Omaha rules help plz

Signed up for an Omaha freeroll, as an attempt to learn some other games.

Question: Does the two cards that you add to the give you priority over someone who just needs to use one of their cards to make a boat?


PokerStars Game #17502588246: Tournament #87750230, Freeroll Omaha No Limit - Level II (15/30) - 2008/05/17 - 19:54:28 (ET)
Table '87750230 312' 9-max Seat #9 is the button
Seat 1: mariusz2727 (3050 in chips)
Seat 2: Ninelions (3435 in chips)
Seat 3: dubfitz (4600 in chips) is sitting out
Seat 4: bluecobra95 (7075 in chips)
Seat 5: bemrose5 (4640 in chips)
Seat 6: baconlover08 (1395 in chips) is sitting out
Seat 7: ryans666 (1435 in chips) is sitting out
Seat 8: FNSPANO (1405 in chips) is sitting out
Seat 9: ExplosiveSpc (2170 in chips)
mariusz2727: posts small blind 15
Ninelions: posts big blind 30
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Ninelions [4d Ad 8c 7h]
dubfitz: folds
bluecobra95 is connected
bluecobra95: calls 30
bemrose5: calls 30
baconlover08: folds
ryans666: folds
FNSPANO: folds
ExplosiveSpc: calls 30
mariusz2727: calls 15
Ninelions: checks
*** FLOP *** [7d 9s Ac]
mariusz2727: checks
Ninelions: bets 90
bluecobra95: calls 90
bemrose5: calls 90
ExplosiveSpc: calls 90
mariusz2727: folds
*** TURN *** [7d 9s Ac] A♥
Ninelions: bets 210
bluecobra95: calls 210
bemrose5: folds
ExplosiveSpc: calls 210
*** RIVER *** [7d 9s Ac Ah] 7♣
Ninelions: bets 360
bluecobra95: calls 360
ExplosiveSpc: calls 360
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Ninelions: shows [4d Ad 8c 7h] (a full house, Aces full of Sevens)
bluecobra95: mucks hand
ExplosiveSpc: mucks hand
Ninelions collected 2220 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 2220 | Rake 0
Board [7d 9s Ac Ah 7c]
Seat 1: mariusz2727 (small blind) folded on the Flop
Seat 2: Ninelions (big blind) showed [4d Ad 8c 7h] and won (2220) with a full house, Aces full of Sevens
Seat 3: dubfitz folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 4: bluecobra95 mucked [Qh 7s 9d Td]
Seat 5: bemrose5 folded on the Turn
Seat 6: baconlover08 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 7: ryans666 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 8: FNSPANO folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 9: ExplosiveSpc (button) mucked [Ks As Qs 3d] ?? Aces over sevens as well?



Edit: Wait, I see it now. He can't have a boat because he MUST use 2 cards so his best hand is just three Aces. The last seven doesn't help him.


See, just posting in this Learning section helps

You can't use just one its exactly 2+3

other player had trip aces AAAK9

oh you answered yourself

Yeah. Another thing to keep in mind is if the board has trips on it (AAAxx), you gotta have a pocket pair to make a full house.

Yea and going along with that if the board is double paired you can't get a full house with a single card like in hold em. AAJKJ board for example. You need either AJ or KK for a boat. Same obviously holds true for 4 to a flush or 4 to a straight. It seems obvious but it does take a little while to get used to it. In your HH case, the last 7 didn't change your holding one bit and wasn't included in your hand.

Another thing to note is that you should be betting ALOT in omaha. It is SO SO easy to get outdrawn that you need to protect your hands. I've never played NL Omaha (didn't even know anybody played it) but in PL if you have a hand like top set you bet/raise the absolute max. The only time you really should be "value betting" is on the river with a huge hand where you don't think your opponent will call the maximum bet.

I'd also be very careful about leading out with 2 pair like you did, especially when you don't have top 2 pair. It doesn't really matter coz it is just a freeroll, but even on a pretty non drawy board a set is fairly likely with all those players. Hitting the A7 2 pair isn't that strong a hand. I think a tendency of hold em players is to overrate their hands in omaha. FR it is in many ways a game of the nuts...if there is a flush draw out there and you are holding the top straight it is very unlikely you are ahead unless nobody is betting, whereas in hold em you are ahead in such a case far more often.

Or Ace rag to make quads. Never seen NL, but as a rule of thumb, if u ain't got the nutz, don't bet out. quote, " it really dosn't matter if it's a freeroll", any wonder why solid players get ticked off with a donk play with advice like this?????

I'm glad you answered your question Nine, I have a quick question. I've always wondered and I don't play omaha much, but for example if I'm holding the Ad and no other diamond and the board shows 4 diamonds and my opponent/s has 2 diamonds in their hand....who wins?

you have to use two of your holecards, so your opponent wins.

The player holding 2 diamonds, you MUST use two cards from you hand and 3 from the board. google confessions of a omaholic. ,< prolly spelt that wrong

Well now I know why I don't play it very often, that sux Thx

...um coz solid players shouldn't be playing freerolls?

Heh, you and I should be playing Omaha together Aloe. We'd both be lost half the time.




btw, DM your last Omaha video was really helpful.

Sounds like we should do it secretly as I'm sure many will want our money

He did use 2 hole cards, his Ace and his 7

you really want to throw a wrench in th works,try playng it h/l.now theres a head scratcher for you.

High Low is easier

Can you elaborate on that please? This is the learning poker section, so short blurbs like that really don't add any value, however supplying your rationale will help newer players understand why you're telling them that H/L is an easier game.

Like JD says, opinioins are fine, but some elaboration is needed.

Especially for someone like me, who has been playing NLHE and can see Hi hands, but has no experience looking for/noticing the Low hands.

Play A2 and win.

I'll tell you what, play a bit of Razz to get used to looking for the low hands and seeing how it looks on the table. Now obviously Razz doesn't have the 8 high qualifier, but that's not my point. Play several Razz games since you only look for low hands and get used to it. Then put it all together in Omaha 8B and it will come together for you. It's what I did and while it's still new to me, I'm finding O8B easier to pick up on. Starting hand selection is still a little tough, but that's a different story.

Thanks for the indepth commentary.

Nice idea, thanks JD.

I'll give that a go, after I get some feel for the basics.

The difference between Razz low hands and Omaha8 low hands are that you always need the nut low (or at least the second nut low) in omaha 8. So in Razz, a starting hand of 743 is pretty good. However, if you hold a hand like 4567, you still have a very low chance of making the nut low in Omaha 8 (you need 3 cards, the A23 to be on the board at the same time).

Hence why you play A2 and win :P.

If there are 3 low cards on the board that aren't an A or 2, then you have the nut low. That's why A2 is so powerful. A3 & 23 are pretty good, since if a 2 hits (in the case of A3) or an A (in the case of 23) then you have the nut low draw. But those hands are conditional, since they need 1 specific card to hit.

So yeah, like I said, maybe without enough detail, A2 is a really strong 2 card combination in Omaha 8.

And another difference with Stud HiLo games and Omaha ones are that you can raise the river with a low hand in a multi-way pot in stud 8. However, low hands are very common in Omaha 8, and even with the nut low, you're just setting yourself up to get quartered.

So yeah. Long story short, the best hands have A2, A3, or 23 in them, plus some other ways to make the nuts/near nuts. Hence why AA23 double suited is the best possible hand in Omaha 8 (because it has all 3 quality low combinations of A2, A3, and 23).

Thanks for the extra details; they were helpful for me and O8 is still a bit new to me. Looks like I'm already thinking down the right path though.

My only point here was that someone not at all used to looking for low hands can play Razz to get in the habit and the feel for it because you are forced to focus on, read, and understand the idea of low hands. I'd agree that Razz is not a substitute for the low side of O8, but since it eliminates the the high side completely then it can be a good low hand trainer.

Apologies for the thread hijack, although the OP or indeed any person interested in O8 might find this useful.

As someone who has played Omaha High Low for about a year now and having had a decent education so far, I can say that the advice given in so far as "play A2 and win" ought not be taken seriously, else the beginning player might find themselves breaking even or losing in the long run.

Whilst it is true that having the nut low provides the player with an incredibly valuable protection particularly in loose games (and for the most part at low stakes, games are loose anyway), it is not the be all and end all. Also true is that having the nut low against someone who does not have it, regardless of their hand strength, means that a large % of the time you are on a complete freeroll to beat them because they can only win half the pot at best, whereas even with a 1% chance for high you have more pot equity than they do, which means you should generally try to get all your money in (or as many bets in in fixed limit) - you have a chance to win it all, or what is also known as the lion's share and generally thats what this game is all about, scooping the whole pot. Beginning players ought to know that winning the whole pot is not mathematically twice as good as winning half the pot, it is four times as good.

As I said, having the A2 in your hand is not as great as you might think especially if you have poor cards which make your four card unit. Just as in Omaha High you should be trying to make all those cards work together. You don't go charging onto the battefield with a unit of men some trained and some untrained, you will surely fail against someone who has their unit fully trained. Therefore you should be mucking stuff like A2J8, A2Q7, and A2K9 before the flop and this is even more so the case in multiway pots. Those hands have bad potential on the whole even if the Ace is suited (which is a very big feature), because you cannot flop the nuts with any of those hands unless you get the QJT flop or flop the nut boat. Sure, you could make the wheel, and yeah, its probably good. Until its pretty obvious two other players made the wheel too (you get 'sixthed'). And then you're asking yourself "Damn I wish I waited for a hand like A236, that way I could get two thirds of this pot with that juicy trey to seven straight on this 4-5-7-Q-3 rainbow board". And having the A2 alone will also lead you to get nothing about 25% of the time you flop the nut low. It could come 3-5-8, giving your A2KQ (a premium hand) the nut low and a gutshot (your hand is not premium any more), and an Ace or deuce on the turn or river (potentially ~25% chance) will make those loose guys who played the 4679 garbage make a tidy profit when you lack the discipline to admit your live ace or deuce is no good (you would still be playing the 8532A for low whilst your loose friend now makes either the deuce to six straight and second nut low (65432) and or maybe takes half with the 6543A low whilst probably removing your chances to win because someone probably has a pair of aces or deuces beat if they ventured beyond the flop).

Also there are some situations where if you can get in cheaply from a late position it is profitable to play a high only hand like AKQJ. Generally you need more than 3 to 1 on your money to play this type of hand since the board comes only high about 1 in 3 times. If you wanted to be uber-picky you should know the odds of you flopping high only cards are roughly 9 to 1, the event of which will at least give you two pair (most likely a straight, and about 33% of the time when there is a flush draw present you will win with your straight since the combined odds of a flush coming and the board pairing are about 66%, and if people give you action on a high only flop of this texture then they have you tied with possibly a freeroll or they have combined draws to beat you). In these circumstances its very important to have a very high quality high only hand like AKQJds since this way when you flop big you will be the one freerolling the douche who has the QJT9us). us= unsuited, ds=double suited. NEVER play with a nine in your hand when you're going high only! The reason for this is that if you make the nut straight with a nine, a low will be possible, or a full house will be possible which probably means only one thing: YouTube - You Lose! Good Day Sir!.

I will say discovering these subtleties and developing your art in Omaha High Low is MUCH less painful and expensive if initially played Fixed Limit until you are 100% comfortable with your game (I recommend beginning at FL 25c/50c games on Stars or Full Tilt since Ultimate or Absolute don't really have a lot of O8 players for that stake). Fixed limit is arguably more profitable too since the games are looser.

I could go on! Please ask if you would like more, I have a lot to write to help anyone who wants to know.

By all means, please do. Omaha H/L has piqued a bit of interest in me of late.

Well I might as well have written some huge guide for the Omaha section, I'm just going to have to freakin' rewrite the whole thing, oh well! I like writing this stuff anyway. Key concepts are coloured. And that is the proper English spelling.

Disclaimer

I will say I aint the top expert by any means. If you want to read from that person, I suggest you talk to Mike Matusow, Bobby Baldwin, Mark Gregorich, or Adam Cadle (online aka ADAMTHEEXPERT), and lets not forget Ray Zee. Many of the things I say come from them and I have found them to be true in my experience in playing the game also. Final note on this is that this is aimed at those whom seek to win/play to compete/win the psychological battles etc. If you are a recreational player who is gambling/fooling around/just for fun, then this will be useful to you, but in the words of Bill Lumbergh, "I'm gonna need you to go ahead and move to Storage B". This won't be all that fun to you since you have to sit around and study opponents whilst you wait for good situations to crop up (rarer than in Hold'em).

High vs High Low

I never really did say why Omaha H/L is easier than Omaha High. The simple fact is that there is a lot less variance and swings in the high low version all because its a split pot game between high and low. Most people cannot really handle the volitilty of pot limit omaha high, and to be able to control the pot size, put your opponent on a hand and bet accordingly, play aggressively, know the right spots to bluff, and wow even hand selection is harder. People can't transition from something like Stud or Hold'em and then start playing PLO well whilst taking all the seemingly horrendous beats that they suffer from (and the large pots that they seem to lose at the same time), and they definately do not know their current statistical odds much of the time (the power of the draw is so much greater against the made hand). A lot of the beats do come down to bad hand selection or bad positional hand selection, or often the inability to comprehend that the turn of one single card is so much more often enough to crush your hand than in Hold'em that they can't stop themselves from putting their money in (most often done with flopped set or straight). I can tell you this and I suck at this game. I know why I suck, I just told you why, but I can't even do much about it, its that hard. So when it comes to High Low, provided you can pick out the correct time to enter a pot before the flop (favourable cards, favourable position, favourable opponent-s [loose/station/weak], favourable stack sizes [PLO8]), many of these problems don't exist for you because once you flop that nut low it makes things quite a lot easier, since you know the likelihood is you will get at least half, now you could play any sort of high more aggressively because you have that safety, and at the very least all you have to ask yourself throughout the hand is "will this action aid me in the task of getting the lion's share?". And say you're in the big blind with some garbage like Q74J and it comes 7-4-3. In PLO you might wanna take a stab at this after the small blind checks instead of checking and calling when you could be very easily beaten. But in PLO8 or even FLO8, you would not even think of betting (only sighing that you didnt flop QQ7, sighing again, checking, and folding to the next bet with the auto-fold button clicked) as there is simply no way that you could make any money out of this situation whatsoever. If you were lucky enough to get half the pot (which I would say would happen 1 time in 3 or worse), you ought to be kicking yourself that you made this mistake (of not playing to scoop). These situations are so much easier to avoid than similar ones in the straight High Omaha. In that given situation, you would be drawing to a seven or four, or to blanks (whilst hoping in the dark that nobody made a higher two pair), when you would be clearly an underdog. It is really simple. Don't draw to half the pot when you are clearly an underdog to get said half. You would do well to fold every time you were going for half and knew it actually. This advice generally applies to full ring games and I would not recommend it to heads up (two pair could easily be good for the whole thing even on this flop in HU play). In short, Omaha High Low is easier than Omaha High because all the situations are so much clearer, especially after some experience (wow I can feel who has what at the table just by the way they bet). After a few months experience, a few thousand hands, you will be able to tell who has the nut low and nothing else, who has flopped the nut straight but does not have the nut low on a low flop, who has flopped a weak hand and nothing else, and the one you really want to be afraid of, the one who flopped the nuts/nearly nuts with the nut low and/or the nut low with a strong draw to the nuts (example, A248 (suited hearts) on flop of 35Q (two hearts) and he starts betting and raising like he might die if he doesn't). Tell me you can do that as easily in Omaha High in the same duration. And if you did manage to learn as quickly or quicker, its probably because you lost many buyins in the process (you learnt 'the hard way').

So I guess we'll get into the nitty gritty now.

Omaha High Low Hand Selection

I think I saw someone say something about hand selection and how they couldn't get their head around it. Well I did kind of touch upon that; we briefly discussed high only hands, overplaying/overvaluing A2xx, and even more briefly some concepts like board texture and what a bad hand is before the flop. We'll go into these things more, but I will start off with the most important thing in this game regarding hand selection.

Never Leave Home Without One

As Bobby Baldwin says in his FLO8 section co-written by Mark Gregorich in Doyle Brunson's Super System 2, there is one card rank in the deck so strong and versatile that if you never played a hand without this rank card in your starting hand (which from now on I will call Unit, and please laugh at the possible phallic reference!), you would not have lost any (or at least almost-zero) profit whatsoever. Just as in Triple Draw Deuce to Seven Lowball you would not (if you intended on winning) play any hand before the first draw without a deuce in it, in Omaha High Low, you would do extremely well to never play a hand that does not have an Ace in it (although I would recommend 'mixing it up' when you're playing $30/$60 or some such high stakes against professional opponents). With an Ace always in your Unit, you can be pretty sure you won't be (I can't help myself here) firing blanks! Seriously though, you will make the highest two pair, you will make the highest full house, you will make the best possible flush, sometimes the highest possible straight, and the smoothest lows even if they're not the nut lows (rough = 87652 / 86543 [bad eight lows], smooth = 8432A / 8653A [best possible eight / OK eight lows]). Hey, even if you get counterfeited for low, half the time that happens you make top pair! Although you won't like that very often at all. King kicker is valuable, but you'd definately prefer top two pair. Never leave home without an Ace.

But Don't Forget To Pack Your Bags First

Blindly following always having an Ace in your Unit and paying little attention to the other cards is like sending the weapons out to war without the soldiers/droids to man them (maybe you like Star Wars). And then all those sanddwellers jump out and say "Yay free weapons" in their foreign tongue. You'd be throwing your money away.

What you need is the discipline to throw those garbage-Ace hands away. The first thing that stamps and certifies with authority that your Unit is doomed to fail is the big sign that says 6789T. Middle cards in Omaha High Low will be the death of your bankroll and the growth of an unhealthy bulge in your opponents'. The reason for this is that middle cards fail to achieve two things; middle cards cannot make the nut hand when a low is not possible unless it is a full house (so if you play middle cards, your only hope is that it comes T-T-7 and if you're lucky enough to get any action that no higher card comes on the turn or river, and yeah, good luck with that); middle cards will only get half the pot at best when no full house is possible. That my friends, is undeniable. You might yelp, "but what if I'm getting really good pot odds". Well let me tell you, you aren't. Ever! Even if the whole table was "in for a penny, in for a pound!" (LOL) as the saying goes at my home game, and you were on the Button with 6789ds you would not be getting the express odds to call one small bet since the chances of you scooping are well over 12 to 1. It might even be the case in the small blind (but you should just muck if it isn't anyway since you won't be able to play it after the flop unless you're Jesus, basically - and you're not, BECAUSE HE'S DEAD). This extreme situation would be the perfect time to stretch your arms and say, "Corr I'm tighter than a duck's butt" then chucking your cards to the dealer nonchalantly/clicking auto-fold whilst online sitting in your birthday suit in your bedroom whilst your girlfriend moans at you for not giving her enough lovin' (at which point you contemplate "Hmm. Poker? PokeHER?" No, I've not decided which is better either)!

Woah I didn't really get into this enough with examples. AT86ds. This is not a playable Unit (remember playable is under the conditions of full nine or ten handed, assuming the majority of hands are played out multiway at low stakes due to loose players, which is all you're concerned about for now). A965. This is not a playable hand (good luck flopping 234). A667. This is not a playable hand. A699. This is not a playable hand. A7TT. Not playable. Those are some obvious ones.

The next territory we cross into is Units which have some minor playability to them, but in reality are losing hands since their scooping potential is so relatively low compared to the hands you should be playing. I'm talking stuff like AQT6, AKQ5, AJ98, AK68, AJ74. I'm talking stuff like A39Q, A2T9, A2Q7, A2J8. These are hands you can make the nuts with, no doubt about it. You can even make a nut low or decent low with a few of them. But they just won't do it often enough - and even if they make they do make the nuts, it will usually only be for half the pot. OK so it could come 6-7-8 and it doesn't make a flush or boat by the river AND you fail to get counterfeited (odds are something beyond the 7 to 1 region), and you take it all or 3 quarters or two 3rds (rare), or even five eighths (in which case maybe Jesus is actually risen and also building his blessing-the-meek [and bless-ed they be] bankroll by working part time, dealing for your table). That occurance would on the scale of luck be in the region of hitting a one outer for quads in a set under set situation. Maybe even rarer. Its pot of gold over the rainbow stuff with lil' leprechauns. I hope you don't like chasing longer than 20 to 1 shots on a long term basis when the implied odds will never be there Lets just say its not advisable.

Finally in this section I discuss the high quality unpaired Units containing a single Ace. If you could help it, you would only play these hands. As I have said before, to go to war you've got to be prepared. So you need a crack team, The BestathebestSIR, the freakin' Navy Seals. Guys in your Unit who can handle that Ace and make it work for them. Your guys need to work together as a team to win the battles and eventually the war (although so long as you wan to play that will arguably never end)! Holding these cards mean you've got all the bases you can cover with four cards covered. We're looking for hands containing nut low possibilities plus counterfeit protection (the best is A23 but A24, A25, and in some but much less cases A26 can still be useful). We're looking for high potential. Cards which can make straights whilst also making nut/second nut lows, again A23/A24/A25/A26. We're looking for some high cards too, preferably a King or Queen. There's two types of hand in the high quality hand array. There's the two way hand which is a hand like A23Q, A24J, A25K (three wheel cards plus a broadway card). And there's the one way hand (either all low cards with an Ace like A234, A245, A247 etc, or the three all high card hand with an Ace: AKQJ, AKJT, AKQT. There are two features which we are yet to discuss that do continue the principle of remembering to pack one's bags before they leave home with the meal ticket Ace - they have their own sections. I will make a comment about the difference between the playability of two way and one way hands. Two way hands tend to have greater playability under two circumstances, both seperate but enabled to coincide. The first is the betting structure. In PLO8, the Ace and King or Ace and Queen (I won't say you shouldn't play the AJ/AT combos with your two wheelies but they're not as good) enable you to three quarter more often because Aces and Kings with the nut low draw (eg flop A-K-3, you hold AK24) is a much bigger hand in PLO8 than in FLO8 since people will rarely stick around for backdoor draws as much as they do in FLO8 so guys who want to come along with their A247 in PLO8 are going to have to call pot sized bets when, as you can see, their best most likely outcome is a tie for the wheel. The actual case however is that you 3 quarter or get it all about 77% of the time, and they get half 20% of the time, and maybe 3% of the time they 3 quarter you with running sevens or a combination of running 6 and 5. But they cannot get it it all. And that a crucial point in PLO8. Notice also in that hand if they hit their seven on the turn, if its heads up with him and you he 95% loses half his stack because he'll put the rest of his money in (his hand is huge compared to your range, and he doesnt know you have exactly AK24). So they're going to fold if they know whats good for them. Hopefully not though. And remember in PLO8, when you get quartered, you lose half the money you put in plus whatever rake they slap on. But in Fixed Limit, you'll probably have four or more guys to the turn and three to the river, because hey, its only a few bets (this mentality is why Limit games are more profitable than PL games, and you might notice that in PL games most of the players are weak tight nits who require the nuts because they're so afraid to make a mistake). And all sorts of backdoor shizzle happens. You might even lose the whole put to a flopped set of treys that hit running tens. By the way you would want to CAPtain CAP CAP against the set of treys since he probably doesnt have A2 with it - despite the fact you have no low currently, you still have the most pot equity. I'll run it now for you. 337Qus vs A24Kus on flop of A-3-K rainbow. And then I'll carry this on later, its getting late.

If you make the low on the turn (2 to 1 against), you can take it all. He cannot win a thing, only half the bets of what have already been put in, and because you put all those bets in, he's not going anywhere, because its one more bet, he has a set, and he has to "see it" since he's getting "such great pot odds" (he's not). This is the optimum situation in Omaha High Low. Pure 100% freeroll. Sure, you can see by the amount of trials that this exact situation isn't going to come up relatively often at all, but it just illustrates perfectly what I've been hammering home about scooping. He might have the best hand by far currently. But if the cards were on their backs and he could choose he should choose to fold his hand.

thems alot of words...but really thanks for taking the time, still reading (only play Omaha because I have to in HORSE)

Yeah sorry I made a few mistakes with typos and I think I said "he probably doesnt have A2 with it" but I meant he probably doesnt hold exactly 2334 (the 2-4 combination makes the nut low draw, which would be quartering your A24K about 80% of the time)

I think I'm gonna have to go ahead and just redo this whole thing, stick it on the Omaha section. Maybe they could sticky it. I reckon the OP probably lost all interest in this post since I hijacked it to blather on about High Low

Since you play at PokerStars if you ever want to know if you're playing against me, I play as 78OFFTILT and my avatar is a picture of me looking mean.

And if I'm playing there, mostly it will be $1/$2 Omaha High Low

Fixed limit!