THE BASICS OF OMAHA POKER
by Matthew Thomas (chat to exclusively in forum)
Make the best 5-card hand out of 4 hole (i.e. private) cards and 5 community cards (the board), making sure to use 2 from your hand and 3 from the board
Remember: You are dealt four hole cards and must use two of your hole cards and three cards from the board.
Quads in the hole
Hence, if you are dealt any quads, even AAAA, that is a hand you would fold at first opportunity as you are holding all of your outs in your hand: your only hope of making a real hand is the board making trips. Even then if your opponent responds to your aggression accordingly can you put him on anything but quads? Escape this hand immediately.
Danglers and starting hands
In Omaha all your cards need to work together in a logical manner. A super-premium hand is A-J-A-10 double suited. Take any two of these cards and you would stick a lot of money in pre-flop in a game of hold-em. A hand like K-K-Q-4 may look nice but is not playable, as in the long-run that 4 will have a significant effect on your profitability. When you only play good starting hands, often the two cards from the hole you will use change from flop to river. You may flop trip Aces with your bullets then get a runner to a flush from your back-up cards.
So what constitutes a good starting hand? Ask yourself the following:
Am I suited? If so, am I double suited or only single-suited?
Am I holding connectors, like 8-9 or J-Q?
Am I holding pairs?
And most importantly,
Do all of my cards work together?
An example of a hand which has all of these qualities working together is 7h-8h-8c-9c. Here we have a pair of eights with suited connectors on either end. All of these cards work as one. This is certainly not a monster starting hand, but we would just as certainly play it for one bet or a small raise.
Lets examine one of the best possible hands.
Ad-As-Jd-Ts
This is considered the best Omaha hand by T.J. Cloutier, but it is not a cut and dry case like AA in hold'em. You already have a made hand, with highest possible pair. You can hit top set, top full house or top quads. You have straight potential if the board shows: 7-8-9, 8-9-Q, 9-Q-K, T-Q-K, J-Q-K or Q-K-A. And, of course, you have potential to make two nut flushes.
Suppose the board shows:
Qd-9c-Ah
You have trip Aces, with one more Ace giving you the quads
= 1 out
A Queen or nine gives you the full
+6 outs
A King or an 8 gives you a straight
+8 outs
Any diamond gives you a nut flush
+6 outs
= 21 outs
This is a monster hand. Trip Aces with roughly an 80% chance (using the rule of Fours: see later article) to improve. This seems like a dream hand that never happens but in Omaha you get flops like this a lot- multiple outs from multiple draws.
Change the Jd with, for example, 6c. Now you have:
Ad-As-Ts-6c
Almost as good, right? Wrong. That hand will get you in a lot of trouble. The 6c is the dangler, and makes all the difference.
Given that you must use two cards, consider all six two-card combinations. In the stronger hand above, we had:
Ad-As, Ad-Jd, As-Ts, Ad-Ts, As-Jd, Ts-Jd
Three are very strong two-card starting hands; three are reasonably strong.
Now how about the dangle hand? We have:
Ad-As, As-Ts, Ad-Ts, Ad-6c, As-6c, Ts-6c
Now we have two very strong hands, one reasonably strong hand and three weak hands. The dangler destroys the interrelatedness of the cards. This is why you should usually fold as soon as you spot a dangler, regardless of what else you hold. It may seem too tight but in poker, tight is might.
Bluffing
The main difficulty migrants from hold'em have when they start playing Omaha is knowing when to fold. Omaha is, like all poker, a game of position but this only means that you can play marginally worse hands from out back than you would from up front: it doesn't mean you can represent a hand when you hold a rainbow Q-J-7-2 simply because you are sitting on the button. Omaha is not a game of bluffing. If you attempt to eradicate bluffing entirely from your Omaha game you will become a much better player, until you learn where you can very occasionally pull a bluff on a man you have a good read on from a good position. For example, if you a three flush hits on the flop and your opponent sticks in a small bet, with perhaps one caller, and you have the Ace flush card you can occasionally bluff out a very strong player who is all too aware that he is not sitting on the nuts. But try this in a smaller stakes game online and you will get called all day long, as the standard of play at these tables often dominated by hold'em players - is quite poor. This is no bad thing: you can earn well by playing solid against such opponents as when you flop trips and the nut flush draw and raise the pot, the fish will call you with K-K-Q-4 no suits: a crap hand with a big, bad dangler.
THE KEY POINTS IN A NUTSHELL: It is a game of nuts vs. second nuts: if you dont flop a hand or a big draw fold immediately. This is why you should rarely raise pre-flop. If it is short-handed I raise frequently with big pairs with suited backups and with rundowns such as 7c-6c-5h-4h. If I flop to this hand, my opponents dont know what to put me on. But usually you are playing against many players and you only play the nuts or near enough.NEVER DRAW TO THE SECOND NUTS. You may play the second nuts if you flop it, but why pay to draw only to find out it wasnt good all along.FOLD UNTIL YOU HOLD, THEN BE BOLD. That is how to win at Omaha.
We at Flip would like to give our thanks to Matthew S Thomas for contributing this article exclusively for flip readers, keep your eyes peeled for more pieces in the future.
by Matthew Thomas (chat to exclusively in forum)
Make the best 5-card hand out of 4 hole (i.e. private) cards and 5 community cards (the board), making sure to use 2 from your hand and 3 from the board
Remember: You are dealt four hole cards and must use two of your hole cards and three cards from the board.
Quads in the hole
Hence, if you are dealt any quads, even AAAA, that is a hand you would fold at first opportunity as you are holding all of your outs in your hand: your only hope of making a real hand is the board making trips. Even then if your opponent responds to your aggression accordingly can you put him on anything but quads? Escape this hand immediately.
Danglers and starting hands
In Omaha all your cards need to work together in a logical manner. A super-premium hand is A-J-A-10 double suited. Take any two of these cards and you would stick a lot of money in pre-flop in a game of hold-em. A hand like K-K-Q-4 may look nice but is not playable, as in the long-run that 4 will have a significant effect on your profitability. When you only play good starting hands, often the two cards from the hole you will use change from flop to river. You may flop trip Aces with your bullets then get a runner to a flush from your back-up cards.
So what constitutes a good starting hand? Ask yourself the following:
Am I suited? If so, am I double suited or only single-suited?
Am I holding connectors, like 8-9 or J-Q?
Am I holding pairs?
And most importantly,
Do all of my cards work together?
An example of a hand which has all of these qualities working together is 7h-8h-8c-9c. Here we have a pair of eights with suited connectors on either end. All of these cards work as one. This is certainly not a monster starting hand, but we would just as certainly play it for one bet or a small raise.
Lets examine one of the best possible hands.
Ad-As-Jd-Ts
This is considered the best Omaha hand by T.J. Cloutier, but it is not a cut and dry case like AA in hold'em. You already have a made hand, with highest possible pair. You can hit top set, top full house or top quads. You have straight potential if the board shows: 7-8-9, 8-9-Q, 9-Q-K, T-Q-K, J-Q-K or Q-K-A. And, of course, you have potential to make two nut flushes.
Suppose the board shows:
Qd-9c-Ah
You have trip Aces, with one more Ace giving you the quads
= 1 out
A Queen or nine gives you the full
+6 outs
A King or an 8 gives you a straight
+8 outs
Any diamond gives you a nut flush
+6 outs
= 21 outs
This is a monster hand. Trip Aces with roughly an 80% chance (using the rule of Fours: see later article) to improve. This seems like a dream hand that never happens but in Omaha you get flops like this a lot- multiple outs from multiple draws.
Change the Jd with, for example, 6c. Now you have:
Ad-As-Ts-6c
Almost as good, right? Wrong. That hand will get you in a lot of trouble. The 6c is the dangler, and makes all the difference.
Given that you must use two cards, consider all six two-card combinations. In the stronger hand above, we had:
Ad-As, Ad-Jd, As-Ts, Ad-Ts, As-Jd, Ts-Jd
Three are very strong two-card starting hands; three are reasonably strong.
Now how about the dangle hand? We have:
Ad-As, As-Ts, Ad-Ts, Ad-6c, As-6c, Ts-6c
Now we have two very strong hands, one reasonably strong hand and three weak hands. The dangler destroys the interrelatedness of the cards. This is why you should usually fold as soon as you spot a dangler, regardless of what else you hold. It may seem too tight but in poker, tight is might.
Bluffing
The main difficulty migrants from hold'em have when they start playing Omaha is knowing when to fold. Omaha is, like all poker, a game of position but this only means that you can play marginally worse hands from out back than you would from up front: it doesn't mean you can represent a hand when you hold a rainbow Q-J-7-2 simply because you are sitting on the button. Omaha is not a game of bluffing. If you attempt to eradicate bluffing entirely from your Omaha game you will become a much better player, until you learn where you can very occasionally pull a bluff on a man you have a good read on from a good position. For example, if you a three flush hits on the flop and your opponent sticks in a small bet, with perhaps one caller, and you have the Ace flush card you can occasionally bluff out a very strong player who is all too aware that he is not sitting on the nuts. But try this in a smaller stakes game online and you will get called all day long, as the standard of play at these tables often dominated by hold'em players - is quite poor. This is no bad thing: you can earn well by playing solid against such opponents as when you flop trips and the nut flush draw and raise the pot, the fish will call you with K-K-Q-4 no suits: a crap hand with a big, bad dangler.
THE KEY POINTS IN A NUTSHELL: It is a game of nuts vs. second nuts: if you dont flop a hand or a big draw fold immediately. This is why you should rarely raise pre-flop. If it is short-handed I raise frequently with big pairs with suited backups and with rundowns such as 7c-6c-5h-4h. If I flop to this hand, my opponents dont know what to put me on. But usually you are playing against many players and you only play the nuts or near enough.NEVER DRAW TO THE SECOND NUTS. You may play the second nuts if you flop it, but why pay to draw only to find out it wasnt good all along.FOLD UNTIL YOU HOLD, THEN BE BOLD. That is how to win at Omaha.
We at Flip would like to give our thanks to Matthew S Thomas for contributing this article exclusively for flip readers, keep your eyes peeled for more pieces in the future.
