Omaha Cash Game Fourth Street Strategy

May 18, 2009 - by admin · Filed Under Omaha Strategy Leave a Comment 

So you have managed to find a hand that you like to enter the pot pre-flop and on the flop you encountered a hand that you felt was worthwhile continuing with. As the fourth card falls onto the board, you are now going to have a lot more information. Your own hand will be quite a bit more fleshed out and so will your opponents’ hands. Because a lot more will be known about how the hand might play out at this stage, you need to pay a lot more attention to what your opponents do.

In the previous article on cash game strategy at the flop, it was said that while bluffing was rare, there were times when people would try it. As you get to Fourth Street, assuming that you or your opponents have been showing strength either in betting or in strong calling, bluffing is going to become even rarer. When people show a willingness to go beyond the flop in Omaha (and this is also true for Hold ‘Em), bluffers will usually think twice about trying it again. Depending on the situation, it requires a special kind of bravery or alternatively a special kind of stupidity to bluff into someone on the turn in a cash game when they have already called one bet and this is especially true if you are playing with the limit betting structure.

This means that if someone bets again on the turn, they usually have a hand worth respecting. You need to take a look at how your hand has improved, but you also need to be cognizant of the hands out there that could have improved to hands better than your own. This is most evident with straights and flushes.

Remember the example hand from the pre-flop section of As-Ks-Qc-10c? Well, would there be a difference in how you would respond to the bet if the board had the Ac and Kc as opposed to if it didn’t? What if the board just had the Ac or the Kc?

These are considerations you need to take into account in Omaha. While many Hold ‘Em textbooks will tell you to be more afraid if the Ace is not on the board in flush situations than if it is, in Omaha you need to be afraid of both. If you were willing to enter the hand with As-Ks-Qc-10c, who’s to say that someone else doesn’t have a similar two-suited hand that involves the King of Clubs? That hand would out-flush you, even if the Ace of clubs was on the board. With four cards to worry about, all of these considerations need to be taken into account when a bet is made and you need to proceed very slowly and cautiously because of them.

Pot Limit Omaha Strategy 101

May 18, 2009 - by admin · Filed Under Omaha Strategy Leave a Comment 

Pot Limit Omaha is one of the only poker games more widely played in Europe than in North America. Why? Because Europeans love to gamble and PLO has the biggest swings, letting even a novice take out a pro.

Omaha hi is one of the only games where a pair is horrible and bottom set is subject to disaster. 75% of the time, someone will have a straight. 70% someone will have a flush, and 25% of the time someone will have a full house.

One of the worst things you can do is slow play your hand, unless you have the nuts, because even if you check once, you opponent will pounce on the opportunity. Generally most of the action occurs preflop or on the flop. Discipline is huge in Omaha, because when was it ever easy for you to fold a set, straight, or even a flush? (Even when you positively knew you were beat) You want to play high pocket pairs, essentially anything above Jacks.

If that pair doesn’t improve, you need to fold your hand no matter what hits the flop. Connecting or semi connecting cards should be played. Hands like KQJ10, or QJ97 (semi). If one of your cards is more than two spaces apart (Q,J,10,7) for example, you shouldn’t risk playing it.

Never play a flush or flush draw unless it is the nut flush. On any given hand, 3 people have at least 2 cards of the same suit! Low pairs are useless and should be folded (Hands like 4466 or 5588).

Playing Late in Omaha Tournaments

May 18, 2009 - by admin · Filed Under Omaha Strategy Leave a Comment 

The last strategy article concerning playing in the early and middle parts of an Omaha tournament ended with commentary about how you should increase your aggression when it is getting close to the money. This is a strategy that you likely already know from Hold ‘Em, but it is a strategy that actually works better in Omaha than it does in Hold ‘Em. The primary reason for this is the fact that there are twice as many cards involved in Omaha, so naturally one would be more suspicious of the hand a person is raising with because there are more possibilities that it could be at least partially strong.

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.

Omaha Cash Game Strategy on the Flop

May 18, 2009 - by admin · Filed Under Omaha Strategy Leave a Comment 

So you have received a hand that you feel works well with each card and have entered the pot aggressively. You have some callers and as you all watch with baited breath the flop is dealt out. The real question then becomes, now what?

Well, one thing that will help you greatly in Omaha Poker is people watching. Omaha as a game requires a lot more mental computation than Hold ‘Em and if you watch not only your opponents reacting to the flop, but also how they look at the board and fit the community cards into their hand, you can eventually learn how to tell when the flop hit them and when the flop didn’t.

Omaha strategy on the flop consists of two parts; what your own potential is in the hand balanced against what you think your opponents might have. You should know from Hold ‘Em that very rarely do hands on the flop go on and remain the best by the end of the hand and with the four-card start of Omaha hands winning from the flop onwards is an even rarer occurrence. Therefore, having a strong hand on the flop is good, but you ideally also want to have some opportunity to improve on later streets. Either way however, keep in mind once again that each opponent of yours has four hole cards, so do not remain in on the flop unless you either have a strong hand or a strong draw with pot odds. And once again, make sure you keep in mind that you must use exactly three cards from the board and two cards from your hand in your final hand.

Some people try to bluff in Omaha, but most people will usually value bet throughout their playing of the game. This means that you can gauge where you might be in the hand based on the number of bets that are already in. If you have a draw and there is a lead with three calls, then chances are you still have a reasonably good shot considering the money out there in the pot to win. However, if you run into a bet and a raise and have to call two bets cold, you want to make especially sure that your hand is worth continuing on with. This is what is meant by judging the value of your hand against the potential that you feel from your opponents.

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