Need quick advice on Omaha

I mistakenly signed up for an Omaha bounty tourney on Bovada thinking it was the Texas Hold 'em tourney. Argh! I've only played Omaha once before. What the heck do I do?

Quick answer, read up on it.
Longer answer, many poker sites have help pages that give you the run down of every type of poker game played at the site. Said page gives a list of best and worst hands to play and the format it is played in. Just make sure you understand which hands are winning ones and which are not.

I was going to respond, but then I looked as the date of your post and I assume that you are not still playing said tournament. I guess Martinez did not do the same.

I would be interested to hear how you thought it went though...

It was fun, but there were several hands where the cards would come up and I thought I had lost, and then the chips would start coming my way. Or vice versa. I thought I had won only to see the chips go the other way. I wound up getting 5.5 bounties somehow (I got 2 in one hand twice, and both times I thought I was beaten with a full house), but didn't finish in the money.

The pot limit was also different and took some getting used to. It was a fun experience, but it was really hard to tell preflop if you had good cards. I was playing a very high percentage of flops (at least higher than what I normally see in hold 'em). Is that normal? Do you typically play more pots in Omaha vs. hold 'em?

You will typically see a lot more limping pre in Omaha because so much can change on the flop and each street regarding hand strength but its something you should also try not to get cought up in.

You have 4 cards as opposed to two and many might view it as having 2 sets of 2 cards so might think a good hand is 56TJ for example because of the two straight possibilities but you need to look at all combinations and there are 4 of your possible 8 two card hands that just suck 5t, 6t, 5j, 6j and even if these are double suited its not that great because when looking at a flush in omaha you want to be on the nut side of it.

So looking to have 4 cards that work together AKQJ, especially double suited is a great starting hand or 9TQJ could be deemed even better because it has a lot of straight possibilities....for example you get see a flop of 78x well now you have 4 card that can give you the nut straight 6, 9, T, J......such hands are also called wraps because of the straight potentials.

Many times if the nuts isn't in your hand its very possible in someone elses, unless you have blockers which brings in the bluffing aspect of omaha, but if the board pairs very good chance there will be a boat out there.

Many people will only 3-bet big pairs and the best hands pre for calling them are wraps and then eval your potential when the flop comes.

Just some quick pointers, its a great game I love it but also has some high variance because people often have more ways to suck out on you so can find it even harder to lay down to raises.

Thanks, bluff. I finally figured out that having 4 cards connected to a straight was a good starting hand because it gave you lots of options for hitting a straight. I also liked if I had an ace with another card of the same suit because of the nut flush possibilities. Pairs I did not like as much because it seemed I never hit a set. And even if I did, I needed another pair on the board for the full house, which meant that at least 1 other player had a shot at a full house and somebody could even hit quads.

There's actually a pretty good write-up on this site here under the Omaha tab. The preflop strategy is especially helpful for newcomers.

The general rule of thumb is that you must play two cards from your hand and make the best five card hand. Since you have four to start with, all winning hands are going to be about twice as strong as Holdem. As such, don't be potting it with two pair on the river.

Opening hands should have at least two cards in the same suit, and double-suited (two cards in one suit, two cards in another) are good hands, espcially if you can get a high pair or connectors to give you straight and flush options.

I also find that playing Omaha gives me the extra benefit of being able to read my NLHE hands significantly faster.

GL out there!