Omaha Cash Game Strategy on the Flop

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.