PL Omaha Cash Game Tip #1

If you’re going to take the plunge and become a regular at the pot limit Omaha cash games, then you’re going to need all the help you can get to keep your head above water. Even experienced Omaha players will tell you that pot limit Omaha is incredibly challenging, and that the big bets this game often features can make or break your whole bankroll. Still, if you find yourself winning regularly at the limit tables, and you feel you have the skills necessary to duke it out at pot limit Omaha, then read on for the PL Omaha cash game tips that are sure to save you some hurt.

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PL Omaha Cash Game Tip #2- Watch Your Opponents

With so much riding on pot limit Omaha hands, you want to be absolutely sure that every bet you make is the right one. Never before has it been so important that you peg whatever opponents that you can. While most smart players choose a tight strategy for PL Omaha, some of the more aggressive players use the high stakes to push less experienced or courageous players around. Once you’ve got a good hand, don’t be afraid to stick to it. If you come up against a calling station, in most cases it can only end in your favor—either they’ll continue to pump what is ultimately going to be your pot, or they’ll eventually realize the seriousness of your bets and fold.

PL Omaha Cash Game Tip #3 – Choose Your Hands Wisely

This Omaha tip goes for any virtually any variation of the game, but in pot limit it’s especially important that you bide your time and place your bets carefully. With the three-card flop, it’s easy to convince yourself that it’s worth the initial betting just to see what you draw, but in pot limit even a single round of betting can get pretty expensive. Furthermore, if your hand remains mediocre you’ve got to make the same decision about the second round. This is how many players rationalize their bankroll to death. Just one more bet…just one more card. Remember that it’s not a game of luck so much as omaha strategy, and your strategy should be to minimize unnecessary losses.

Forgetting that you are playing Omaha and not Omaha H/L

Playing a hand that has three or four of a kind
Remember you can only use two of the cards, so throw the other one or two out the window. This already limits you from hitting a three of a kind with any community cards. Most of the time the best hand you are going to make out of this is just a pair or two pair depending what is on the board. Try to avoid playing these hands at all cost regardless if it is 3 aces.

Overplaying Ace/Two in Omaha H/L
Don’t’ fall in love with Ace/Two thinking you are invincible. Several hands there is no low to begin, so your hand is useless. Also you have to watch out for other people holding ace/two as well and it could get your quartered.

Going all in with no low
Another common mistake in omaha is going all in with no low.  This is especially true when it is heads up. If you go all in with a player that has low, the best you can do is win high and most likely be a split pot.

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Not using 2 of your hole cards
Do not forget that two of the four cards of yours must be used and three from the community. So to every get a flush you must have two of the suit not just one and four cards in the community.

Seeing too many flops
Don’t see too many pots in Omaha Poker games. Almost every flop you see you will tend to get a piece of it. This will make you chase the turn and river cards way too often, and thus costing you more of your chips.

Omaha Hi/Lo Strategy Tips

Good starting hands in Omaha hi/lo would be A-A-2-3, suited aces, and A-2-Q-K. For a beginner, you should either just work on your hi cards or lo cards, until your comfortable with playing both. The less starting hands you play the better. A low hand is five different cards under 8 (8 included). Having ace suited is ideal. You also want to play hands like A2xx, 2345, and two high cards paired with two low cards.

I sometimes like to start hands from the small blind. Rather than being out of ‘position’ for the whole hand, I look at the small blind as one of the better positions in limit Omaha Hi/Lo. I can start the bet if I am at a table of passive players to raise the pot, I can check if I totally missed everything and am ‘surrendering’ and might get a free card. Or if I have a good hand, I have what I think is one of the more powerful plays. The small blind is the first position to check raise. I like that play because I want to increase the pot and get those drawing hands out that could beat me. Making them call a 2x limit bet makes the drawing odds much less for them. Since this is also a game of perception, if you check raise, then lead out with a bet, most opponents will perceive the strength of your hand to be better than it is.

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I especially like that play if the button is a holdem player who has the ‘always raise in the button’ mantra. I can confidently check, knowing he’ll bet, and usually the button folds on the raise or the next lead out bet. That’s why I use the small blind as the best position in Limit Omaha Hi/Lo to attempt a bluff or semi bluff as well. With the promotion and popularity of the H.O.R.S.E games, I find there’s more interest in Omaha. I think the differences between playing in a tournament with escalating blinds and in a ring game are most evident in Omaha E/B. Tournaments can be well played by good holdem players (who play the person and position as much as the cards) once they learn the basics. Limit ring games (IMHO) are successfully played more on pot odds and the drawing possibilities of a hand.

First thing to remember is the several people can have Ace/Two in a hand and they are guaranteed to call it if they are dealt it. You always have to be cautious with a low flop if several people are in the flop. You can tell if several people are calling and trying to hit one more low card to have the nut low. Also realize that not every hand will have a qualifying low.

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Chasing can become an epidemic while holding Ace/Two and flopping two low cards. Do not bet if you did not hit any high and are just chasing the low. Do not get sucked into to chasing if the other player bets big on the flop or turn and all you are doing is chasing one more low card. This will sometimes result in you getting quartered or losing the whole pot.

So do not fall in love with your Ace/Two like they are Aces in Holdem, don’t’ be afraid to fold them!

The level and the limit are quite important. This is true for all poker variants, but it is especially true for Omaha because of the great variance the game can display at times. However, the variance is different in Omaha because while variance can work your way in Hold ‘Em even if you have no clue what you are doing, in Omaha it is quite easier to derail yourself with a lack of knowledge. Therefore, when you are just beginning try to play at micro limits and if possible avoid pot limit games altogether. This is sometimes difficult to do (even online) because pot limit Omaha is more popular than all other Omaha forms put together, but if you are signed up at multiple online poker sites it should not be a big problem.

Try not to steal as much in late position. One of the things that you are told to do without fail in a Hold ‘Em cash game is to make real estate raises. These are raises that you make either in the cut-off or the button in an attempt to steal the blinds. They are emphasized more in tournament play, but many cash game Hold ‘Em specialists are happy to do them as well. In Omaha however, you are more likely to be called. This is not only because of the relative inexperience of many Omaha players, but it is also because an Omaha player has a greater chance to luck into an excellent hand on the flop because of the four cards they already hold and therefore the blinds are always going to be more inclined to call a late position raise.

These two considerations are perhaps the biggest things for you to think about when it specifically comes to the Omaha cash game. If you can keep to low limit games early on and try not to steal as much from late position as you would in a Hold ‘Em game, then you will be ready for more advanced techniques.

For example, what would you do if you knew your opponent had two rag cards and then A-K? Very likely, if your hand was not great, you would lay it down. This is not just because of the fact that they have A-K, but it is also because of the fact that you are close to getting into the money and you might even be able to fold your way there. These psychological considerations are amplified in Omaha, so as a good player you want to take advantage of them by being aggressive and stealing as many blinds as possible.

For the rest of the late stages of a tournament, you want to alternate between playing conservatively and playing aggressively depending on the situation as well as the archetypes of the players at your table. One situation where you want to ratchet up the aggression is when the prize money is close to increasing. In larger tournaments, usually more than one person will win the same amount of money when you are still very early on into the money. As this prize level comes close to increasing, an effect that is similar but not as pronounced as the bubble effect will take place. When this happens, you want to be aggressive and add all that dead money out in the middle of the table to your stack. Playing the opposite way of how the table is playing is the best way to win any poker tournament and with the Omaha variant it is a particularly poignant way of doing things.

Now, many people will tell you that you need a completely different strategy for playing at the final table. I would disagree here, simply because what leads many players to their downfall is getting away from their strong fundamental strategies because they perceive the final table as somehow being different from the others. The only difference between a Sit N’ Go and a final table is that players start with uneven chip stacks; that is all. Play a final table the way you would play a Sit N’ Go with strategy adjusted for your chip stack size and you will have the best chance possible at getting through and winning the Omaha tournament.

When you are playing short-handed, as you should already know from Hold ‘Em, drawing hands lose their importance and are replaced by high-card hands as being the hands that you want to enter pots with. This means that any A-K-X-X hand is usually a great hand in short-handed Omaha play and depending on the situation and how tight your opponents are playing any A-X-X-X might be good as well. Of course, the higher the complimentary cards in the hand the better because if you have A-Q-10-9 and the flop comes Q-X-X, then you are still in business pretty big time.

More important than the hand combinations however is the way in which you bet. You want your opponents to fear your raises, because if you take the initiative and make them make decisions about whether to fold or call, you are going to have the advantage over the long run. How many times have you longingly looked at you’re A-2 off-suit only to throw it away to a raise three-handed because you wanted a better place to get your chips in during a Hold ‘Em Sit N’ Go? Well, the same psychology applies to Omaha, so raise big and raise often. Make your opponent constantly make decisions that involve large portions of their chip stacks and you will find that your own path to victory will become easier than theirs.

While being aggressive is always good, it is important not to be reckless. Don’t make four or five raises in a row with total crap, because eventually somebody is going to pick a hand that they fancy racing with and you could find your tournament ending pretty quickly if that happens. Selective raises that bunch together when the rest of the table is playing tight and sitting back and waiting for hands but raising with them when you get them is the way to win Omaha Sit N’ Goes from a short-handed position.

For pot limit Omaha (the most popular form of Omaha in the world), what you are going to find is that a lot of people will get eliminated very early. The learning curve is steeper in Omaha than in Hold ‘Em and therefore the end result is that most tournaments will have a lot of new players that will get themselves knocked out early. This means that very early in the tournament, you should not be worried about stealing blinds that much and focus on getting good hands that you can use to milk the chip stacks of those newbie players. Of course, if you find that your tables are mostly knowledgeable players rather than new players, you might have to shift strategies and try to steal pots every now and then.

Your goal against primarily green tables in terms of player experience should be to milk pots with good hands; in other words, win fewer, but larger pots. Against experienced people, the opposite applies; win more, but smaller pots.

When you get to the middle stages of the tournament, much of what you do in Omaha will be dictated by what the table conditions and your chip stack are like. If your chip stack dawdles below 10 times the big blind, then you need to make a move very quickly. If you are pretty healthy on the other hand, you can try and push some of the smaller stacks around. Big stack and small stack poker are both ideas universal to many different poker variants and Omaha happens to be one of those variants. Try to put your smaller stack opponents to decisions for all of their chips whenever possible and put pressure on them to cause them to make mistakes. As you get towards the later parts of tournaments and players start to worry about making it to the money, you want to play extremely aggressive and take advantage of the new weak way in which many people play around that time.