Omaha H/L

What do you guys think are good starting hands for Omaha, when I play HORSE this is probably my weakest game, and I need some good tips on them. Everybody that wins seems to at least have a straight or a flush. So, I seem to never win with my starting Aces, but see people consitlently win with J-10 suited, and another 2 suited cards. Am I better off going in with a hand that has 2 suits with 2 cards per suit or with a high pair with decent other cards?

best hands-in my opinion

when playing Omaha the best starting hands are either high pocket pairs or being two suited. Like having two high diamonds and two high clubs for your hold cards. Omaha can seem harder to hit the flop, because a much larger portion of the cards are dealt for players hold cards. I always try not to commit to many chips before seeing the flop.
If playing Omaha h/l, I normally cocentrate heavily on the low. It seems to be easier to hit the low than the endless possibilities of the high. I play stud h/l the same way concentrating mainly on the low.

et1961 said:

when playing Omaha the best starting hands are either high pocket pairs or being two suited. Like having two high diamonds and two high clubs for your hold cards. Omaha can seem harder to hit the flop, because a much larger portion of the cards are dealt for players hold cards. I always try not to commit to many chips before seeing the flop.
If playing Omaha h/l, I normally cocentrate heavily on the low. It seems to be easier to hit the low than the endless possibilities of the high. I play stud h/l the same way concentrating mainly on the low.

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thanks, i noticed how often people were hitting flushes, and was just curious on how good being two suited was.

I assume we are talking about Omaha Hi, not Hi/Low. And PLO. It's a wild game and a lot of fun, especially if you like seeing/getting big big hands.

I kinda prefer double suited wrap hands. Mid to high. A wrap hand is, say, 789T or JKQA or some such. On the flop, you know if you are in the ballpark and, if not, it's easy to fold. If you are, you can possibly have both a flush and straight draw, if you haven't made it already. Beware of making a non-nut flush as always -- but the beauty of the mid-range wrap is that you can sometimes land that lovely straight flush. WIth a non-nut flush, bet at it but be prepared to fold if someone comes over the top of your bet. 90% of the time, he has the nut.

Beware of any time the board doubles, though. Generally, someone has made a boat, unless the board is all low cards. Don't go all wild with a flopped straight either -- it's often dead meat by the river. Do bet it, though. Make the other guy(s) have to get lucky. No free cards.

AA and KK can be fine, if you get heads up with someone else preflop. (The other player will likely have whichever one you do not have. Expect it.) It tends to be a race.

The other way to play AA is to put in a preflop raise and, if an A comes, bet the heck out of it. Check-raising is very powerful in PLO.

On the whole, any hand where you have a made hand of some sort (set or 2 pair at a minimum on the flop), plus a good draw, is a hand that is worth the risk of sticking with. You need room to improve. It's very very rare to win a PLO hand with one pair. (Which is why playing AA hard can be so problematic.)

PLO often requires you to stick with hands that are not there yet, so you need heart and guts more than anything else. And a sufficient bankroll. You can lose a lot more buy ins in this game than in NLHE, because of the prevalence of good hands and pot-sized bets. But when you are running well, you can run very well indeed.

Good luck out there.

et1961 said:

when playing Omaha the best starting hands are either high pocket pairs or being two suited. Like having two high diamonds and two high clubs for your hold cards. Omaha can seem harder to hit the flop, because a much larger portion of the cards are dealt for players hold cards.

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OK sorry but this is NOT good advice right here....

Being Double Suited (DS) is definitely preferred but it does not in and of itself make a hand good or even playable.

Also "High pairs" is waaaaay too general. KKxx is generally worth playing in any situation. AAxx same. QQxx? only if you have a good "xx". JJxx... not very often at all.


double suited AAxx is one of the best hands in the game. The better the xx is the better the hand... for example probably the two best starting hands in the game are AAKK DS and AAJT DS.

As a general rule of thumb, you don't want to play much of anything that doesn't have at least one suit. Exception to this are rare but include AAxx and KKxx hands (hitting top set is almost always profitable) and occasionally hands on the btn where you will be playing position more than your hand (for example I would open raise JT86 rainbow on the btn... I would also probably fold it if anyone in front of me was already in the pot). Also, I would open raise AAQT rainbow from anywhere... AA72 rainbow however, I'm probably limp/calling from EP and open raising LP. (one GIGANTIC advantage of rainbow AA hands however is that if you get a board with three of the same suit as one of your aces (which is half the possible flush draws) you can represent the nut flush knowing noone else can have it... this is known as the "dry ace" bluff and is very effective)


One of the biggest mistakes I see most omaha players make is treating any hand that is DS like it is a great hand. K952 DS is pretty much trash for example. Likewise, you generally do not want pairs in your hand that aren't AA or KK. Exceptions can be GOOD JJ or QQ hands (such as TJJQ with at least one suit...). Also, double paired hands are worth playing especially when the pairs are fairly close together and double suited such as 8899 or TTQQ..these are good hands. Obviously the higher the better. I'm probably not playing 3355 for example. These hands are good because they will hit a set pretty often AND can make lots of other good hands like straights or flushes... for example a set + straight or flush draw is a great hand even if it's middle set most of the time.



Long story short... a GOOD omaha hand is one that has 4 cards that work together. KQJ9, KKT9, AA78, 89TJ (all with at least a suit) are great hands.

Any hand that is just 4 random cards without an ace and that aren't connected is trash double suited or not. If you have 4 connected cards or 3 connected cards + an ace, those hands are playable. For example: J987 DS and A678 DS are good enough hands.

QQ64 SS, A952 DS, Q873 DS etc are pretty much 100% a fold.

jh1spartanfan said:

What do you guys think are good starting hands for Omaha, when I play HORSE

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Interesting how a thread can get 3 replies deep and no one really notices that its high/low split...

Yeah, 1 pair isn't nearly as strong playing LO8 as it is playing hold'em, but how strong you play it really depends on what your low hand is to go with it. A2K4 is trash on a KQ9 flop, but on a K37 board you've got a very strong hand.

Obviously playing HORSE, we're playing limit omaha 8 or better, so we're playing to scoop the whole pot. This means we're looking to make the best high hand with no low possible on the board, or we're looking to make the best low and have a better high hand on top of that. So its tricky to recommend *play X hands* because a hand has potential for two pots. A hand like AKQJds may have no equity in the low pot, but because its such a strong high only hand, we can play it. Same goes for A234, lots of low possibility, but not the strongest high potential. And some hands are in between.

But to put things as quickly as I can:

1) Play any A2 and any A3, barring some obvious exceptions like A333.
2) Strong 23 & A4 hands *can* be played from any position (234sKs, As4sJJ for example), but you really need strong high potential to go with these hands since their low potential is weak. No one would call you a nit if you folded an A4 or 23 UTG either.
3) Play strong high only hands if conditions are right (cheap flops, blind steals). AKQJds, AKKJ, QJTT type stuff.
4) Steal like your life depends on it. On the button in an unopened pot, you can steal crazy wide in my experience. 35KJ, A59T are certainly playable.

I rarely play Omaha as was never sure what was a good calling hand. At least I have a better idea of when to stay in now.

Bah not paying attention thanks C9

My advice applies ONLY to omaha hi

Maybe name the thread better?

Tygran said:

Bah not paying attention thanks C9

My advice applies ONLY to omaha hi

Maybe name the thread better?

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Sorry, I probably should have. I do play Omaha by itself so your advice was helpful for that, but mainly when I play it, it is in HORSE.

Hand with 2 high cards and 2 low cards double suited like kkA3, qqa2 you want to play.

Looks like someone changed the name of the thread for me to Omaha H/L, thanks.

In LO8 (Limit Omaha H/L) games the hands you want to play are ones that can win the whole pot. You do not want to play hands like AA96 without suits because having just AA with a weak low is a recipe for disaster in this game.

Let's start from scratch

1) Do you have an A in your hand? If yes then let's start looking at the other three cards. If no you are pretty much done with the hand unless you are in late position , there have been no raises and at least three limpers. If you have all of that then you must have a hand like 23xx with a good shot at high because we assume the other players before you to be weak. This situation also relies on an Ace to hit the flop. If it does you have a nice low and possibly wheel draw to go with it.

2) Is your Ace suited. I think having at least one suited Ace means you can see a flop.

3) Do you have an Ace with two broadway cards. Here is another hand that can stand to see the flop and you might even want to put in for a riase with it if the others players are limpers since they are most likely hold low hand ans the deck is sure to be rich with high cards for you to flop. Calling here is also ok.

4) Three to a wheel. It has been said that any three wheel cards in LO8 are playable cheap. By this we mean any three cards 5 and lower.

Try to keep in mind that drawing for second best hands is a good way to go broke in LO8. If there are three flushes on the board assume the flush (most of the time the nut flush) is out there.

Do not play for low only. If you have no shot at Hi you have to be done with your hand if there is more than one person betting and raising. if you get 1/4 of the pot you lose money in this game.

Hope this helps.

kmixer said:

2) Is your Ace suited. I think having at least one suited Ace means you can see a flop.

3) Do you have an Ace with two broadway cards. Here is another hand that can stand to see the flop

4) Three to a wheel. It has been said that any three wheel cards in LO8 are playable cheap.

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Gotta say, I didn't really like this advice so much. Naked suited aces, and a hand like AKJ6 can pretty safely be mucked preflop in most cases. And hands like 345J are on the bad side as well. Sure I'd steal from the button/cutoff with them, but I'd turbo-muck from a lot of other positions.

c9h13no3 said:

Gotta say, I didn't really like this advice so much. Naked suited aces, and a hand like AKJ6 can pretty safely be mucked preflop in most cases. And hands like 345J are on the bad side as well. Sure I'd steal from the button/cutoff with them, but I'd turbo-muck from a lot of other positions.

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No question that position is the key to whether or not we play these hands. I should have made that more clear.

My suited Ace comment holds. I always consider what my other two cards are of course but in the games I play nakes suited Aces are fine. as I move up I may have to reconsider them. I hope you will be there to remind me.

jh1spartanfan said:

Looks like someone changed the name of the thread for me to Omaha H/L, thanks.

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Yeah, and now some of us look like idiots for talking about Omaha high! LOL

Well, OHL: AA23 double suited, AAK2 ds, A234 (dump quickly if high board) -- you get the picture. Keep hands that could give you both the high and low, and don't bet the lows hard as you are often quartered (someone else gets the high and you split the low with someone, so you lose money.) Be wary if the board gives a straight or flush draw and you don't have the nuts. A flopped straight will often lose by the river, so don't go nuts.

Dump any hand without an A. OK, I might play 2345 for a possible lock on the low if an A hits.

The mantra: Anything can happen in Omaha. Just accept it.

Any hand that has value preflop towards a high and low hand or a hand loaded for either high or low(double suited paint, or wheel,A-2-3-sumpin.