Plugging leaks in Omaha

TriggaLos shot a video yesterday at a PLO table on Pokerstars, and said that he hoped to start a discussion on some basic strategy. It seems that most players share a common sentiment towards Omaha, which is “I have no idea what I’m doing”. The good news is that, since so many players feel this way, PLO can be extremely profitable if we follow some very basic guidelines, in order to exploit our weak opponents. I’m no expert myself—I don’t have an outstanding win-rate, or a huge hand sample— but I understand how to put myself into good situations, and I’d like to share that information with all of you. If you’d like more information, I’d suggest reading Jeff Hwang’s “Pot Limit Omaha Poker” or Bob Ciaffone's "Omaha Poker".

First, PLO is not a game of coin flips. It is true that no starting hand has a huge equity advantage over any other hand. For example, AAKK double suited is only a 60/40 favorite over 9876 double suited pre-flop. However, it is very uncommon for two players to get all-in pre-flop in PLO, and a hand’s equity can change drastically based on the texture of the flop. In addition, there are situations where a hand that is a mathematical underdog will likely bluff out opponents with stronger holdings. In his book “Pot Limit Omaha Poker”, Jeff Hwang estimates that QJ52 is a 2:1 favorite over KQJ4 on a flop of T95. Here, the first player has bottom pair with an eight card straight draw, while the second hand has a thirteen card straight draw. The first player, while being the odds-on favorite to win the hand at a showdown, will likely fold to any bet or raise from the second player. There are too many hands that already have him beat or have his draw dominated for him to continue with the hand. The moral of the story is that certain hands, while they may not be a huge favorite pre-flop, are huge favorites to take down the pot post-flop.

When one first sits down at a PLO table and is dealt his/her first hand, our imaginations can run wild, dreaming of miracle flops for our hands, where we flop sets, big straights, flushes, etc. While it is true that pretty much any hand can flop a winner, we have to consider that for every time that does happen, there are countless times where we find ourselves in hopeless situations. For example, say that we have a hand like T965, and the flop comes 872, which gives us a monster twenty-card straight draw. We are actually a small favorite in this situation against a hand as strong as AK88. Now let’s compare our equity against a hand like AJT9, which has a thirteen card straight draw. Here, we only have seven outs (three 5’s and four 4’s) that will give us the best hand—any of the thirteen other outs we had before will give our opponent a straight greater than or equal to ours. Should we hit any of those seven outs on the turn, we will still lose or chop the pot about 25% of the time. Another situation where this happens is when we have QT98, and our opponent has AKQT. The flop comes KJ2. We have a thirteen cards to fill our straight, but again, our opponent has our draw crushed. The issue is further complicated when flush draws are involved.

This attitude is also necessary with hands such as top two pair or bottom set. Say we have 7766, and the flop comes A87. In hold’em, this is a hand where we want to get all of our chips in. But in Omaha, our hand is only a 60% favorite against JT92. This percentage drops to 52% if our opponent has a flush draw. Worst of all, we have 9% equity against a hand like AAQJ. In these spots, where we are only slightly ahead or getting completely romped, it’s crucial to play cautiously. It takes a much bigger hand in Omaha to get to the river than it does in hold’em.

In case it isn’t already obvious, we want to put ourselves in situations where we are the ones dominating the odds. We can do this by 1) focusing on the number of clean outs, not just the number of total outs, and 2) choosing starting hands that are have the potential to dominate. When players ask what type of hands they should play pre-flop, the answer is usually “play hands that work together”. This is a pretty vague description. Obviously, JT98 is a hand that “works together”, but why is something like QJT7 better than a hand like 8654? The answer is that the former will more often flop draws to the nuts, while the latter is likely to flop a draw that can be crushed. The flaw with 8654 is two-fold: first, the rankings are lower, so it is less likely that we will hit something top two pair; second, the gap at the top, instead of near the bottom, makes it more likely that we will end up with sucker draws. So, when we evaluate a starting hand, we want cards with gaps at the bottom, like QJT8, QJ98, QJ97, etc., and we prefer that they are high in rank. Being suited also adds a ton of equity to these hands.

There are tons more hands in Omaha that are playable, perhaps more than hold’em players are used to. I am not going to spend more time on this, though, because it would take forever. Generally speaking, as I said previously, we want hands that can dominate once we get to the flop. This goes for hands like AAxx, also. Most players who are new to Omaha play AAxx hands too strongly, and end up going broke. If an AAxx hand does not connect with the flop—with top set, the nut flush draw with an overpair, an open-ended straight draw with an overpair, etc.—we need to strongly re-evaluate where we stand in the hand.

This is really just touching the surface of the strategy in Omaha. If we try to remember these things while we’re playing, we should be in much better shape than the plethora of weak opponents we will find. To reiterate:

-While hands have similar pre-flop winning percentages, this changes once the flop hits, and the big draws will often bluff out the weak hands
-The hands we take to the river are ones with mostly (if not entirely) outs to the nuts; also, hands like bottom set that are profitable in hold’em are less so in Omaha
-Good starting hands in Omaha do more than just “work together”—they are hands where, if we connect with the flop, we will be in a dominating position

Again, there are many more complexities to Omaha than what I’ve stated here, such as post-flop play and bluffing, playing weaker hands with position, etc. Hopefully, though, this should help a person with a limited understanding of Omaha get started in this profitable game. I will leave the rest for discussion, and I encourage all players to share their ideas and their questions here.

vn post cj!!! I saw Trigga posted that vid, but haven't gotten the time to watch it yet...

Two quick comments -

There are a lot more playable hands in Omaha than in Holdem as you say, but there are also a lot more virtually unplayable hands in Omaha than in Holdem.

There are hands that are playable on the button that are absolutely not playable utg. Position rules PLO, and dictates hand selection to a certain extent.

This is a very good point! Thank you for elaborating on this. Position in Omaha is often more important than in hold'em.

Nice post cjatud!!!

Awesome post. I can't wait to watch the video too.

I will say this though. It is true that a lot of starting hands are close and the flop will determine if you should continue. However it is playing those premiums from the right position that will separate a win vs a loss for the session and overall a winning player from a losing player.

Oddly enough, I'd say this has nothing to do with Omaha, but the fact that its played pot limit...

Excellent post CJ, txs for the reminders... I agree with c9 also, the 'additive' nature of PL makes position that much more important...

BTW I thought Farha was good, but Hwang's book is the best I have seen.

This is an interesting thought... Could either of you two elaborate a little about why this may be true?

PS thanks for the replies all!

Because of the very nature of pot-limit games, the option of "shove to eliminate your positional disadvantage" isn't as prevalent. You invariably have to make more decisions on more streets, hence the importance of position is increased.

The only other main reason why position is so much more important is that equities run very close preflop & on the flop in omaha. Thus controlling the potsize to your advantage on later streets is critical, and its 100 times easier to do that in position.

But yeah, with potlimit games, you can only raise to the size of the pot, and therefor it becomes more important to be able to manipulate the pot size at will.

One of the worst things you can do is raise from the blinds with just about any hand. If you have a table full of nits who will fold to 3-bets, fine, you need a STRONG AA hand at minimum to 3-bet OOP IMO. Vs. aggressive players in the blinds, I'll limp a strong range and 3-bet them all day...you'll be amazed at the terrible hands that people will raise/call out of the SB (KK23 no suits, 9988, etc.)

Fold all pair hands below KK unless they are extremely well coordinated, i.e. QQAJ double suited, or QJJT minimum. playing any other pairs out of the blinds vs. a raise is asking for trouble, you'll flop dominated sets and bad draws a lot.

perhaps most importantly: DON'T PLAY DOUBLE-SUITED TRASH!

I've played a little Omaha and it is a little tricky, I would be interested in seeing the video and if there is a starting hand chart or something to look at. I find hands like AKA2 suited or somethin like that seem to be good but I never really knew what was a great hand and what was unplayable although there are some obvious hands like four of a kind is probably not very good. I have played some Horse also and I think the Omaha part is what kills me.

First off, great post. All good basics. But I am confused by this... 2:1 favorite? Because he has a pair of 5s? I understand he is slightly ahead here, but 13 outs x 2 says player 2 is a coinflip to tie at worst. Okay, be that as it may, why would the second player be raising with a straight draw only? I wouldn't, unless I had redraws to a high flush, and a 2-flush hit the board. I looked for this example in Hwang's book, but couldn't find it. Don't expect you to look for it.

Hey Dive, the example is from the second chapter, under "The Power of the Big Draw". The player with the pair of fives also has an open-ended straight draw, which gives him 50% win odds and 25% tie odds, whereas the player with the 13-card straight draw has only 25% win odds and 25% tie odds. I guess the total equity is not 2:1, but the first hand will win the pot outright twice as often than the second hand, which may have been what Hwang was talking about in his book.

I agree that raising with a big straight draw on a two-toned bored is ludicrous, but in a heads-up pot on a rainbow board, a 13-card straight draw, as you stated, will have around 40% win odds against a hand like top set. Of course, our opponent will not always have top set. If our opponent has a hand like AT98 for top two, they will likely fold if we play strongly, because they have only 54% win odds against our 13-card draw (before flush draws are considered), and are getting crushed by any set. So basically, they cannot continue against our range if we show aggression, which makes our hand more powerful.

Page 29, TYVM. He goes into much more detail. And I see how wrong I am with the odds that I mentioned myself - he says to raise and welcome company (well company was obvious). To fill in the blanks, he does say "everybody checks to you" here, and you are on the button. This is exactly why I wanted to find the passage, a little more insight to his thinking. BTW, you're right of course - you might have better than 50-50 to hit a stright, but that number lessens (40%) against a boat draw. Again, I thought close to 50-50 as either of the 2 K outs, also beat the opponent. Again, VN post, well interpretted. Tricky game, eh?

Thank you for all the kind words-- sorry I didn't go into the appropriate amount of detail. It is definitely tricky, but it's tricky for everyone else, too

Missed this one somehow... very nice post and discussion here.


I'll comment some later after I read it all. Really glad to see some PLO interest growing here at CC.