nine the hand is lessened in
value by four points, but the hand still suggests raise.

I'm sure I will never convince you to change you mind about using Doc's point count system
as a learning tool in Omaha. However, I found it to be helpful to me. I'm just anecdotal
evidence, but it worked for me.

I couldn't tell you the point value of a single hand I played last night. My cheat sheet for Doc's
system is only found in a file on my computer. I haven't needed it for over two years. It was
another good night. Three hours of play, positive three big kill bets an hour against a table of
regular players who for the most part don't have a clue about "The Essence of Omaha."

Needless to say, I do not plan to distribute copies of your excellent "Introduction" to any of
them.

I don't think you have ever met Dr. Ed Hutchison. I and most other players consider him to be
the best low limit Omaha HiLo player in Mississippi. He has a Ph.D. in psychology. He is a
gentleman and a scholar. I've never seen him on tilt. His discipline is excellent. He combines
these strengths with his psychology based people reading skills to outplay everyone pre and
post-flop. It is like he can see the front and backs of cards and peer down into player's souls
at the same time.

I hope I haven't been too long winded in my COMMENT. Maybe you can see some insight
into why Doc's system worked for me and how it could work for some others. I don't think it
will work for everyone because most players don't have and don't want the discipline to use it
to take an exponential leap in learning starting hands.

Best wishes,

Frank "mredge" Bowen

Carthage, MS
 Cooperating in Poker

"I cannot do everything, but still I can do something."

-- Helen Keller

An important poker principal that is seldom discussed, and is in fact completely alien to most
players, is the concept of sharing. Most players function under the misguided notion that a
poker game is one against all, every man for himself. This greedy, self-centered approach
ignores the communal nature of the game.

Sharing is more obvious in High-Low Split games, where the best high hand splits the pot
with the best low hand. Usually a hand has to meet a qualifying requirement for low, so
sometimes the high hand will win the whole pot. Sometimes more than one player will
simultaneously have the identical best high or low hand, which leads to pots being
"quartered". High-Low games tend to be more profitable for good players than high or low-
only ones partly because most players are hopelessly greedy and oblivious to the concept of
sharing. High-Low tactics are to a large degree the science of ever-changing allegiances
between players that manipulates the betting.
Playing High-Low, you should always be thinking about the implications of sharing. You
want to play hands that will scoop whole pots rather than split pots because scooping is
not twice as good as splitting, it is considerably better than that. Scooping is where you
make your winnings, but winning a scooped pot is rare. You have to fill the time between
scoops with pots where you split. It's an exaggeration but not far off to say that winning
High-Low players break even by splitting, and win the money that they scoop.

It's no coincidence that most players don't understand sharing, and many players simply
can't handle the frustrations involved in High-Low poker. Since there are two ways to win,
it is fairly easy to have something. People will incorrectly play too many hands, incorrectly
share, steam and tilt because they are losing a lot of pots, and will fall short of that "break
even splitting" idea. Everyone will scoop pots. Winning players make their scoops their
profits, while losing players can't make up their losses in the split pots with their scoops.
So, while we want to play hands that tend to scoop, we need to work hard to play our
split pots at a breakeven pace.

Suppose you are in an Omaha8 hand, and as the second of four players you bet your nut
flush draw on the flop. The third player raises you, you reraise and everyone calls. On the
turn, it comes your flush, but no low. You bet again and only the third player and the first
call. On the river it comes a low card, and you have no low. Now the first player bets. You
have the nut high, but the correct play here will usually be to call, not raise. Ninety-five
percent of players will make a foolish raise here -- a raise that will run out the third player,
leading to splitting a smaller pot with the first player. The correct play is to share with the
low hand, and induce the third player to reluctantly call. You win a half bet by calling while
a greedy raise will win you nothing.

At the same time, assuming the first player has the nut low he made a mistake by betting.
He killed your action instead of sensibly sharing. He should have checked, let you bet,
gotten a call from the third player, then checkraised, then you would "share" and just call,
hoping to get an overcall from the third player. (On the other hand, if the first player has a
bad low, a bet will often makes sense because he knows most players will raise out the
third player who might have him beat.)

High-Low sharing in a nutshell is extracting the most you can from your losing opponents
in temporary cooperation with the player going the other way from you. Making the most
money will sometimes be the result of you betting less money!

But this is only scratching the surface of sharing. In all games, not just High-Low,
situations will arise where cooperative betting is the correct play. In multiway pots, some
players will commonly share the equity of a situation. In a seven-way pot, for example, it
will commonly be the case where two players have a positive expectation. To be
obvious about it, if these two players each have a 50% chance of winning the pot while
everybody else is drawing dead, the two should manipulate the betting so that they get
the most dead money into the pot as they can. It would be greedy and just plain stupid to
bet in such a way that leads to them sharing no dead money.

It's most clear in High-Low games, but in any poker game, while your poker money is
yours, proper playing is a never-ending merry-go-round of temporary betting allegiances
where you share equity, wagering tactics and positive expectation with other players at
your table.

See also Poker Greed and the Introduction to Omaha Strategy

 Omaha Poker

Thinking About How to Think About Omaha

> Badger wrote...
> > What matters is the probability of winning on the flop, not who is at the
> > moment in the lead. Even thinking in terms of "flopped hands" is an
> > incorrect concept in Omaha. The idea, usually, is about having a hand on
> > the river, and the probability of making that hand. Whether you flop a
> > made hand or a draw or a backdoor draw is irrelevant, what matters is
> > your prospects, your probabilities, of having the winning hand on the river.

mredge wrote...
> Once again Badger shows why his name is commonly near or at the top of
> tournament money lists. Omaha is a river game. The best hand is the one
> that wins when all the cards are on the table.

I know what you mean, but I think when other people call Omaha a "river game" they are
missing the point like those who talk about "flopped hands". The worst offenders wait to the
river to bet, until they know they are going to win (or lose). That's just not sensible or
profitable. Omaha is not a "river game", it is a game of preparation. You want to *have* the
hand on the river, not necessarily make it there.

Before the flop, you play hands that have a high expectation, you manipulate the pot size
before the flop if you can, you try to manipulate your opponents so when you have a hand
that plays well against fewer opponents you are playing against fewer opponents and when
you have a hand that plays well against a full field you are playing against a full field.

Then comes the flop. In Omaha the flop is critical. Not in some shortsighted "flopped hands"
way, but in how a player then can calculate the probabilities and deduce how favorable their
chances now are. Again here a player should be manipulating the pot -- get more chips in
when the odds very much favor you, try to minimize when you have a longer shot.

The turn is the least important aspect of Omaha but it is the end of the main math parts of
the game. In a loose game, you can pretty much calculate precisely your chances of winning
some or all of the pot.

Whether a player then makes or doesn't make their hand on the river really doesn't matter.
You do everything right mathematically up to this point, and lose to a one outer, fine, just do
the same things again and again. Omaha (and all the other games) is about the long-run.

But don't think what just happened was an aspect of a "river game". All the truly important
stuff is what happened before that river card bad-lucked against the math.

Put another way, if you are playing a coin flip game against a guy, and he says he'll give you
$5 for every time it comes up heads, but you have to give him $1 for every time it comes up
tails, and the coin or the flipping isn't rigged, it would be wrong to refer to this situation as "a
flip game." The key part of the game was in the pre-negotiation, not in the flip itself.
###

KK Double-Suited in Omaha8
Iceman wrote...
> After the flop, people aren't continuing with absolute trash.

Of course they do. All the time. That's what makes Omaha8 so mindlessly profitable. People
call bets from players with 20 outs, when they only have four outs, or less. Despite the
definite reverse profitability of schooling in Omaha8, players do it all the time.

> The more players in the hand (and the larger the pot on the flop), the more
> chance your set gets outdrawn.

And this is a good thing! C'mon, so a player calls a bet with a one card straight-flush draw. If
that player folded you would win the pot more often, but win less money. You shouldn't care
how often you lose a pot, only what your $ expectation should be over an extended period.

> This hand's profitability (which may well be negative in the best conditions)
> likely declines as the seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth player enter the pot.

Nonsense. The enemy of KK as top set, or any strong Omaha hand, is the first two callers.
On a flop of KQ7 for example, we are afraid of wrap draws. That's the first caller (or two, and
of course the more the better because they all have their own cards and are far less likely to
make the draw). Then we have open end straight draws. We are the favorite over those (and
all the rest of the draws). Next are back door flush draws. They win about 5% of the time.
Then we worry about backdoor straight draws around the seven. A very lame draw. Yes, the
8th or 9th player entering the pot may beat us with such a backdoor straight, but we welcome
their contribution to the pot! They are giving us money in the long run.

At the very worst, if we assume we don't win unless we fill up, and we don't fill up on the turn,
we will have 10 outs of the 44 possible cards, meaning we will fill up 23% of the time. Even if
we lose to quads the 3% part of that, that's still a 1 out of 5 win percentage, for a scoop,
getting 7, or 8, or 9 way action.

We **LOVE** those seventh, eighth and ninth players!

And then all this ignores our own backdoor values of the one card queen for a straight and
draws at two king high flushes. Especially the flush draws destroy some of the power of the
7th, 8th and 9th callers. The baby flush draws in our suits are contributing totally dead money
on that aspect of their hands.

Finally, the other thing about this hand is it is a good one to raise with (as a "vary your play"
play) in position if you get several limpers. People will tend to put a solid player on A23 or
something like that, giving you a little extra value when you do flop your hand, and an
occasional free card on flops like 47J.
---

Badger wrote ...

> > This question is KK, not QQ or JJ. The difference between these three
> > hands is very large -- something like the difference between (KK)=100 and
> > (QQ)= 40 and (JJ)=15.

Iceman wrote...
> It isn't as large as you think, since in a loose game you need to hit your set.

"Hitting a set" is a minor part of the relative value of KK QQ and JJ. KKK can win half the the
pot unimproved as the nuts reasonably often. QQQ can be the nuts in a tiny few ways. JJJ
can *never* be the nuts. KKK will be able to win unimproved more often than QQQ even
when there is a straight on board. With KK there is only one overpair, and only one type of
full house that beats it, aces full. QQ has to worry about KK and AA. JJ has to worry about
QQ KK and AA.

Flopping a set in Omaha usually is merely flopping a draw. Omaha is a game of nut draws.
KK has much less to worry about on a K92 or K72 flop than JJ has on a J92 or J72 flop.

The difference between KK and JJ is enormous both in terms or winning potential, and
amount won, since KK can drive the betting in a lot of pots that JJ can't -- like on a turn board
of KQQ7 versus a board of JQQ7. The difference between those two situations is, again,
enormous.

KK is a major Omaha holding. JJ is a minor one that should only be played in conjunction
with some stronger holding. KKxx will hold it's own in a loose game. JJxx will lose
significantly.

Badger wrote...
> > KKQ2 double suited is even better than what I posted on (only one suit).
> > This hand will scoop about 150% the amount of pots a random hand will
> > when played against a 9-handed field. (It'll scoop about 10% of the time,
> > and get half another 10% or so.)

Iceman wrote...
> Showdown simulations are basically worthless. Even in loose games,
> you aren't against totally random hands, and hands that miss the flop
> don't automatically go to the end.

In a loose, basically typical, Omaha game, you *are* against literal random hands. Omaha
simulations are much more accurate reflections of reality than Holdem ones. Also, KKQ2
double suited actually gets *better* if you assume many players are in a pot, and not playing
random hands -- the likelihood is that Aces and baby cards are out disproportionately.

> (And you don't stick around in many cases where your hand would hit
> backdoor outs). The question is also how much a hand wins when it wins and
> loses when it loses. When you flop a set in a pot that was unraised preflop
> and there is only one low card on board, you get won't much action.

Two replies to this... 1) you will always get action on a KQ7 flop; 2) more importantly, who
cares about action?! Take the pot and be glad. If I can win 8 bets on a KQ7 flop, I'll gladly
take them! Since you flop a set in the neighborhood of once in eight times, just playing for
this minimal result is not a revenue loss. Of course, in the real world you will normally get
significant action, and the KK will be the favorite over a field, and will only ever be much of a
dog in the rare instance of being headup against a hand like As2sJdTd.

Certainly when the first card of a flop is a K, KK will have a positive expectation in a typical
Omaha hand. So, if you are getting six/seven/eight to one odds on it, KK is good on it's own.
And the hand we are discussing has significant strengths in addition to *just* the KK.

> You'll only get significant action when low cards hit the board and on many of
> those hands you'll lose to flushes or low straights or at least only get half the pot.
If you don't have a made top full house, or an uncounterfeitable nut low with redraws, who
cares about, or wants, "action" in Omaha? So you lose the whole pot sometimes, and half the
pot other times? If you are getting six way action, and losing half the time, you are still
making a lot of money. An Omaha player shouldn't be concerned about losing pots. That's
defeatist tunnelvision. An Omaha player should be concerned with getting money in with the
best of it time and time and time again, and then letting the math take care of things in the
long-run. You just can't turn down a hand that scoops at such a high rate.

> It scoops small pots and loses ones that cost it several bets. Expert players
> do turn down hands like this, for the reasons I stated. Low draws and suited
> aces benefit from multiway action, while hands like this don't play well
> against large fields.

"Experts" can play some hands average players can not, but this not an example of that. Low
draws and suited aces do prefer multiway obviously. They are good hands. But KsKdQs2d
loves a big field! The hand should be mucked with only one or two opponents. (Oh, and
scooping a small pot sure is generally better than splitting a midsize pot!)
###

How to Read the Value of Low Omaha Hands

The lowest/best possible hand is a 54321. Or 54,321.
The highest/worst possible qualifying low hand is 87654. Or 87,654.
Read your low hand as a number, starting with the highest card and work down.
The player with the hand/number closest to 54,321 wins.
###

Low Limit Omaha vs. Texas Hold'em

ddaverodgers wrote...
> Assuming the most important strategy decision is game selection
> (which I personally believe), are lower limit Omaha games typically
> more fishy than holdem or stud?

Bad players have virtually no chance to beat Omaha over any meaningful period of time, but
they can win big pots, and have really good sessions. This is true of Holdem too but to a
much smaller degree because Holdem edges are generally small in loose games. Weak
Holdem players can school together and get pot odds and therefore not be playing so bad, or
as bad. On the other hand, there is no parallel schooling phenomenon in Omaha. In Omaha,
it is very often the case to have five players drawing stone cold dead and for two players to
have all the outs between them (for example, on the turn the nut flush and the top set are the
only live hands, and five other players with two pairs and baby flushes are drawing dead).

Omaha is a game of massive edges, Holdem is a game of smallish edges. Low limit Omaha
games are the easiest poker games to beat -- if you play properly. Most players do not have
the ability, or more important, the desire to play properly in the low limit Omaha games. If you
are just concerned about money and proper game selection though, Omaha is the place to
play because it is cheaper (less bankroll), more profitable (higher hourly win rates) and has
weaker players playing much more poorly. It's deadly dull tho.
###

Omaha decision-making
Folding Pete wrote...
> Before the flop. Obviously you are told that you should play four
> coordinated cards before the flop (with an Ace yada yada yada).
> These don't arrive very often (four high cards seem more frequent).
> In Ray Zee's books he also recommends playing A2xx if the game is
> loose. How tight should you play in these games? I play a lot of three
> or two legged horses. In late position I will probably play A2xx, KKxx,
> A34x and possibly AAxx (XX being crud). In early position I will throw
> away all of the above except maybe A34x. High cards I will play any four,
> ten or above, in any position. In mid position I will play A26x. Is this
> too tight or too loose? After calling a bet I won't fold to a single raise.

If as you describe your game 50% of the people take the flop every time I can't imagine why
you would fold any of those hands for one bet, ever (except the worst KKxx's in early
position). And the "four cards working together" idea is just nonsense, A2KQ is a fine hand).

> I have heard two different opinions on whether raising before the
> flop is right or wrong. Some people say it is a drawing game and raising
> merely adds to your fluctuation whilst adding little to your profit (Ray Zee).

Ray is not writing about these kind of games and the sooner people realize that the better. If
you play a game where the best two hands dealt plus the big blind are the ones seeing the
flop every time, raising brings a little profit at the random-hand big blind's expense, but it's
nothing to get worked up over. But if five players are commonly taking the flop, this is where
your clearest profit is in Omaha. This is why low limit or loose game Omaha is mindlessly
profitable, winning extra bets preflop from hands that are serious dogs.

> Raising also earmarks you as holding AA or A2.

It sure the heck shouldn't!!

> Badger says that you should punish the bad players by raising preflop a lot.
> At the moment I would tend to raise with hands A26x suited, A25x and better.
> I will only raise in late position for value against two or more limpers. One other
> advantage is that you may buy the button. Again is this profitable?

What is profitable is getting more money in the pot when you have the best of it, both in
actual winning expectation and in terms of the implied betting.

> On the flop if it is checked to me in late position I tend to bet if

> I have the nut low draw (even A2xx) only.

Ick. Free draws for the half or one-quarter of the pot should be welcomed with open arms.

> I think it was Buzz who said that the money is made in Omaha on the turn.
> I think this is correct.

It may be true for some players but it sure shouldn't be in loose games. Make your money
before the flop, make it on the flop. On the turn you make money from people drawing dead
and drawing slim, but these opportunities are more rare than the VERY common situation of
having way the best of it before the flop.

> This brings me to my next point regarding nut lows (without

> counterfeit protection) on the turn. Do you jam? How many players
> do you need to jam? Obviously you may get an inkling if another player
> has the same hand. Badger in general says not to worry
> unduly about being quartered.

Yes, you should not be overly worried about it, but if you only have a low with no protection,
why are you liking your hand at all? If there are six players, then you wouldn't be thinking
about getting quartered in any case. If there are two opponents, you are hardly making any
money in the best case (winning a half bet for each bet you make). If you have a draw or shot
at the high, then let's go. But a naked low isn't much of a hand, even if it is the nuts.

> Outs. I play two [online] tables at a time so I don't go into any great
> depth in calculating outs in the hand. I need to tighten up on this.

Omaha is all about outs. If you aren't doing that, then playing two tables is foolish for you.

> Calling a raise in the blinds. Some have said you should loosen up
> considerably in the blinds but how loose? I would have to think about
> calling with A3xx. I would probably fold AAxx as I would assume the
> raiser had an ace (unless shorthanded).

Ick. There are no monsters under the bed.

###

What Do They Have?

Lee Munzer wrote...
> I think I had the barest minimum requirement to play this hand
> and wouldn't argue with anyone who said, "Muck it."

You playing in a game using wild cards? Mucking this hand is terrible.

> Raising with this weak hand from my position with these
> opponents would be incorrect.

C'mon. What do you think the other players have? Unless you are up against some rare
situation, you have the best hand. Folding is pitiful. Calling is weak. Raising is the correct
play. You can sum up why Omaha games are so profitable simply by realizing that most
players would rather play 2347 in this situation than AAT9. And God bless them.

> Dry aces can be real drainers in O/8 and should be mucked frequently, played
> carefully occasionally, and sometimes aggressively -- if many fold and you
> have late position. Thinking about dry aces conceptually, start by comparing
> the hand to the premier hold'em hand (A-A) and then *severely* downgrade
> it because your opponents may have six coordinated two card hands
> that could beat you for high and/or take half the pot with their low (there
> will be a low board 6 out of 10 hands). So, often you will be put in the
> position you usually don't want to be in ... calling for a card that will
> deliver only half the pot. I say "usually" because in loose, passive games
> you may be getting the right pot odds to fight for half the pot.

So in this vortex your opponents are never in a position "calling for a card that will deliver only
half the pot"? How do you come to this upside down thinking? You should know what
percentage of the time a low is even possible, and then you should have some idea about
how often a low is possible on the river that it isn't made by the turn. And then you should
have some idea about how often ace-less low drawers will have to muck their 23 draw on the
turn (and if they don't, how great that is for you in general).
Don't fixate on your own cards. There are plenty of better hands than this one, but they
seldom are in play when this hand is in play. There aren't a bunch of wild cards in the deck. If
you have five or six opponents, fine. If you end up with just the two limpers in front of you,
you have either slightly the best of it or way the best of it if you have a 2347 sucker in the pot.

> I think the other players have the type of stuff low limit Omaha players
> call raises with ... ugly stuff like 2d-4d-5c-7s and Js-10h-9h-9d and
> A-3-6-J double suited -- even worse from the BB. I realize I'm the high
> only favorite over any of their prospective hands, but, (I hate to give
> Badger the following info) Omaha is a game of scoops! 60% of the time a low
> will be possible. 40% of the time I will scoop the pot with my unimproved aces.

This is one of the exceptions. You choose to dominate the T9 by giving a player T99 (plus a
jack). This takes a lot of scoops away from the AAT9 and turns them into splits, as well as
crippling the pair value of the T9.

You want to play this hand against "good hands" and low garbage. You prefer people playing
total crap like J987 to fold. These players lose money by playing, but they hurt the AA9T and
help the suited and low hands. We prefer to thin the field to get the bricks on our side. The
hand does better against *good* hands than against random hands, similar to how you would
rather play 7s6s against AdAc instead of playing the normally "good" hand of AhKc. Still,
even if the crap hands come in, we have a bettable and scoopable hand.

Raising is important to try and get the preferable situation of isolating against the normally
"good" hands that play poorly against AA. If the junk hands come, it's not as good but still
okay. Looking at the flop cheaply is backwards. More specifically, most players like to play
low cards in raised pots. We want to play against all the low card hands, but not the big (or
middle) card hands.

> It's not a matter of being fixated on the four cards as much as being
> asphyxiated by the variety of hands and flops that place A-A-10-9 in
> tenuous positions.

What difference does that make? Again, don't fixate on your cards. If your opponents are in
worse shape than you, this is good, not a problem. You need to look at how the group of your
opponents hands play in a hand including your hand. Three way action, five way action,
whatever, create hands and situations, simulate them or don't. Just don't fixate on one hand
and not think about the opponents' hands. You need to think about the garbage the other
players are holding while putting money into a pot.

Some people think "woe is me" when they have QQ in loose Holdem games. Yes, you lose a
lot of the time, but your hand has a positive expectation. Mucking it because often you "don't
know where you are" is simply terrible poker. Fixating on the weaknesses of your own hand
is missing the point that 75o, 24s and the other hands have a helluva lot more weaknesses
than QQ.

> It is not ludicrous to state, "Tenuous positions cost you money.

> Not knowing where you're at costs you money."

I'm sorry, it is ludicrous. The QQ example should have made that clear. Knowing where you
are is not a "costs you money" thing. You can "know where you are" when you flop quads,
and that can hurt you. If other players "don't know where they are" either, then where is this
mythical money going that every player is being "cost"?
---

sloshr wrote...
> In the Southern California 3/6 Omaha8 games I have seen, most weakies will
> call ANY number of bets preflop with any pair, 23xx, 24xx, 34xx, and other
> garbage, so raising won't get the desired result of getting these hands out.

Don't misunderstand. Raising and getting them out can be preferable to them calling a raise,
but raising and having them call can still be preferable to not raising and having them call.

It's a matter of degrees. Ideally you want to raise and play against the hands that play the
absolute worst against you, whatever they are. Just because some hand also calls that
lowers your expectation doesn't mean raising was wrong. It will often still be better than
calling. You can't shoot that guy and make him not call.
 Omaha Strategy Tips

Raising Before the Flop in Omaha8

> John wrote...
> > I know people who never raise pre-flop and they do very well at O8.
Sean Duffy replied...
> It's possible to do very well with a major leak in your game.

Mary can still win if she never raises before the flop if she plays good starting hands and
very well post-flop -- and her opponents are absolute dopes. But never raising before the
flop is a sign of a bad poker player. If that bad player plays with *worse* players, then that
bad player can still win. Omaha is to a large degree about starting hands. To state the
obvious, starting hands exist before the flop. Putting in more money when you have a
good starting hand and when your opponents have crappy ones is basic Omaha8.

Some people don't think starting hands matter in Omaha8, and God bless them. Also,
many mediocre players who do understand Omaha is about starting hands don't "get"
that starting hands only exist before the flop. If most of Omaha is starting hands, then
aggressively betting your hands before the flop should be an obvious conclusion.

Sean Duffy wrote...

> In a typical low limit game I think failing to raise before the flop is a huge error.

To say the least. I don't expect to get a hand this good (AA45 double-suited) in any hour I
play online, or two in a casino.

> Your low possibilities aren't great, but who wants to win half a pot?

Low strength is half pot strength. It's not the reason to play a hand. The low strength of AA45
is underrated though. It's as if people think there are a jillion low cards out there... if it comes
an Ace, fine. If it comes 876, ok. If it comes either a deuce or a three, fine. What is the
problem? If it comes 874, fine, muck if you want.

What does anybody out there who doesn't want to raise think those three limpers... or
*anybody*... has that is better than AA45? The reasons to raise are many, starting with you
have a much better hand than at least 2/3 of the current opposition, and including that you
want to at least *try* to get rid of 23. Of course anytime a sucker wants to call a raise with 23
that is fine too. And if you got a sissy willing to muck A3, that's fine too.

It wasn't clear to me that Tony was asking about As4sAd5d, but if he was, in a nine-handed
showdown simulation (10,000 hands) this hand scoops 1187 of the time, gets high 2219, and
gets low (including scoops when there is no low) 2970. The random hands win something like
465/975/890. These are just showdown numbers, but it should show this is a fine hand.

A lot of players seem to think that to bet one bet you need a hand of X value, but to raise you
need a hand of 5X value. They also seem to not think about what the other players have.
###
Monsters Under the Omaha Bed
Lee Munzer wrote...
> In the low limit games, approximately 1/2 my opponents will only raise with
> premium ace type hands, thus I can find better places to invest my money
> than to call or reraise with AA76.

You are making the argument that you would fold AK in a Holdem game because two
opponents raise with AQ. AA76 becomes much better because of the two raises. In fact this
is *ideal*. Your hand almost certainly dominates both opponents. There just are almost no
better Omaha8 situations than this.

> What I've found is unless someone like you or Men "The Master" is
> playing in my low limit Omaha8 game, when two players raise, I can
> read at least one of these duel raisers for a premium (ace containing)
> hand -- if not both more readily and confidently than I can isolate raising
> hands in low limit HE, where, for example, two early raisers can hold 99
> and QQ. Thus, the AK is "live".

You are making my point. If both players have an ace, both are in deep crap against you.
You, like most people, seem to look at your hand and somehow don't seem to think about
what the other players have. What four cards are you giving these two players that make
AA67 double suited a dog? If both have an ace, our hand is very dominating. This is good.
This is what you want. You want to have AA against two players with dead cards in their
hands. The one confrontation you fear is something like AA45 and KKQQ. But, if both players
have an ace, say As2s3h4h and Ac2cKdKh, we beat the tar out of them. Also, there are the
two blinds to chop up. You can manufacture scenarios where we are in trouble, but there are
very few, and even the worst case isn't awful.

AA67 double suited LOVES to play against two raising hands *because* they have aces.
This is a good thing. I guess you didn't get the Holdem example. Here is it more obviously:
when you have AA in Holdem, you love to play against a raiser with AQ and a reraiser with
AK. It is not bad at all for you that both opponents have aces. It is terrible for them.
---

Lee Munzer wrote...

> Badger please run "Poker Probe" on:
> As2s3h4h
> Ac2cKdKh
> Ah7hAd6d
> I'd take a wild guess at something like 34%-27%-39% (respectively).

Hand scoops high shares low share percentage

A234 12,985 23,616 37,866 30.74
A2KK 19,690 28,699 35,628 32.16
AA76 25,603 47,686 26,507 37.10

> In the quiz example it's not clear whether there will be three, or perhaps,
> four/five players taking the flop. Yes, if two opponents hold hands like As2s3h4h
> and Ac2cKdKh and they are your only two opponents, I like Ah7hAd6d.
> So, you're right! If I'm close, you'll make approximately
> 18% on every dollar you invest.

You should love this hand in the situation you weren't liking it... against two quality hands that
typical players would raise and reraise with. In the 100,000 hands above, it wins in half of
them. The other two hands get clobbered since their "low shares" are quartered except those
times it comes a deuce. The Probe percentages can be misleading if you don't recognize that
the low shares are commonly money-losing shares.

> Now, let's "devil advocate" the situation to see how much of a favorite
> we are when there are five players (the other two defend blinds with
> Jc10c9d7d and KsQs8h8d). I realize there is a good chance a reasonable
> player would muck these blind hands in the face of heavy raising.

Another thing to consider in plugging these probe numbers in is, yes if you add a hand like
the JT97 that happens to have a richly favorable deck available, that crap hand now can
becomes a favorite. And, the JT97 gets most of it's value at the expense of the AA76
because it gets scoops and high shares of the pot.

But before people start running to play this crap though, they need to consider that if their
crap is not taking up virgin territory -- for instance, if the AKK2 was AJT2 -- the crap hand is
pitiful. AA wants these randomish crap hands out. If they play, they might have the best of it,
but they might be enormous dogs.

You can tweak these hands many ways... turn the AKK2 into AK23 or AKQJ or whatever....
and then add randomish hands and get wildly different Probe results, some of which make
the AA67 much worse, some make it better.

I think though you have to look at this mostly from two perspectives. First, the AA67 loves the
confrontation with two good hands. Second, AA67 double-suited would LOVE to play against
a whole field of random hands every time. A less important thing is the AA67 can face some
situations where it isn't nearly as good, or even any good at all. To oversimplify it, the AA67 is
a bit like QQ in Holdem. You almost always just play it and have a solid expectation, but once
in awhile you are a dog (though the AA67 double-suited will never be as big a dog as QQ will
be to AA or KK).
---

Jonathan Kaplan wrote...

> Does the dominance (three-handed) of Ah7hAd6d over As2s3h4h and
> Ac2cKdKh require BOTH other hands to have A2 exactly? What if the 2c
> was the 3c, how much difference does that one change create?

I don't see that making a difference. The AA67 was getting low about 1% of the time, when it
came a 3, a 4 and one of the two remaining deuces. If you change one of the deuces to a 3,
it just makes one of the two other hands worse, and doesn't hurt or help the AA67 any
(except that when there are two ace deuces, rather than an A2 and an A3, there is going to
be a bit more betting for the AA67 to have to face).

> Of probable played opponent hands, do you feel that the AA67 hand
> will "get better" a larger or smaller part of the time, or stay about the
> same, in an "average" $10/20 Omaha8 game? If the word "average",
> or the limit specificity means anything. (Just curious how much variance
> there is going to be, if one can't specifically conclude that the opponents
> hold two such pretty hands, simultaneously.)

If two players hold such pretty hands, I would imagine adding any more players would hurt
the AA67 -- except players with KKxx and 2345 hands. The configuration of the Aces really
hurts the A234 and AK22 against the AA67, but with more players in the pot than this, the
AA67 is hurt by both aces being dead. ANOTHER consideration though is, any player who
would jump in cold for four bets with any hand except four picture cards is likely to be such a
very poor player that even though his hand is in good shape with a rich deck, he is likely to
play the situation rottenly.
###

Omaha HiLo Issues

If your Omaha edges are usually only small, you are playing too many hands. I think it was
Sean Duffy who wrote that playing Omaha8 becomes tolerable online because the game is
so much faster. I think this is an excellent observation.

Spencer Sun wrote...

> He certainly has calling odds on the turn, but I'm not sure about betting.
> If last to act (i.e. "only" 5 opponents) I'd be inclined to take the free card.
> The flush is only good for half the pot, and while A3 might be good and
> a deuce might come, I don't think that's enough to bet for value.

There are a few reasons why betting is likely right. Most important, players in this game are
horrible. They are capable of making a ton of errors when someone bets (that they can't
make for a check). For example: A dry A2 might checkraise, driving out straights that have
Sean tied... A nut straight might checkraise, driving out any other A3, giving Sean a terrific
freeroll... A bet might freeze an A2, whereas a a check will bring the A2 to life on the river.

Sean's bet is correct because of what actually happened: he got to see the showdown, with a
decent hand and a nut draw, for one single bet (with the option to have bet the river if he
made his hand). If he checks the turn, there will almost certainly be one or two bets on the
river, which he should call both because the players pay so horrible and because the high
hand is so easy to make and be bet.

Bets like this on the turn make money even when he loses. He saves bets when he misses
his hand, but makes quite a bit more when he makes his hand. This is the type of hand I love
to say thank you for online. To oversimplify it, any time I got (a losing) second nut low on the
river and it's checked around, this is a good thing.
---

Edward Hutchison wrote...

> I did make a quick check of AA76 (where both aces are suited) using
> Mike Caro's Poker Probe and found that the hand has a win rate of
> about 16-17% in a ten handed Monte-Carlo simulation. As the cut-off
> for play under my system is 15%, this hand would qualify for play.
> I will, therefore, give the matter some study and at the risk of complicating
> the system I will amend the posted version (again) making some minor
> award for the A-6 combination.

It's not a flaw exactly, but an inevitable problem with something like Poker Probe is assigning
winning percentages in HiLo split games. I just ran this hand, and it's assigned a win
percentage of 17.05%. In a run of ten random hands they would each get a value of 10%. So
17% is way above average.

But what does that 17% represent? In 10,000 trials it's 774 scoops, with 2124 hi shares and
1286 low shares. (When a player scoops and there is no low, the program still assigns the
low share as won by the scooper.) The average statistics for the hands are 458 scoops, 904
high shares, 868 low shares.

What people should be taking out of these numbers is against a full field of players going to
the river, the hand scoops the pot 7.74% of the time.

AsJsAdTd is either the best pure high Omaha hand or the second best (after AsAdKsKd),
depending on how you measure things. This hand scoops at almost the same rate as
As6s7dAd. *And* given that AA76 can often also win low, it's win percentage is then higher
than AsJsAdTd, which clocks in at about 15.42%.

Scooping is how you win money in HiLo games. AsAd6s7d is an absolute powerhouse in any
sort of game, especially very loose or very tight ones. I don't see it as at all "close".

And it's a much better hand than As2d3c4h, which scoops a pitiful 3.28% of the time, but has
a win percentage of 24.3%. The win percentage number is not the important one.
###

Online Omaha Games

plplaya wrote...
> I sat down in a paradise 5-10 Omaha8 game this morning and the average
> pot was $50, with flops seems at 35%, would you sit down at this game?

Gleefully.

> I have never seen an Omaha game this bad!

Why do you call it bad? It's nearly ideal.

> It was like playing mid-limit Holdem where post flop is almost always a
> heads up or 3 way situation. I got A2Q3 double suited on the big blind
> hoping to raise it up, and everyone folded to me!!! I left after the only
> chaser/fish I could identify got busted.

Fish come in different forms, and the chaser isn't even the preferred.

> Am I correct in a assuming this is an unbeatable type of Omaha game?

> When does an limit Omaha8 game become unbeatable?

If you can't beat this game for a LOT, your Omaha game blows chunks, period. Again, these
games are almost ideal. A bunch of passive players who misplay 80% of the hands they play,
plus one or two loose "play crap cards" liveones.

> When I play California limit Omaha, it's always 7 way action preflop,
> with 5 seeing the river (an impossible game to lose long term at).
> I never have encountered a game like today's 5-10 at paradise.

The California games are fine too, but they are looser and more aggressive. Bad players
include chasers and aggressive bettors, but very few pansies. The online Omaha games
have some of the most passive, weirdly backward-playing just awful players that God saw fit
to create. The betting strategy employed by most of these players is as bad conceptual poker
as I've ever seen.

These games are very different than California games, and it can be a jarring thing to see,
but they are much softer (I know that sounds impossible), have absurdly low variance, and
are extremely profitable. The Paradise 3/6 is only a middling game (usually), but every other
limit at the online cardrooms I've played at offers about the best earn I've seen in any limit
games I've ever played in. Of course, you have to play properly, but that is a different issue.

Stephen Jacobs wrote...

> I'm real interested in what playing Omaha properly means. I gather
> from your posts that the first factor is playing the correct starting hands,
> with absolutely no compromise (that should be no more than 1 voluntary
> flop in 2 circuits).

Not at all. Online Omaha games offer the opportunity to push the envelope of playable
hands. Given the passivity of the games, if you play a little under 1.5 hands a round in the
blinds (usually getting a free ride in the big blind) and a little over 1.5 hands a round outside
the blinds, you are doing just fine.

> Even then, you seem to recommend mucking if anyone else might plausibly
> have liked the flop more than you do. I get the impression that you like to play
> straightforwardly when you do play, but I don't remember anything specific.

There is a big difference between the sort of loose California games the original poster
described, where the game mostly is "the best hand wins" and online games where if you say
"boo" half the players fold hands that should not be folded. Straightforward play should not be
used online (usually). Most players are clueless about the action, in large part because many
are playing two games, so it is important to not be obvious in your actions. In other words,
loose-aggressive game Omaha is very different than tight-passive game Omaha.

> So let's try an example: AQQT (suited once--you're invited to comment on

> where the A vs non-A suit makes a difference) in late-middle position with
> an early limper. Raise, fold or call?

Normally I'd call. I want players. I would raise specific players and situations. Folding is silly.

> You see the flop with those cards 3-handed. Comes A97 rainbow,
> one of your suit. Checked to you (we're giving you weird passive
> opponents). What's the plan?

Check.

> Might you ever continue against an A86 flop?

Almost certainly not, not in such a small pot.

> I'm probably your ideal victim now, but I want to learn.

An ideal victim sends money directly via PayPal.... :)

---

plplaya wrote...
> Which is then?

Are you asking what is an unbeatable game or the preferred fish? People who fold when they
are getting excellent odds to call or raise are preferred to opponents who chase with marginal
pot odds. People who raise and bet idiotic draws head-up (like raising one player with 2347
offsuit on a As8Js flop) are better to play against than those who call with that hand.

> I just had never seen an Omaha game that tight.

> What adjustments should I make to beat it?

Think of AK more in terms of its Holdem value than its value in a loose Omaha game.

> In this game, since people would call preflop raises, I raised when I could
> with good hands, normally I limp along like everyone else in the CA style
> game as to not raise suspicion of an A23 being out. I want the A-3, and 23
> calling me on the turn and river.

A23 hands are rare so aren't a terribly important aspect of the game.
Omaha Starting Hands
 Omaha HiLo Starting Hands
HrgSmes wrote...
> Question came up in connection with a tightening up and improvement
> of my Omaha 8 game, consequent -- don't know if you read the post -- to my
> using TJ Cloutier's strategies in his Omaha book, and articulating these with
> my discovery that the Turbo Omaha8 program... count strategies for RERAISED
> hands only, give you a good approach to the game. Cloutier suggests always
> having a backup card to A 2 and A 3, including the 6, but his approach to A 4
> and A 5 isn't as clear as it should be.

Focusing on hands without a game texture is not a very good idea. For example, AK54 is
a terrific reraising hand in a tight game, and a solidly profitable hand in a loose game, but
it is in trouble in a game right smack in the middle of those two.

A54 is a uniquely strong Omaha holding in that if *any* low is made, especially flopped,
your hand going to be well-integrated with the board. This is not true of A24, or A25 or
even A35. These hands have greater low strength, but they have a tougher time making
a hand that scoops the pot. It's no coincidence that a lot of people like Holdem hands like
54 or 56 or 53 or 57. A five is a very good card in flop game poker, especially in Hilo split.
 Omaha8 Starting Hands and Point Count Systems
Ken Kubey wrote...
> Pairs 88 thru 33 should have a negative value attached.

A233, A244, A255, A288.... these are terrific hands, and feature examples of holdings
that have no value on their own (88 say) but can add tremendously to the value of
another seemingly unrelated independent holding (A2 for example).

Omaha is a game where a hand consists of four cards. Point count systems that value
two card holdings can sometimes correctly discern the approximate value of a hand, but
they are missing the point of the game. Hands do not work that way. Players should not
think about hands that way. Values within a hand are not independent, and it's a
fundamental mistake to think they are.

Ken Kubey wrote...

> In your 'terrific' hands' examples you include A288. I'm struggling to see the
> value of what appear to be uncoordinated 8's. The 5's and 4's I can see have
> possible low+straight+set-making value. Could you explain?

If A2 is going to be any good, there needs to be a combination of at least three different

cards 3,4,5,6,7,8. Any of these combos that includes an 8 should be obviously please.
Any of these combos that do not include an 8, make two eights an overpair to at least
3/5ths of the board, which if you manipulate the pot properly will often be able to win
high.

The reason to play A2 is not because A2 is such a super great hand. It is a profitable
holding on it's own, but you play A2 so that you can essentially get a freeroll on the other
two cards in your hand. In the case of A288, there will be a lot of flops where you can
really drive the action multiway, even besides the obvious ones like 873. Flops like like
987, Ks8s3s, 447, 369... boards where betting A2 would make no sense, now become
betting hands with the 88. The 88 is not a holding that is going to be super useful very
often, but when it is, it will usually come into play in a big pot where you are getting way
the best of it.

###

Pre-Flop Omaha HiLo Play

Panama wrote...
> Ah, nice to see that this lunacy isn't restricted to the low-limit
> Omaha8 Paradise games. A question, Badger: I've been playing
> O8 down there for a while now and love the game, but I'm making
> really slow progress money-wise. The reason seems to be that it's
> *very* hard to scoop unless I back into a nut high with no low possible.

Ace-baby-suited, plus pot manipulation so that you get people to fold on the end when you
represent a hand you don't have. That only happens rarely in low limit but one half a pot a
day is quite a lot of money. But see below...

> The reason for *that* seems to be that players stay in with almost any 4 cards,
> so somebody will probably get their high hit pretty hard by the board, meaning
> I'm usually fighting for the low half and often being quartered there.
If you have tons of players, getting quartered is still profitable, and all you have to do is hit
your flush draw or gut shot straight draw on rare occasion to make a dandy hit. But see
below...

> e.g. if the board allows a low with, say, 874, someone in those family pots
> is almost guaranteed to have stuff like K965

Fine. See below.

> Just keep grinding with respectable hands, or play even tighter?

I don't like the word tighter here because that is misleading. You want to play suited aces,
and you really want them with good other cards. But still see below...

> Also, reading McEvoy and Cloutier's Omaha book I noticed the part where they
> say "no Omaha hand is worth an initial raise". This makes sense to me as you
> don't have a hand till you see the flop. Do you agree with them?

I believe that is in their Pot Limit book. It's totally wrong for the type of game online. You
should be raising with *most* of the hands you play. THAT is where you make your money in
loose Omaha8 games. You want to charge all the players who have hands like K965. Sure,
one of the five of them might split the pot with you, but the other ones contributed to that pot.
Aside from playing good starting cards, there is simply no better game tactic for loose
Omaha8 games than commonly/sensibly raising before the flop. First under the gun with
A225, hell no don't raise, but after two limpers, absolutely raise.

Omaha8 is starting hands. Starting hands exist before the flop. That is where you get
enormous edges in the game against a field. On the turn you'll get plenty of times where
some players are even drawing dead, and that is clearly the juiciest money in the game, but
the simplest, most direct, most necessary way to beat these games is to get more money in
the pot when you have A255 and several of your opponents have hands like K965.
###

Omaha HiLo Hand Selection

John Silveira wrote...
> Badger,
> 1) What hands an O8 beginner should consider playing when defending the BB.
> 2) What hands to consider playing when completing the SB and which hands to
> to consider playing when there's one raise.

Game liveliness makes a big difference, but as for a raise when you are in the small blind,
basically you should play whatever hands that you would play on the button. In my normal
game there isn't any hand that I would add in the small blind that I wouldn't play on the button
for two bets. (Unless when you say "defending" the big blind you mean head-up. That's a
different story than multiway.)

> I call one raise (only) if I'm the Big Blind with at least three high cards
> (ten to Ace, no trips, of course) and I'll complete the Small Blind with
> the same hand. It's the possibility of the high straight or a high full
> house along with the times two high pairs just win that I'm looking for.
> Naturally, the hand is always better when it also contains a flush possibility.

You should be mucking these that don't have an ace at least until you become more sure of
yourself.

> I'll play four to a middle-size straight or three to a middle-size straight

> that has a pair, from the blinds to either call one bet in the Big Blind or
> complete the Small Blind.

These are always crap. Muck them.

> I'll complete the SB or defend the BB with any A3 or 23 or an A4 where

> the Ace is suited. And, of course, I'll play any low hands I consider
> better than these.

23 is the hand that costs inexperienced players the most money. It shouldn't be the worst
hand in Omaha, but for most players it probably is.
---

Ed Canuck wrote...
> I understand that you don't have a lot of use for point count systems
> in Omaha8, primarily because you feel that the entire hand should be
> treated as a coordinated unit, not just combinations of 2 cards. It seems
> to me that the Hutchison system tries to take this into account and does a
> pretty good job. Could you give some examples of opening hands that you
> feel the system either undervalues or overvalues and your reasoning?

Undervalues.... As6sAd7d. This was discussed earlier this year. See the January RGP Posts
page. As for overvalues, in the hands of most players, a naked 23 should be rated a negative
value, certainly not positive. I believe more money is lost on that holding than any other.

> What would constitute your minimum calling hand with 23 in an unraised pot?

For most players... outside the blinds... nothing. I'd play 2s3s4c5c most of the time, and in a
really loose passive game it would be okay for most players, but as a general rule 23 should
just be mucked. It *should* be profitable in many players hands when it comes with a 4, 5 or
is double suited, but I would guess probably isn't, because most players won't play it well
after the flop.
---

mph wrote...
> Barf. KK9Tds makes a bunch of non nut hands. In a full ring you almost
> have to have the A of your suit land in order to be able to push this hand.
> Otherwise your going to be winning little halfs and losing big halfs.
> Cheap in this case should mean your happily rapping in the big blind
> or a post. I can't find my poker probe disk at the moment but I highly
> doubt KK9Tds even wins its fair share. Anybody got a simulator handy
> to run the showdown numbers?

Just ran KsKdTs9d in a 100,000 hand, nine-handed, no foldem simulation on Poker Probe.
The hand scooped 9073 times. It won high in a split another 12,762 times. With this hand in
the field, the random hands were able to scoop in the 3200 neighborhood. The is a HUGE
hand in this situation. It gets a piece of the pot about 21.8% of the time nine-handed. (I'm not
sure how Poker Probe allocates 1/4 pots.)

Few players recognize the strength of KK in loose Omaha games. Pass the barf over here.
Unlike most other strong Omaha hands though, it is very dependent on the flop, and in a tight
game it's crap. A similar hand, AAT9 double suited scooped 7729 times, and won half
another 15,999 times.... getting a piece 23.7%.
---

MGOZ wrote...
> I recently read your Omaha Poker Strategy and have since started
> playing the micro limits at Paradise. I was wondering where I can get
> more insight into starting hand selection (not a chart, I know how much
> you love them) as well as the deeper intricacies of the game. Just to let
> you know I thought you Omaha intro was amazingly informative and has
> helped me play some real solid omaha8 (for a newbie). I'm curious about
> your view of a hand like As9s3d4h, is this playable, hands like this confuse
> me a bit but I think they are playable am I a fool or on track to making
> some headway as Omaha player.

Since your thread title mentioned Holdem, I assume you come to Omaha from a Holdem
background so you likely may not appreciate the intricacies of low-hand poker. You play a
little while and you'll get that though. At Paradise micro-limits, hands like you describe can
safely be played for one or two bets any time. Even if this hand is not the best one out there,
probably three people are in each pot with very poor hands. Take-the-flop percentages in
these games usually are between 45 and 55%.

If you approach the flop with caution with a hand like this, against four opponents, and then
play post-flop correctly, the hand will do great. This hand gets people into trouble if they play
poorly post-flop (like calling two bets with a AK7 flop). A big bunch of the starting hands you
will want to play in Omaha don't take that much sense to play post-flop. This group of more
speculative hands should just be viewed as needing to hit the flop more squarely. If you don't
wildly chase when you are drawing slim, this hand is the sort of hand a newbie should be
learning how to play. It would be nicely profitable for an excellent player in these games, and
newbies should be learning how to get to that point.
###

Rate an Omaha8 Hand

Dreadz11 wrote...
> A couple of weeks ago there was a thread on here where Badger
> and some others were saying AQ88 suited was a payable hand.
> Part of the argument was that Badger believed flopping trip 8s
> gave you a good hand. Please explain why AQ88 is a better hand
> than TT99 double suited.

The value of the AQ88 was first in a suited ace. It's second value is AQ. It's third value is 88.
The top value of TT99 is flopping a set. It's straight power is very vulnerable because either
there will be a low or there will be a good chance it is only second nut, especially if it ends up
being only a one card straight.

A suited ace is the prime nut hand in a nut game. You can't make a better flush than an ace
flush, except a rare straight flush. TT99 will normally and easily not make a nut hand, or even
will be vulnerable to obscure hands (like on the turn a board is 9554, so any picture card
might kill it). Besides straight flushes, nut flushes have precisely one mortal enemy -- a board
pair. Sure, if you flop a ten or a nine, you will make money, but as the prime draw it is a lousy
one.
But remember, the other hand was AQ88 on the button with five limpers. Calling with TT99 in
the same situation would be okay -- about the only time it should be played outside the
blinds.

If I'm in the big blind, I'd much rather have As9s99 than 9876o. The first is an extremely easy
hand to play, that has a very clear target hand. The second is a bunch of nightmares. AQ88
is mostly a straightforward hand. The TT99 can lead to more sorts of make-a-draw-dead-
payoff hand.
###

Differences in the Value of a Suited Ace in Omaha

PacPalBuzz wrote...
> I see your point about the reduction in value of A234 without a suited
> ace, but isn't AKQJ reduced in value by approximately the same amount
> without a suited ace? The hands posted by Lee both have suited aces.

No.

> So I'm wondering if you intentionally singled out A234 and didn't include
> AKQJ or if not including AKQJ was simply an oversight. If they shouldn't
> both have been included, then I'm missing something.

10,000 poker probe hands, ten handed fields, all opponents are random hands...

AsKsQcJd
Scoops 794 times

AsKhQcJd
Scoops 632 times

As2s3c4d
Scoops 648 times

As2h3c4d
Scoops 299 times

The offsuit big cards would scoop at a rate of about 80% compared to if the ace was suited.
The offsuit baby cards would scoop at a rate of about 46% compared to if the ace was suited.
The change in strength isn't in the same ballpark.
###

Bad Hands That Look Good

A hand being discussed (2s3s4d7h in Omaha) makes me think of the data one cardroom put
out about the actual results of all Holdem hands for the first six million games played on their
site.

Notice that the hands that lost the most money are obviously not the "worst" hands possible.
The biggest money loser (not coincidentally) is 32s. It lost more than 32o or 72o. Then also,
A2o lost more than 32o.

One thing to take from this is pretty darn clear... overvaluing crap cards is a kiss of death.
Hands that should do better than other hands (32s should do better than 32o) end up doing
markedly worse because people play them and think they "have" something. These sort of
statistics are impossible for Omaha, but my view is that 23 is the single most costly Omaha
holding in the hands of 90% of the players... and it holds that distinction by far. 234 is a big
improvement, adding the 7 helps, and adding a suit does too, but anyone who thinks this is a
"good" hand is surely going to lose a lot of money with it.

Again, this scenario is about the best possible for the hand (besides a free ride in the blind of
course), but the hand is still highly speculative and will be a money loser for non-good
players. Contrast this to A347 and even a non-good player will have a profitable hand on the
button.

Winning Omaha is about scooping pots where you can bet your hands. This hand is nearly
the antithesis of that. It has very low scoop strength, needs an awful lot of help to even make
a hand, and is not very bettable. And, if ever there was a hand that had "please quarter me"
around it's neck, this is it.
###

Loose Preflop Omaha Calls

Izmet Fekali wrote ...
> Badger wrote: "pots are raised less often in Omaha."
> What a wonderful argument for playing looser In Omaha.
> Seeing the flop is not that cheap in typical Holdem games.

Hardly any Omaha hands that are not winners for two bets become miraculously winners for
one bet. I wrote a whole section in my Introduction to Omaha Strategy on the reverse
schooling phenomenon in Omaha, which is something that apparently some players have no
understanding of.

Getting in cheap with a losing hand is no reason to play the hand!

 Omaha After the Flop

Big Pairs Playing Head-Up Omaha8

Stephen Jacobs wrote...
> In general, high card hands play better against fewer people (especially
> high pairs with high side cards like KKQT or the like). Strong low hands
> with high potential play well against a full field (think AA23 double-suited).
> The reasons you'd prefer fewer opponents for your high cards include the
> possibility that random cards that you could have pushed out before the
> flop might make straights or small flushes that beat your big trips or 2 pairs.

KKQT is one of the last hands I want short-handed and one of the first hands I want at a full
table. KKQT would love to play against everybody but is dogmeat against crap hands as bad
as 8642. High pairs are very limited hands, but when they make something they make very
strong hands. Playing KKQT against one player is suicide (unless you are the one defending
your blind).

> I don't completely follow you. If 8642 has an advantage over KKQT,
> and an early raise has a chance to get 8642 to fold before the flop,
> it seems I'd want to do that.

Most any hand of four unpaired babies will have the edge over KKQT, but three or four of
them all hurt each other. KKQT loves playing against eight players playing 8642 muck. It
doesn't like just one opponent with that.

> The big advantage in having a lot of opponents is that with a good flop
> you'll have a monster, and know you have one. In the games I play,
> unfortunately, it's pretty rare for people to pay much after a high flop.

Then it's not as good as it could be under other circumstances.

> Concretely: if it's passed to you pre-flop, do you call or raise

> with KKQT (say the QT are suited)?

I'd normally call. I might raise or fold, but I'd still like to get four way action or better, including
the blinds.

> If you're right behind a pre-flop raiser, do you call, raise or fold?

I would almost never raise, and would normally call. I want players, and I want to see the flop
as cheaply as I can.

> On an A69 (one of your suit) flop, what are you inclined to do?

Go back to vacuuming.

> It seems to me that the damage to the crepe hands (actually, the benefit
> to you) is in the cards being out, not in their being in play against each
> other. People who play such stuff may call along chasing low-only, but they
> don't much raise or call raises unless the flop slams into them. No??
No. Assume a random distribution of cards. The KKQT is a dog to one hand of low cards like
2468 (and worse to one with an ace like A357), but, well a bad Holdem example... AK may
be a puny dog to 22, but add in a player with 66 and now the AK is a money favorite while 22
becomes crap. A239 doesn't get mutilated by the 2468 being in play, but the 2468 suffers
terribly by the A239 playing.
###

A Crap Hand in the Omaha Blind

ADB Ploink wrote...
> 2) Neither Jerrod not I ever said that this was a hugely +ev
> hand to play. I stated that it was only playable if you flopped huge,
> and only if you could get away from your hand if you didn't.

Which is why the hand is an easy fold. It "flops big" almost never, and when it does it is an
action killing flop (like KKJ). The point of playing weak, speculative hands in multiway pots is
that when they hit they are bettable in a high action situation. For instance if you play an
awful hand like 2379 in this situation, you can drive the betting on flops like A85 and expect
to get significant, profitable action. KJs72s offers almost no such opportunities. It does offer
plenty of opportunities to draw slim or dead even on "good" flops. If you called all-in getting
19-1 on your money, that would probably be slightly better than folding, but if you have
money for post-flop betting, and if there is any chance for a reraise before the flop, it's a
disastrous call.

This is why pre-flop raising is so important in Omaha. Hands like this KJ72 will probably be
money losers in most players hands if they get a *free ride* in the big blind, let alone calling a
raise and facing many opponents.

PacPalBuzz wrote...
> > Steve Badger wrote: "This is why pre-flop raising is so important in Omaha."
> Steve - I don't see the connection between this statement and what you wrote
> in the preceding paragraph. ("Which is why the hand is an easy fold. It "flops
> big" almost never, and when it does it is an action killing flop (like KKJ).
> The point of playing weak, speculative hands in multiway pots is that when they
> hit they are bettable in a high action situation. For instance if you play an
> awful hand like 2379 in this situation, you can drive the betting on flops like
> A85 and expect to get significant, profitable action. KJs72s offers almost no
> such opportunities. It does offer plenty of opportunities to draw slim or dead
> even on "good" flops. If you called all-in getting 19-1 on your money, that
> would probably be slightly better than folding, but if you have money for
> post-flop betting, and if there is any chance for a reraise before the flop,
> it's a disastrous call.")

People will call with this crap thinking they are getting pot odds, when they are taking the
worst of it by a significant margin. If people will call raises with this junk, it is important to
charge them that extra bet.

> Are you saying you would not play a hand where you are getting 17 to 1 on your
> investment and where the odds against facing a favorable flop are only 14.5 to 1
> and where RF's Poker Probe simulation results yielded independently
> determined similar odds of only 14.55-1 against?

I just stuck this hand in Poker Probe, against random hands, not including at least one quality
raising hand, and the hand's showdown win rate is in the ballpark of breakeven (I did it 19-1
against nine opponents). This is why I said if you were all-in for the call that it wouldn't be
nearly so bad a call compared to if there is betting. Betting destroys this hand. When it flops
huge, there is little chance of significant action. When it flops hands where it will sometimes
win (like Q74) it gets destroyed by the subsequent betting, even though it wins sometimes.

> You wrote, "Hands like this KJ72 will probably be money losers in most players
> hands if they get a *free ride* in the big blind." An idiot could lose money
> with the hand. But how can it be a money loser to someone who gets a free
> ride and exercises judgment after the flop? I don't see how Ploink or
> Ankenman or Fox or you or I or some of the other posters in this thread
> could lose money with the hand with a free ride in the blind.

I said most players. Good players should make some profit if given a free ride. Give that hand
to a typical LA 6/12 player for free though, and they will lose money.

> I agree you don't like the pre-flop raise much holding this dog in the blind.
> However, you do need enough opponents to get favorable odds to call a
> single bet raise to play the hand. Are you saying you don't want many
> opponents, most of whom will be drawing dead when you do connect
> with the flop?

I can only see very limited times when the hand would be playable for a raise... head-up
against a complete idiot in the small blind, head-up against a bad player if the small blind
folds.

> "Any" seems extreme. "Disastrous" seems the wrong word. Losing
> a big pot you should have won or sharing a big pot you should have
> scooped might be considered "disastrous," but losing one additional
> small bet in a $6-$12 game...? "Disastrous"?? I wish that was the worst
> thing that happened to me playing Omaha-8. :o)

Calling this bet is extremely bad. In the best sort of scenario you put in $6 and there is no
further betting and you take out $6.03 or whatever. This isn't a speculative hand like 99xx
where you can easily, clearly hit a bettable flop. It's a hand that will usually either be ravaged
by betting or win a piddly post-flop amount.

Flopping Trips in Omaha

Dennis Hong wrote...
> Basically, I'm figuring that if I can get the folks with random low flush draws
> and/or backdoor low draws (ie, maybe someone has A369 w/the 39 suited)
> to fold, that improves the chances of my trips holding up. I'm not
> expecting someone with a suited ace to fold to a bet, especially if they
> have the backdoor low. But then again, the suited ace may also not be
> out there. Thus, if I can get any low flush draws to fold, maybe...
> just maybe... I can get my trips to hold up even if the 3rd flush card
> *does* hit on the turn/river. My point is, my hand's going to be difficult
> to improve. My opponents' hands, like the A369 example, are longshot
> draws, but can improve more readily.

Why do you say that? You have ten cards to hit on the turn. You have ten cards again on the
river. Given a flop of TT5, you also have a lot bricks since any combo of a card below a 5 and
one above a ten will not make a straight (not counting aces). Also another five would not be a
bad card.

You can't possibly think that it would be better to have A369 with a flush draw rather than
JT72 on a TT5 flop.

You mentioned reverse implied odds. Your hand can catch cards that make the others
drawing dead, and can re-out on draws that get there on the turn. The hand isn't a monster
by any means, but you have the best of it against a few crap hands with crap draws.

> Put enough of them in there, and I might be in a whole lotta trouble.
> Therefore, I'd like to get them out while I'm still in the lead.
> Is that correct thinking?

Get them out, keep them in, you can't force them to do anything. But either way you should
be thinking *they* are in more trouble than you.
###

Flopping Three of a Kind in Omaha HiLo

Larry W. (Wayno) Phillips wrote...
> Is there any way to generalize about how to play a set you've flopped,
> or does it depend on the specific game situation, lineup of players, etc?
> (Assume loose, calling-all-the-way type players and mostly unthreatening,
> rainbow-type flops.)

Speaking generally is tough if you say "flopped trips". There is quite a difference between
KKK on a K82 flop and 333 on a 345 flop. But lets assume it is KKK or QQQ, and you
happen to have not much in the way of other draws (backdoor flush, straight, low...)

> Let's say you've got a pair of queens in your hand, and the flop comes
> Q-3-7 (rainbow). You should try to get as much money as possible in
> the pot, right?

Not necessarily. Getting a lot of money in the pot is fine, but winning Omaha comes from
*dead* money, or not-very-alive money anyway. Ideally you want people to lay down hands
that are a threat, and gets calls and reraises from hands that are no (or a tiny) threat. If you
have KQQJ and your one opponent has 4568 double-suited, you don't want to get "as much"
money in as you can. If your one opponent has A299 or Q973, you want billions in the pot.
But those are unlikely scenarios. More likely...

> But what if you're in a loose game where 4 or 5 players are consistently calling,
> and nobody is folding as you continue to bet. You KNOW somebody is going to
>"run you down" by the river.

No, you know you have to make your draw to win. It's fairly simple math. You win when you
pair the board, and don't get a low. You win a lot less when you pair the board and a low
comes. You win sometimes when it comes some combination of 9, T, J, K and nobody
makes the straight. You win a lot less sometimes when it comes low but nobody makes a
straight. And so on.

Basically, you bet or raise when it comes to you, except maybe when it comes back to you
reraised and you want to be sneaky and don't cap it. KKK and QQQ are going to be quite
profitable as top set against four or five opponents, but you will lose a lot of the time.
Betting an Easily Tied Hand in Omaha8
Ken Kubey wrote...
> What is the reason [for not betting if not to be worried about being]?
> In this example, 9 cards pair the board and probably kill you. 5 cards
> (J's and T's) make higher straights possible possibly killing you.
> 4 cards are safe... the kings. The other 26 cards make a low possible
> and you will be quartered. I'd be pretty worried about pumping this
> pot up *unless* there are 5 or more active players left.

Just do the math on all the various situations. Getting quartered three-way or more runs the
spectrum from minimally bad to minimally good. In anything like that, you don't want to put in
a lot of money. It leads to a tiny win or a tiny loss when you "win" the pot, but three or four
bets are a lot when you get scooped. Obviously putting in four bets just to break even is not
great when you do break even, but it's awful when you lose. So again, you shouldn't be
thinking in terms of concern about getting quartered, you should be thinking about the fact
you will lose sometimes. And, you should gear your play with that in mind.

The other thing to be concerned about being freerolled, even if it is a tiny freeroll -- like one
opponent has the straight and two pair, or the straight and any low draw. Once again, the
concern should not be on the small loss you have when you are quartered, but on the fact
you are drawing stone-cold dead on those bets. In this second case, it may just be a different
way to emphasize the same point, but I think it addresses the issue of how to think about the
hand.

Taking the Initiative in Omaha8

Lee Munzer wrote...
> taking the initiative works better in Holdem
> where you are rarely betting into the nuts.

Taking the initiative in Omaha is important (not the same as "works better") because players
are afraid of their own shadows. How often do people think that when you have A3 that an A2
has been dealt to someone else in that same hand? How often do people think they need the
A3 to win for not-folding the A3 on an 876 flop to be profitable? Omaha is a game of the nuts,
but if some pixie allowed you to have the second nuts every hand, you would make a fortune.

> Since you cherish the deuce, why not try to optimize your chances of getting
> one cheaply by checking? The risk does not equal the reward in this case.

You bet because it makes it cheaper, freezing many/most players who have A2. Checking is
more expensive. If your hand is good, you missed a bet. If your hand is a loser, you
emboldened the opposition. That is very, very bad in Omaha8.

If A3 is good on this flop X% of the time, and a loser Y% of the time, if after 100% of the
times you play it you win money then the actual percentages don't matter. Same with if you
lose. The point tho is manipulating the cost (the betting) so that during the X times you
maximize your profits, while during the Y times you minimize. Leading from early position on
an 876 flop with A3KQ will often slow the action down. You may see the turn for one bet.
That is a huge victory... first cause you are glad to see if it comes deuce, and second
because if your hand is good you are glad to have gotten that one bet in there. If you get a
couple callers and a raise, you can safely muck. The best defense with A3 often is a good
offense.
 Omaha Poker Rules
Omaha hands are played out in a similar fashion as those in Texas Holdem (see rules link at
the right). However, instead of two down cards, four are dealt, followed by a betting round. A
three card flop follows, with another betting round. Next comes an one card turn card, with a
another betting round. Finally a fifth river card, and a final round of betting.

At the showdown, five card hands are created by using exactly two cards from a player's
hand, and exactly three cards from the board cards. All four of a player's cards must be
shown to qualify for winning a pot. If you only show two cards and discard the other two, your
hand is dead and you forfeit claim to the pot. (Omaha Poker Strategy articles.)

The basic rules of Texas Hold'em apply, except the "use two cards from your hand"
requirement means a player cannot "play the board" like in Texas Holdem. Regardless of
what is on the board, without exception players must use three cards from the board and two
from their hand. Even if there are five spades on the board, you must have two spades in
your hand to have a flush.

Omaha High Low

Omaha games are often played High/low split, with and eight-or-better qualifier for low.
Players may use two different cards from their hand to make a low, and two different hand
cards to make a high, as well as three different board cards to make their high hand and
three different ones to make their low hand. The can also use the same three card/two card
combination to make both their high and low hands.

All the rules of Omaha High apply to Omaha HiLo split except the eight-or-better for low
applies (unless a cardroom has non-standard rules about what wins for low, like a nine-or-
better for low rule). If no qualifying low hand exists, the winning high hand takes the whole
pot. In some casinos, when a player wins an entire pot of a certain size, a kill must remain in
the pot. See Section 13 - Kill Pots.

Reading a Low Hand

Low hands range from the worst possible low hand, 87654, to the best possible low, 54321.
The simplest way to judge the best low hand possible in any given hand is the read the
hands as a number, whichever number is lower wins: 76543 beats 84321. See Introduction to
Omaha for more on reading low hands.

Cards Speak
The Cards Speak rule applies. If a player mistakenly verbally declares an incorrect value of a
hand, it does not matter what the player says. The casino dealer should read what the actual
value of a player's hand is. -- Steve Badger
 HUTCHISON POINT COUNT SYSTEM FOR OMAHA HIGH-LOW POKER

The following is slightly modified from an article of mine that appeared in the December, 1997
issue of the Canadian Poker Monthly. I want to acknowledge with appreciation the
contributions of Nolan Dalla, Dave Scharf, and others to this effort to quantify starting hands
in Omaha Hi-Lo Poker (Eight or Better).
ASSUMPTIONS: A ten-handed game at the lower levels with a mix of good and poor players.

OBJECTIVE: To identify those hands that have at least a 50% above chance expectation of
winning. That is, while any random hand should win about 10% of the pots in a ten-handed
game, the hands identified as "playable" by this system have at least a 15% probability of
winning.

METHOD: In any split pot game the best hands are those that have a chance to win both
high and low. Most of the hands without this potential should be discarded. However, there
are a few hands that are profitable even though they have no potential to win low.

The first step in evaluating your hand is to see if it is one of these HIGH-ONLY hands. To
qualify, all four of your cards must be Ten or above AND include (1) two pair, or (2) a pair and
two suited cards, or (3) two double suits. Eliminate any high hand containing three of the
same rank. If your hand does not qualify as a HIGH hand, then...

The next step is to see if your hand can be played as a LOW or TWO-WAY hand. This
determination is made by adding the number of points obtained in these four simple steps:

FIRST, look at your two lowest cards and award points as follows:

A-2 equals 20 pts. A-3 equals 17 pts. A-4 equals 13 pts.

A-5 equals 10 pts. 2-3 equals 15 pts. 2-4 equals 12 pts.

3-4 equals 11 pts. 4-5 equals 8 pts. Anything else = no pts.

SECOND, look at your two remaining cards ("kickers") and award points as follows:

3 equals 9 pts. 4 equals 6 pts. 5 equals 4 pts.

Jack, Queen, or King equals 2 pts. 6 or Ten equals 1 point

Do not award any "kicker" pts. for a card that duplicates a card used in step one and if
the kicker is paired it is counted only once under this step.
THIRD, if you have any pairs, add points as follows:

Aces equal 8 pts. Kings equal 6 pts. Queens equal 5 pts. Jacks equal 2 pts. Tens
equal one point Fours equal one point Threes equal one point Deuces equal 3 pts.

Deduct half of the points awarded under this step if you have three cards of the same rank.

FOURTH, if you hold two suited cards and the highest of them is

an Ace, add 4 pts. a King, add 3 pts. a Queen or Jack, add 2 pts. an 8, 9, or Ten, one
pt.

Deduct half of the points awarded under this step if your hand contains three cards of the
same suit and award no points if all of the cards are of the same suit.

EACH HAND WILL EARN A TOTAL FROM 0 TO 45 POINTS. PLAY THOSE HANDS WITH
20 POINTS OR MORE AND CONSIDER RAISING WITH 30 POINTS OR MORE.

EXAMPLES FOR CLARIFICATION

You are dealt AS, 3S, 5H, KD. Since not all four cards are above Ten, the hand is evaluated
as a low or two-way hand by following the four steps outlined above. Step one awards 17
pts. for the A-3, step two grants six pts. for the 5 and K "kickers," step three does not apply,
and step four gives four pts. for the two suited cards (spades) headed by the Ace. The total
equals 27 pts. making this a playable hand.

You are dealt AS, AC, 2S,3C. The hand does not qualify for high. Step one awards 20 pts.
for the A-2, step two gives nine pts. for the 3 "kicker," step three grants eight pts. for the pair
of Aces, and step four means that each double-suited combination headed by an Ace is
worth four pts. each or a total of eight pts. for the two combinations. The grand total for this
hand is 45 points. Incidentally, this is the most powerful hand in high-low Omaha.

You are dealt AS, TS, AC, QD. This hand qualifies for high because it satisfies the condition
that 1) all four cards are Ten or above, and 2) two of the cards are paired and two are of the
same suit.

You are dealt AS, TS, KD, QD. This hand qualifies for high because 1) all four cards are Ten
or above, and 2) it contains two double suits.

NOTES

A very high correlation (but not a one-to-one correspondence) exists between a hand's point
count and its winning percentage. Thus, a hand that earns 25 pts. is quite likely to have a
higher win percentage than a hand with 24 pts.and it is almost certain to have a higher
percentage than a hand with 23 or fewer pts.
It should be noted that initial card selection, while crucial to success, is not the only skill
necessary to maximize Omaha profits. These other skills, however, do not lend themselves
to easy quantification and are beyond the scope of this simple mathematical approach.
Recall, too, the basic assumption that this system is being used at the lower limits. I hope
that these limitations will not detract from the main purpose of this approach which is to
provide a simple aid to the beginner.

This system has been devised by Edward Hutchison who invites your comments and
opinions.

NOTE: Paul Merkt has devised a poker odds calculator which automatically calculates the
point totals based upon this system. You can check it out at www.PokerWeapon.com

Click here to visit the Home Page of Edward Hutchison

 HUTCHISON OMAHA POINT SYSTEM
The purpose of this system is to provide a simple means of evaluating starting hands in
Omaha poker. It was developed in several steps:

First, Mike Caro's Poker Probe software was used to determine the win percentage for
various four card combinations when played against nine opponents. This was accomplished
via a Monte-Carlo type simulation with a minimum of 50,000 hands being dealt for each
starting hand. The assumption made in this type of simulation is that each hand is played to
the finish. This is, of course, an unreasonable expectation, but , in the absence of detailed
knowledge of each player's starting requirements, method of play, etc., it is the best means of
approximating a hand's strength and earning potential.

Secondly, a number of components were examined in an effort to determine their relative

contribution to the value of each starting hand. Eventually, it was decided that the primary
determinants of good Omaha starting hands related to the rank of the cards and whether or
not they were paired, suited, or connected.

Finally, a type of regression analysis was conducted to try and determine the relative
weighting of each of these factors. The system that follows is the result of quantifying the
contribution made by each of these various components.

Once the calculations are made, the resultant point total, WHEN DIVIDED BY TWO, is an
approximation of the actual win percentage for a particular hand--when played to the finish
against nine opponents. The correlation between point totals and win percentages, while not
representing a one-to-one correspondence is, nevertheless, quite high. In fact, in about 70%
of the cases the actual win percentage will be within just one point of the total points awarded
by this system. This means that if the system indicates that a given hand earns, say, 40
points, you can be quite confident that the actual win percentage for this hand is between 19
and 21 points. It is very likely to win more often than a hand with 38 points and almost
certain to outperform a hand with 36 points.

STEPS IN CALCULATING POINT TOTALS

FIRST, to evaluate the contribution made by suited cards, look to see if your hand contains
two or more cards of the same suit. If it does, award points based upon the rank of the
highest card. Repeat the procedure if your hand is double suited.

If the highest card is an ACE award 8 points

If the highest card is a KING award 6 points
If the highest card is a QUEEN award 5 points
If the highest card is a JACK award 4 points
If the highest card is a TEN or a NINE award 3 points
If the highest card is an EIGHT award 2 points
If the highest card is SEVEN or below award 1 point.

If your hand contains more than two cards of the same suit, deduct 2 points.

SECOND, to factor in the advantage of having pairs,

If you have a pair of ACES award 18 points
If you have a pair of KINGS award 16 points
If you have a pair of QUEENS award 14 points
If you have a pair of JACKS award 13 points
If you have a pair of TENS award 12 points
If you have a pair of NINES award 10 points
If you have a pair of EIGHTS award 8 points
If you have a pair of SEVENS or below award 7 points

Award no points to any hand that contains three of the same rank.

THIRD, when your hand contains cards capable of completing a straight it becomes more
valuable. Therefore, If your cards contain no more than a three card gap, add the following
points:

For FOUR cards, add 25 points

For THREE cards, add 18 points

For TWO cards, add 8 points

From these totals, subtract two points for each gap, up to a maximum of six points.

To account for the special case represented by ACES, deduct four points from the above
totals when an Ace is used. This is necessary because an Ace can make fewer straights.
However, when your hand contains small cards that can be used with an Ace to make a
straight, the hand's value increases. Therefore, when your hand contains an Ace and
another wheel card, add 6 points. Add 12 points for an Ace and two wheel cards.

FINALLY, a determination must be made as to which hands qualify as playable. This

becomes a function of how many points one decides are necessary before entering a hand.
My suggestion would be to only play hands that earn 28 points or more. It can be argued
that, ignoring the rake, any hand with more than a 10 percent win rate (i.e., those with 20
points or more) is potentially profitable in the long run. Still, I have the prejudice that most
players, and especially those who are relatively inexperienced, would be better advised to
forsake marginal hands and to focus on those that earn 28 points or more. Recalling that a
random hand will win about 10% of the time in a ten-handed game, it can be seen that
playing only premium combinations of 28 points or more insures that you will always have a
hand that is 40% better than a random hand. The total required to raise or to call someone's
raise must also be determined subjectively. I feel that 32 points is the appropriate level, so,
in summary,

YOU SHOULD CALL WITH 28 POINTS OR MORE AND CONSIDER RAISING WITH 32
POINTS OR MORE
 SOME EXAMPLES FOR CLARIFICATION

The hand that has the highest win percentage in Omaha contains two ACES and two KINGS
and is double suited. A hand containing the AS, KS, AH, and KH would earn 54 points under
this system--calculated as follows: under step one above, the two double suits headed by
the two aces earn 8 points each for a total of 16 points; step two awards 18 points for the pair
of aces and 16 points for the pair of kings, or a total of 34 more points; under step three, the
ace-king combination earns 4 points for its straight potential. (NOTE: The two consecutive
cards earn 8 points but a deduction of 4 points is made because one of the cards is an Ace.)
The resultant total of 54 points, when divided by two, closely parallels the actual win
percentage for the hand which is about 26.65.

Assume you have the 9S, 8S, 9D, and 8D. Step one awards a total of 6 points for the two
double suits headed by nines. Under step two, the pair of nines earns 10 points and the pair
of eights earns 8 points. The last step awards 8 points for the 9-8 combination. The total of
32 points, when divided by two, is the same as this hand's actual win rate of 16 per cent.

With the QS, QD,9H, and 9C, no points are earned under step one as there are no suited
cards. Step two gives 14 points for the pair of queens and 10 points for the pair of eights.
Step three awards 8 points for the Q-9 combination but then calls for a deduction of 4 points
because of the two card gap that exists between the two cards. The final total is 28 points
and, when divided by two, it again closely reflects the actual win percentage for this hand
which is 14.5%.

An example of a hand that tends to be somewhat over-rated by novice players is AS, KD,
QH, and TS. Under step one the hand receives 8 points for the suited ace and ten. Step two
is disregarded as the hand does not contain any pairs. Step three awards 23 points for the
straight potential of the four connected cards. The final total is only 31 points, making this a
marginally playable hand. It actually wins about 16.2%.

Finally, consider AS, 3S, KD, 4D. Step one awards 14 points, step two awards none, and
step three grants 12 points for the A-3-4 combination and 4 points for the A-K combination.
This total of 30 points corresponds with the actual win rate of 15%.

NOTES

To state the obvious: many skills other than initial card selection are essential to maximizing
your profits when playing Omaha. Unfortunately, these other skills do not lend themselves to
easy quantification, and are thus beyond the scope of this simple mathematical approach. I
do hope, though, that this system will be of help to the novice player in making the important
decision about which starting hands are worthwhile.

This system was devised by Edward Hutchison of Madison, MS. If you want to try this
method in actual play please click on the banners below. The sites listed here are the major
Internet card rooms with up to 60,000 players logged on and permit play at any level from
play money on up. You will receive a special sign-up bonus of $100-$600.
 THE KEY TO SUCCESS IN TEXAS HOLD 'EM
Various "experts" may disagree on the relative importance of different factors in becoming a
successful Texas Hold 'Em player, but high on everyone's list is the ability to make correct
decisions about which starting hands are worth playing.

While one can err in the direction of being too tight (i.e., playing too few hands), most observers
would agree that beginning Hold 'Em players are much more likely to err in the opposite
direction and play too many hands. In all poker variations, especially at the lower limits, the
newcomer will pay a higher penalty for being too loose than being too tight. Given this
proclivity to play too many hands and the unpleasant consequences of this behavior, it is
probably excellent advice for the beginning player to pay special attention to the task of
identifying hands that have the best chances of winning the money. There will come a time when
other factors, such as the desire to be deceptive, the need to "play the players," post-flop
strategies, the significance of position, the importance of "table image," etc., will need to be
mastered, but these are complex and subtle issues that are very difficult to quantify.

Fortunately for the novice, one skill that lends itself to fairly easy quantification is the question
of determining worthwhile starting hands. What follows is a very easy method of using simple
math to objectively identify winning hands.

STEP ONE: Add the value of your two cards using the scale below:

Ace= 16 pts. King= 14 pts. Queen= 13 pts. Jack= 12 pts. Ten= 11 pts.
all other cards are worth their face value, e.g., a two is 2 pts., a nine is 9 pts.

STEP TWO: If your two cards are paired, add 10 points to the total.

STEP THREE: If your two cards are both of the same suit, add four points.

STEP FOUR: If your cards are connected (i.e., next to each other in rank, as with a Jack and
Ten, a Jack and a Queen, etc.) add three points.

STEP FIVE: If your cards have a one card "gap" (e.g., a Queen and a Ten, a Jack and a Nine,
or an Ace and a Queen, etc.) add two points.

STEP SIX: If your cards have a two-card "gap" (e.g., an Ace and a Jack, a Queen and a Nine,
or a Jack and an Eight, etc.) add one point.

STEP SEVEN: If you are in middle position add three points, and if you are in late position or
on the button, add five points.

STEP EIGHT: Call a bet with 30 points or more, and raise or call a raise with 34 points or
more.

By limiting yourself to these hands you will always be playing premium cards.
Monte-Carlo type simulations prove that any hand that earns 30 or more points under the first
six steps of this system will win at least 17% of the hands in a ten-handed game. A random
hand, of course, will win 10% of the time under Monte-Carlo conditions where every hand is
played to the finish. Thus, a 30 point hand will win at a rate about 70% above chance
expectations and this should provide beginning Hold 'Em players a margin of safety as they
progress in developing the other skills necessary for greater success in this interesting and
complex game.

There are many Internet poker rooms now available, but I recommend two of the largest and
best known sites, Full-Tilt and Poker Stars. You will want to determine which of these sites is
best for you, so my suggestion is to open a play money account with both and see which you
prefer. If you do decide to try my Hold 'Em system online, I would very much appreciate it if
you would click on either of the banners below. Full disclosure: I will make a dollar or two
from the referral, but, more importantly, if you decide to open a real money account, your initial
deposit will be doubled, up to a maximum of $600. Click on either banner for more details.