Pot Limit Omaha - The thinking game

On first glance Omaha seems to be Hold’em x 2 and you get 4 hole cards instead of 2, but this attitude and mindset is the worst thing you can do when approaching a new game type. Whilst Omaha becomes more and more popular, most still don’t know how to play and don’t take the necessary time to read basic strategy. Omaha, same as other types such as Seven Card Stud, require a lot more attention and thinking to consistently beat the game and maintain an edge over the opponents.

The first and most important rule you have to keep in mind might be simple and most experienced Omaha players would laugh about it, but while you can use both hole cards at Hold’em but don’t necessarily have to, there is a difference at Omaha. You HAVE TO use exactly two out of the four hole cards, it doesn’t matter which ones though as long as you use two to build the best hand with 3 of the other 5 community cards on the board.

Starting Hand Selection:

Since Omaha is considered a drawing game, you always want to play starting hands where you draw to the nuts or where you have multiple draws to hit. Off suit pairs might appear strong, but in fact you only have 4 outs to improve your hand and still can’t be sure that you have the best hand. You might be in front preflop or on the flop, but there are quite a few draws that can beat you on later streets. 

Examples of decent starting hands would be a high pocket pair with suited connectors, in that case you would for example have - you have 2 nutflush draws and additionally 2 straight draws as well. Obviously you can’t always wait for such premium starting hands and they are no guarantee that you will win the hand, but it is always recommended to play with multiple draws to increase your odds to improve your hand postflop.

Hand Strength:

At Hold’em, a pair of Aces is the best starting hand and this is obviously also the case for Omaha, but the value of the hand also depends on the backdraws. Most overplay high pocket pair at Omaha simply because they expect to be good still, they go into coinflips preflop and wonder why they lose against someone that called the all in with suited connectors. 

You should always ask yourself at any point during the hand where you are at and what hand ranges may beat you. You might still be ahead, but this can be a dangerous safety when multiple draws are out there – do you always want to go broke with two pair even though there is a possible straight or flush on the board? Does it make sense in the long run to play big pots against more than one player or should you try to keep the pot low when you don’t have the ultimate nuts?

Draw Selection:

At Hold’em you usually have a few backdraws when you missed the flop, at Omaha the draw selection is by far more important and you always have to check if you are drawing for the nuts or not. Many chase a flush with low cards, but since your opponent has 4 hole cards instead of 2 the odds are also higher that he / she might have a better flush. If you want to make sure that you win the hand and know where you are at, always aim for the best possible hand.

Would it make sense to chase for a gutshot on the flop when you just hit bottom pair as well and don’t really have any backdoor flushdraw? How many cards in the deck would actually help you to make the best hand? If you just have one backdraw, you should not play bigger pots because the odds are not really high that you will hit the perfect card to win the hand.

Hand combinations you should avoid playing:

- four card flush hands without straight combinations

- off suit cards without 2 straight combos

- high pocket pairs without straight or flush connectors

- blank overpairs on the flop without straight or flush backdraws

There is no perfect strategy to consistently win other than avoiding spots where you go broke without drawing to the nuts. You might not always get the chips or money in ahead, but often you will see players go broke with multiple draws against your flopped set and you would be surprised when you see the percentages in an odds calculator. 

The less players at the table and involved the hand, the more lose and aggressive most people tend to play and the hand value and hand range is more open. But this still doesn’t mean that you have to flip any four preflop in and see who is gonna win the coinflip. There are by far more draws that you have to keep in mind and put up for consideration before risking your stack and barely have any cards to significantly improve your hand on a later street.

Often you will see by far more action and premium starting hands don’t hold up, but you don’t always have to go broke with a decent starting hand because you missed the flop. This strategy might work at Hold’em because the opponent has less equity to draw out on you, the opposite is the case at Omaha where your Aces can already by almost drawing dead on a 4 6 8 flop.

As you can see, this is really just a basic guide to get familiar with the thinking process at Omaha. It is by far more difficult to learn this game rather than the old fashioned and popular Hold’em, yet most play it like Hold’em x 2 and this can be exploited and may very well end up in profitable session.