Omaha Strategy

Well, lately i've been playing a lot of Omaha, SnGs and tourneys and have found some difficulty adapting to it.

In the positive side, there's lots of players that tend to play very similar to Omaha and overvalue high pocket pairs, and that i found is easy to play against.

On the flip side, it has happened a few times now that players will usually limp in with their pocket pairs and i'll end up losing against them often.

Example: Was there anyway i could have avoided this in the first place ?

I've found it hard because people will very often slow play their pocket pairs. Way more often than in holdem.

Any tips or good omaha strategies that could help me ?

What limits are you playing? 5 limpers to the flop isn't a good thing and you can almost expect to see higher pockets than 7's. Sounds more like very low to freeroll play.

You've got to raise enough to narrow the field & get rid of limpers preflop (pocket 7's isn't the hand to do that with in Omaha most of the time). Villian with pocket aces would have called there anyway but you might have priced him out of the hand before he saw the turn if the pot bet on the flop was bigger. After the turn he's staying with top set Aces with no flush/straight/full house hands possible.

^ i kinda disagree on that, in omaha i dont think u want to be putting in too much chips with hands preflop, u dont wanna commit urself to anything, so it is probably best u just limp with the 77xx and try to see a flop for cheap but unless u have draws with that 77xx its a fold preflop not even a limp

I concur. Even if you hit, bottom set is almost worthless in a full-table Omaha game.

I wouldn't call it worthless, but its certainly a hand that can cost you a lot of money. But the key here is that a starting hand that can only make bottom set *is* worthless.

7789 or 77QQ is pretty playable. But if the 7's aren't in a wrap, or with a higher pair, then its pretty much a standard fold preflop.

Agreed. It's generally a bad idea to be playing hands that have only one way of hitting big. The only exception is AAxx in some spots where you can isolate and play the AA for pair value and not just set farm it (much more doable at 6-max than FR). Low to medium pairs have to have some heavy draws or another pair with them to make them worthwhile. I recall seeing the Poker Tracker Omaha stats of a good player, and those uncoordinated low pairs were played for a loss.

Post-flop, I don't think your play was that bad, but I have one comment. You don't always have to bet pot. In this hand, I really don't think you need to bet the turn that strongly. That turn is mostly a blank. While a pot sized bet would most likely be a good idea versus AK, the odds of him having AK are rather low. Unless he's a big donk, he'd only call a flop pot bet in a 5-way pot with AK hands like AK9x, AK7x, AKT8, AK86, or something like that. Plain top pair top kicker is very weak. I think it's a lot more likely that he has a set, flopped two pair, or a big draw. The weaker two pairs often fold to two pot sized bets, so I think a pot sized bet is pushing out all the hands you're in good shape against. I'd go for something slightly smaller. Also, I don't know how much you had left relative to the pot on the river, but I don't like a big bet on the river. Bottom set doesn't get paid off by much on the river, even if no straights or flushes are possible. And since you've been showing aggression on every street, you've pretty much defined your hand as being very strong. I think a big bet will get all of the hands you beat to fold. I'd make a small value bet or depending on the tightness of the villain, no bet at all.

Edit: I don't mind playing bare AA, KK, or QQ in games with a very large number of players limping to see the flop. You're going to hit set over set pretty often, so the implied odds are good.

Bottom set, or for that matter, any set, has to be considered a drawing hand in Omaha. Unless the board pairs, learn to get away from hands like this.

Ok, I thought I was clear enough that pocket 7's aren't worth a pot raise preflop esp. w/ 5 limpers ahead of you and only in rare occasions against the right single villian can you make a move to just take down the pot right then and there but consider it a semibluff not a made hand. The point I was trying to make was getting into a hand w/ 5 limpers in Omaha and betting heavy with bottom set is simply not a good strategy. Getting flat called on the flop and turn should make you seriously reconsider your bet on the river too. As you said, Pantin, limping is far safer with bottom set in Omaha against multiple villains. They aren't so hard once a guy is used to playing Omaha.

I should have comented more on bottom set, Dave's post is spot on though.