TexasHoldem-Poker.com

[xDiamond_CutteRx]

Since PokerStars has started offering mixed games, there are a lot of fish out there who want to try their hands at these games, and that means a lot of money for the taking for people who have even a basic understanding of the HORSE games. And besides, Omaha 8-or-Better offers some of the juiciest tables out there, so why not take your share?

Note to everyone: This guide deals with LIMIT Omaha-8 (LO8 for short), not Pot-Limit or No-Limit, which require different strategies.


Concept #1: The Cardinal Rule of High-Low Games
The rule is simple, and the rule is this: only play hands that have a chance to SCOOP. That is, play hands that have a shot at winning the entire pot, not just half. Many times you will still end up with half, but having redraws and getting some scoops is crucial to success in both Omaha and Stud 8-or-Better. Conversely, the number one ticket to becoming a losing player is chronically overplaying one-way hands.


Concept #2: Your Starting Hand
The most important decision you will make in Omaha 8-or-Better is whether or not to play your hand before the flop. Unlike in Hold'em, where you can "play catch-up" with good play after the flop, Omaha severely punishes people who make poor pre-flop decisions, primarily because one bad decision in this game often leads to another.

Like I mentioned in Concept 1, you want hands that can scoop, and because there are so many combinations in Omaha, you want hands that can draw to the nuts in each direction. For this reason, suited aces and A2 are crucial combinations to many winning hands. I'll give you some examples of Premium, Good, and Marginal Starting Hands. You should notice a trend in them, namely that the better hands have many nut combinations. (s) means suited, usually with the Ace.

Premium Hands: AA2x(s), AA3x(s), AA23, AA24, A234(s), A235(s), A2KK, A2QQ, AK2x(s)

Good Hands: AA25, AA34, AA35, A3KK, A3QQ, A2bb(s) (b meaning "baby," or two unpaired cards 8 or lower), A345(s), 2345, 2346, 2356, AKQJ(s), AKKQ(s), AKQQ(s), AAxx(s)

Marginal Starting Hands: AAxx, A22x(s), AKQJ, Arrr (where r is for any boardway cards), KKQQ, KKJJ, KKQJ, KKQT, KKJT, QQJT, KQJT, A2xx, A3xx(s), A456(s), KK32

That's not a complete or comprehensive list by any means, but you should get the general idea. High pairs are good because they make top sets and overfull houses. Suited Aces are good because they make nut flushes. Wheel cards are good because they can make nut lows and the Ace-to-Five straight for high. In fact, the Wheel in particular is very powerful because it is always the nut low and often good enough to win the high by itself (it also helps to have a 6 to make a wheel along with a deuce-to-six straight that may beat someone who just has a wheel).

Key Concept: In High-Low Poker, the Wheel is a particularly powerful hand.

As you can see, I have listed some hands that are "high only" and contain several broadway cards. These hands don't violate the cardinal rule because high hands do not have to qualify to win, and can win the entire pot by themselves when no one qualifies for low. And in most cases, if you hold a broadway straight, the board will mean a low will not be possible (most exceptions to this mean an A in on board).

Playing before the flop is often tricky. You usually want to bet so that your equity is reflected by your action. Automatically raising with A2 is huge blunder, because you may reduce the field only to other players who have premium hands, and you could be in real trouble if the flop counterfeits you (see below).

Position is very important in Omaha. In tough games, it is probably more important than in any other game. If the game is aggressive, you will probably want to limit yourself to only the best hands, because you will have little idea as to how the betting will go in future rounds.

In early position, I prefer to only play good two-way hands, and most of the time (especially in loose games), I prefer to just limp in, even with a hand as strong as AA23, because I want to inflate the pot and invite other players in. Now, if you're in a game where many players play loosely even against a raise, I would probably go ahead and just make it two bets with my better hands. Tight play from early position will save you a lot of money

In the later positions, you can raise with your better hands regardless of the action. In pots with only a limper or no players, a raise can often get the pot heads-up (which is useful for hands that include AA, KK, or QQ), buy the button, or steal the blinds. In pots where many players have entered, a raise should be for value with good two-way hands that have back-up cards in them (see below), like AA23, A234, A223, and the like. This often inflates the pot to give other players attractive (yet still futile) odds for their bad hands, and gives you the chance to pick up a lot of dead money.

As for "high only" hands, I prefer to play these only in good position, against one or two players only, and for a single bet before the flop, because with these hands you usually have to hit the flop pretty strongly to continue.

Automatically completing in the SB is a major mistake in this game, because you may get a flop that gives you bankroll-busting second best draws. Even in the face of good odds, try to be at least somewhat selective about the hands you call with out of the blinds, particularly because you will be in poor position the rest of the hand.

Finally, I need to mention one more key concept.

Key Concept: You do not need to play a "naked" AA or A2, particularly from early position. With nothing else to go with these hands, you can get trapped in unpleasant situations later in the hand.


Concept #3: Don't Play Middle Cards
If AA23 double-suited is the top of the Omaha food chain, then hands like 9987 and T975 are the feeder fish. Middle cards make bankroll busting second-best hands, and are classic "one way" hands. A set of 9's may look good, but it can easily lose to a higher set, and it does nothing for low. If you have a straight that's ten-high or lower, a low will also be possible, and your good high hand will probably only win half the pot. Flushes that are not the nut flush get picked off too often to really be worth it. You get the idea. Middle cards BAD!


Concept #4: Getting Counterfeit and Having Back-up
Say you start with A2KK and the flop comes 8-7-5. Great, you've flopped the nut low! You cap the pot on the flop, and then a deuce hits on the turn. Although you still have 8752A for low, you no longer have the nut low. Anyone holding A3 now has the nut low, meaning you just got counterfeit. Getting counterfeit in Omaha sucks, and worse, it happens more often than you'd like.

The number one defense against getting counterfeit is having a "backup" low in case one of your cards gets duplicated. This is why A23 and A24 are such good combinations; for one, you can make the wheel more ways, and two, it's much harder to get counterfeit for the nut low. Say you have A24 and the flop comes 8-5-3; any A, 2, or 4 makes you a wheel, and there is no way your nut low can be counterfeit.

The presence of backup means you can play your hands that much more strongly. In fact, in Omaha you must sometimes lay down the current nuts (particularly the current nut low) in jammed multi-way pots before the river if you don't have backup. This is for two reasons. One, getting counterfeit can cost you a lot of money. And two, you're probably sharing cards with someone else and you're playing for less than half the pot.

Say you had A2KK on a flop of 8-5-4. If it's three bets before it gets to me, I'd throw away this hand in a heartbeat, particularly if there are more players to act after me. Chances are, someone else has A2, possibly with backup, and another player has 67, meaning you'd be playing for a quarter of the pot if you're lucky. That's not a winning proposition.

Conversely, if you held A23K (with the A K ), and the flop came 9 5 4 , I would put in as many bets as I absolutely could. Although I have neither a good high nor low at the moment, I have a draw to the nut low that can't be counterfeit, multiple wheel draws, and the nut flush draw. My equity is so high in this hand I can't afford not to jam this pot.

Key Concept: Don't play in big multi-way pots for multiple bets without backup.


Concept #5: Getting Quartered
Getting quartered in Omaha, well, sucks. Usually it happens because someone else has duplicated your low. For this reason, if you hold the nut low and nothing else on the river, it is often incorrect to start a "raising war" with other players because you may be playing for 1/4 of the pot. This is especially true on boards that contain 4 wheel cards like 2345. In this case, any player with an ace plus another wheel card has the nut low and the same straight. And any time there are fewer than 5 players in a pot, getting quartered means you lose money.

So how do we prevent this? Well, sometimes you can't. But sometimes you can turn this into a profitable situation. Say the board is Q5432, and you hold A267. Now you have a double-nut hand (assuming no flush is possible), and you can raise away, gleefully chopping away bits of the pot from other players holding the wheel. Or, say the board is A2245 and you hold AAxx or 22xx, giving you either Aces full or quads. Now I would also put in a lot of bets and try to trap the players who hold wheels into putting more cash in the pot. Your half of the pot keeps getting bigger, while the return on their money gets proportionally smaller. Or perhaps you suspect many players including you have a wheel, but you have the nut flush as well. Now you can keep putting in bets because you're guaranteed to win the whole high pot plus your share of the low pot. That's a winning proposition.


Concept #6: Basic post-flop Play
Omaha-8 is a game of many draws and value betting. There is not as much bluffing, slow-playing, or trapping as there is in many other games. If you held KK in Hold'em on flop of K-8-3, you'd probably want to give your opponent a free card to try and catch something to pay you off with. But in Omaha, you'd have yto be crazy to do this, because you'd hate to give an opponent a free chance at taking half the pot away from you. Therefore, with your better hands (especially high-only type hands), you should usually just bet and raise for value. With the nut high hand, it's often important to re-raise early bets to shut out people drawing at lows that could cost you half the pot. But remember, without a redraw, even with the current nuts you may want to keep the pot size small and wait to see how the hand develops before you "go to war."

You also want to play most of your draws strongly in Omaha. Now, when I say "draw," I mean a draw to the nuts, because in Omaha, there isn't any other draw that's really worth it most of the time. But if you flop something like trip aces with a backup for low, or a nut flush draw with the nut low draw, by all means jam the pot. Put in as many bets as you absolutely can.

On the flop and turn, you should usually consider your equity and your outs versus the number of players in the pot. With a single nut draw, it often behooves you to keep the betting to a minimum (but you DO want to get some dead money in there). With multiple draws, like I hope you have, you can get more aggressive, but don't make the mistake of shutting dead money out of the pot unnecessarily--it doesn't matter WHERE the bets come from; only the number of bets in the pot matters.

Most of the time, the flop, turn, and river will "play themselves" based on what your starting hand is (and often times, you will have to fold even premium starting hands on particularly crappy flops). Don't miss a chance to get extra bets with strong draws, don't give free cards that could cost you money, and get the hell out of there if you don't have the nuts or you're not drawing to it. And please, PLEASE, don't make the mistake of putting in money if you have to catch perfectly twice to make your hand.




That concludes the basic tutorial. If I've missed anything or anyone has questions, please feel free to post them.

[snoogins47]

I'll probably do a more detailed read through of this post and and nitty type nit-picking because that's what I do, but on the skim this looks like a really valuable post. Highly recommended. I want to add a few little things of my own, just because they're short and I see a lot of people that make serious mistakes that a little thought should've avoided.

Firstly, on scooping: When you're shorthanded, hands that are mediocre-to-good BOTH ways (or strong one way, mediocre another) go way up in value, because of how good of a chance you have of escaping one way if you can't scoop (and how rare it is to run into the nuts both ways) Conversely, when you're longer-handed, these hands blow and are one of the primary causes I see of people losing way too much money. Sorry, but your Queen-high flush draw, and fourth-nut low draw probably isn't worth getting too involved in when the pot is five handed and a lot of strength has been shown: you might be drawing nearly completely dead, and will have to put a lot of money in on the river when you make a second best.

Secondly, on one-way hands: think about it a second. What are the only ways to win money if you can only win half the pot? Get called by a lot of people, or get called by nobody. If you're shorthanded, the big "semi bluff" with the nut low and a weaker high/draw are fine. If you're multiway, why are you shutting people out? This is a spot where I like to make 'pot sweeteners' for lack of a better term. Small bets that get called in eight trillion places make you a decent chunk of money when you've got the one-way nuts and very little the other way. The big pushes with the nut low and no high in multiway pots aren't quite as tasty. Remember, even betting on the river when you're getting quartered can be profitable, if you get called in enough places. This is probably more true with the nut low, since people generally get involved with high hands that aren't the nuts than with low ones.

This second one is more for PL/NL than FL, but the first one is big in any betting form (possibly even more important in FL than in big bet)

Again, this post is a great read, thorough, and it should probably get stickied at some point. Good work Diamond

[xDiamond_CutteRx]

Thanks snoogs. I concur with everything you said about playing short-handed, which is a useful thing to know.

[xDiamond_CutteRx]

Another note I should add to this... a key skill to Omaha 8-or-Better has nothing to do with how you play your cards. That skill is table selection, and it matters probably more than in any other game except perhaps No Limit Hold'em.

Loose Omaha 8-or-Better games are some of the most profitable ventures a Poker player can undertake. And conversely, tight Omaha-8 games can doom you to break even or worse, depending on the rake.

You want to scout out tables where at leats half the table regularly sees a flop, and 3 or more people frequently go to showdown. Although you should be playing "scoop" type hands, you will frequently still win only half the pot, so you want to maximize the amount of dead money in the pot. If the game is fairly aggressive with most pots between heads-up contests, the game probably isn't worth your time. However, I have seen tables that are extremely loose, and thus quite profitable. At Lucky Derby, for instance, there is a $6/$12 half-kill game where most days, 6-8 players usually see the flop, often for 2 bets cold, and 4 players or more regularly reach showdown. I've netted over $150 in a single pot by raking in only HALF the pot. That should tell you how juicy the game is.

Playing tough games is definitely a skill you should learn if you want to become a great Poker player, but for building a bankroll, loose games have tremendous potential for an enormous ROI. So look for tables with a high players/flop percentage and a large average pot size.

[xDiamond_CutteRx]

bump

[Det_Jimmy]

Honestly I think you should have this as a sticky.Not only this post but also your NL tourney post,and TheSalche's 10+1 SNG.They are all awesome advice and I'm sure there are more,but these come to mind first.Oh,one more to add to the list(for no other reason that it made me laugh out loud to myself till i cried),Raisebot's post about how if ya dont want them to put the doomsday switch on ya,just e-mail them,or something close to that.I'm gonna change my signature soon to read"I'm Drunk,so don't mind me "

[Gunslinger]

I've been playing LO8 at Stars every night for a week, and making a nice profit thanks to this guide. Sticky sticky!

[crack]

I am going to add two bits of advice. I did skim through this but I don't think it was mentioned.

Hands with an A3 are particuarly strong in certain occasions, but they can be very tricky to play. For example, if no one has entered and you are towards LP then an A3 combination is a good hand to raise because there is a chance an A2 might not be out there and an A3 goes up in value.

However if there has been a raise up front or a few calls then your A3 completly shrinks and unless you have a solid high potential you need to dump it. The reason being a raiser is likely to have an A2 in his hand and a few callers will probably have an A2 in their hand which means the chances of a 2 flopping is reduced. I have seen a lot people going all the way with their A3 lo only to be bemused that one or two players have the A2.

Another good tip is when there have been a lot of callers up front, it should usually indicate a lot of low cards. Now, yeah you should usually aim for multiway hands, but hands with big cards are now a dream hand. If a lot of people are going to be playing aiming for the low and you have QJT9 or KKJT then more likely than not the big cards will flop, because a lot of players have come in with their low cards.

I am not too great at typing these up, but hopefully that makes sense.