OMAHA
Rick Wild
To the uninnitated, trying Omaha when you already play and understand Texas hold’em seems an obvious step – four cards instead of two, and you have to use exactly two cards from your hand. But although this game is as simple and easy to play as Hold ‘em, there are many differences waiting to catch out the unwitting poker player.
Four hole cards, coupled with the fact that Omaha is mainly played with a Pot Limit betting structure, means more action, and better hands shown down. Where Texas hold ‘em is a game of “top
pair top kicker”, Omaha players see straights and flushes aplenty, with lots of full houses and four of a kinds mixed in for good measure.
With all these stronger hands common place, position becomes a lot less important in Omaha than it is in Texas hold ‘em. Players tend to slow play less in Omaha (since it is much easier to have
a big hand outdrawn) and therefore middle and late positions still hold some advantage in terms of being the best place to bluff from, but with so many hands and draws available position tends to
take second place to actual card strength.
Obviously pre-flop with a marginal hand, late position is the best place to be, allowing you to get into a pot cheaply with the least chance of facing a raise behind you. Post-flop though, in
any multi-way pot, its fairly likely that someone holds the nuts or at least close to it, making their position, and indeed yours, immaterial. As you increase the stakes in Omaha,
position can become more important, but at low and medium limit games, card strength should definitely be more important to you.
With this in mind, it should be immediately apparent that starting hands become much more important in Omaha. Four cards makes a lot of hands look pretty to a Texas hold ‘em player, but, just
as in that game, only 5%-20% of starting hands should be played in Omaha.
Firstly, although they look pretty, three of a kind in your starting hand is definitely a bad thing. Not only do you have one of the two cards that could turn your pair into trips, but since
you can only play two cards from your hand one of your cards is essentially pointless. With a couple of exceptions, hands with three of a kind in them should be folded at all times.
Following on from this, four of a kind as your hole cards should never be played.
Four hole cards gives six different two card combinations (abcd gives ab, ac, ad, bc, bd, and cd), so the better these six combinations are, and the less repetitions there are, the better your Omaha
hand is. Taking trips as an example, holding K-K-K-5, your six possible hands are KK, KK, K5, KK, K5, and, K5. This leaves you playing only two hands, KK and K5. Compare this to
A-K-K-5, which gives you AK, AK, A5, KK, K5, and K5, four different hands.
Having suited cards in Omaha is good, preferably “Double suited” – where you have two different pairs of suited cards, e.g. AhAd5h3d, referred to as “Aces double suited”. Having one or two
suited aces is powerful, as if you hit a flush it will be the nut flush.
Pairs aren’t as useful in Omaha as they are in Texas hold ‘em, for a couple of reasons. They give you repetitions in your 6 hand combinations mentioned above, and also three of a kind, trips,
isn’t as likely to be a winning hand. However they shouldn’t by any means be ruled out, just treated with care. Hitting the top trips on the flop is still good, but second or third trips
are likely to be behind or outdrawn.
Aces and Kings are still the most powerful cards in the game pre-flop, but need to be raised to lower the number of opponents who see the flop, giving them the most chance of being the best hand. The medium pairs are often overrated, and small pairs are often more trouble than they’re worth.
As a quick guideline, the best starting hands in Omaha are:
1. A-K-A-K
2. A-J-A-T
3. A-Q-A-Q
4. A-J-A-J
5. A-T-A-T
6. A-9-A-9
7. A-x-A-x
8. J-T-9-8
9. K-Q-K-Q
10. K-J-K-J
Obviously these hands are all improved by being suited, or more so by being double suited. After these, any four cards from A, K, Q, J, 10, barring trips or quads, is very playable.
Starting hand selection is important, and in the long term will make a lot of difference to your game, but once the flop comes down, everything can change. With so many hand combinations out
there, everyone’s drawing to something!
The more people that are in the pot, the better hand you need to stay in the pot in the face of a raise. In a heads up pot your over-pair to the board, or two pair, may be in front, and have a
good chance of staying there.
In a multi-way pot however, two pair, even top two pair probably won’t be ahead, and even if it is there’s not a great chance of it staying there. Betting two pair or trips on the flop is a good idea, to find out if any of your opponents have anything, and also to try and discourage them from drawing to a better hand. The same is usually true of hands where you flop the nuts, although slow playing and check raising may make you more chips.
If you flop a draw, one thing to bear in mind is that it should be a draw to the nuts, or as close as possible. Top trips, nut flush draws, and nut straight draws are all great, but a
combination of 2 or even 3 of these is much better. The more outs the merrier!
Be wary of draws that aren’t to the nuts, especially straight draws. Holding 5-6-x-x on a board of K78, you only have four outs for the nut straight, 45678, as a 9 means the nut possible straight is 78910J, and 678910 would also be beating your 56789. 9-10-x-x on the same board would be better, but 6-9-10-J and K-K-9-10 would be huge favourites over 2-3-9-10.
The mathematics of drawing are in essence the same as Texas hold ‘em, however, with far more hand combinations than Hold ‘em, there is always the possibility that someone else is drawing to something
better than you, so always proceed with caution when your straight or flush comes in, only for the board to pair, making full houses and quads possible!
In general, whilst being wary of outdraws, it is important to consider pot odds when calling bets or raises. When calling a bet, consider the size of the bet to the size of the pot. If
the pot is 2000, and you need to call 1000 to produce a total pot of 4000, then the pot is giving you 3 to 1, equivalent to 75%, so you need to be 25% or better to win the hand to make it a good call
in terms of pot odds. In other words, if you were 26% to win the hand, and made the same call repeatedly, over time you would show a profit.
As already mentioned, when drawing, it’s important to be drawing to the nuts, and when you have the nuts on the flop or turn, with many possible outdraws, it’s wise to bet other people out of the
pot. Bluffing is possible, if you can work out what other people were drawing too, or what kind of hands they hold.
Omaha is in essence an action game with lots of big hands, and an overly aggressive attitude is liable to run into trouble in the form of the nuts. You can get away with a lot more in Hold ‘em, with most flops missing most players, but in Omaha, people are a lot more likely to have a good hand or a good draw, and therefore call bets all the way to the river.
Only raise or reraise on the river if you’re holding the nuts or close to it, or have a good read that you’re opponent has missed his hand and doesn’t have enough to call.
As with all types of poker, people play in different ways, with some much more aggressive than others. In Omaha though, it is much easier to guard against an aggressive player than Hold ‘em, as
you’ll more often hit hands to reraise with. Slow play the nuts against aggressive players, allowing them to bet at you repeatedly before reraising, gaining maximum value from your hand.
Conversely, against tighter players, you can try and bet them out of the pot with reasonable hands and draws, and throw in the odd bluff.
Above all, enjoy the action of the game, but don’t get carried away with it, look for reasons to fold rather than trying to find reasons to call. With more huge hands appearing, variance on
omaha can be tricky, with wild swings and fluctuations. Pay closer attention to your bankroll and don’t step up limits too quickly.
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