See also
While pot-limit Omaha may appear to be little more than hold'em on steroids, subtle differences between the two games have a fairly significant impact on correct playing strategy. Below are 14 key concepts.
1. The primary goal of PLO is to win our opponents' entire stacks. As is true of any big-bet poker game, our goal is to win not a large number of pots, but rather entire stacks. We will pick up our fair share of small pots along the way, but our focus is on winning the big pots.
2. Recalibrate your expectations: The hands run bigger in Omaha. With four cards in your hand, every player is dealt the equivalent of six two-card hold'em hands. By the river, every player left has 60 possible five-card combinations. As a result, we must recalibrate our expectations as to what it will take to win a pot. In Omaha, one pair is rarely enough to win a pot, and two pair is no longer a big hand. If a straight or flush is possible, it is probable that somebody has it, and the nuts is frequently out there.
3. While starting hands in PLO are all technically close in value heads up, there is a wide disparity between the kinds of hands that win big pots and those that don't in multi-way pots. In contrast to hold'em, few reasonable hands are as much as a 2:1 favorite over any other heads up. However, this assumes both that the money is all-in before the flop, and that the pot is being contested heads up. In real life, most Omaha hands are contested multi-way, and there is often a significant amount of money in play. Also, because of the restrictions of the pot-limit betting structure, it is much more difficult for one player to get all of the money all-in before the flop in pot-limit Omaha than it is in no-limit hold'em. Those restrictions also make it nearly impossible to price out of the pot a player who has already voluntarily called one bet, which helps lead to the frequent multi-way pots.
In big-stack PLO, the kinds of hands that take down the big pots are those that can flop the big nut straight draws or a multi-way hand such as a set with straight draw or nut flush draw. Everything else is suspect.
4. Omaha is a flop game, even more so than hold'em. This is a given, and for several reasons.
- One is that more players tend to stay to see the flop in Omaha than in hold'em.
- Another is that fewer pots end before the flop in Omaha than in hold'em.
- A third is that the flop is much more likely to have a drastic effect on hand values in Omaha than in hold'em.
For example, in hold'em, a pair of Aces is far more likely than not to stay ahead of a pair of 6s when the flop hits, as the pair of 6s usually needs to buy a third 6 to stay in contention. But even a pair of 6s can flop straight and flush draws in Omaha. The result is that the "best hand" before the flop is much less likely to stay the best hand after the flop in Omaha.
5. We are not necessarily looking to flop the "best hand, "but rather a hand we can take to the river. This is a key point, because virtually any hand can flop the nuts. But even the nut straight may not be able to stand a raise without a redraw, particularly if there is a potential flush draw on the board. Two pair may very well be the "best hand" on the flop, but by itself is not the kind of hand you want to back with your stack when there are possible straight and flush draws out. Bottom set is a 2:1 dog against top two pair with an open-ended straight draw and flush draw.
The gist of it is that you want to avoid playing hands that you will have to throw away even when you catch the flop.
