See also
6. Draw only to the nuts. This is especially true in multi-way pots. It doesn't pay to draw to a hand only to have it be second-best when you hit it. Drawing to the second nuts is a good way to lose money. That means we don't draw at a King-high flush or inferior straights, and we don't draw at a full house when holding bottom set.
7. The bare nut flush draw has limited value. The bare nut flush draw alone won't get you to the river. A pot-sized bet is laying 2:1 odds heads up, but you are 4:1 against making the flush on the next card. The problem is that you cannot reasonably expect to get paid off should you make the nut flush, as the flush card appearing is an action killer. In other words, you are overpaying to draw at the nut flush heads up and you don't rate to recover the lost value even when you hit.
To have real value, the nut flush draw needs something else to go with it, such as two pair, a set, or a straight draw.
8. Bare eight-card straight draws are trash. The eight-card straight draws that are the big straight draws in hold'em are trash in Omaha, especially when you have nothing to go with it. There are several reasons for this.
- First - as with the flush draw - you are rarely getting odds to draw to the straight.
- Second, the eight-card straight draw is easily dominated and duplicated by bigger straight draws.
- Third, with the eight-card straight draws you often aren't even drawing to the nuts - for example, if you hold 9-6-x-x on an 8-7-x board or 7-6-x-x on a 9-8-x-X board, a Ten will make you the second-nut straight.
9. Focus on the quality of outs, rather than the quantity of outs. It is a common and expensive mistake for a player to take a flop and become thrilled by the sheer number of cards that can make a straight or a flush and overvalue her draw. A 17-card straight draw does you no good if nearly every card that gives you a straight could make someone else a bigger straight.
For example, you hold T-8-6-3 and the flop comes 9-7-2, giving you a 17-card straight draw, which will complete by the river about 62 percent of the time. This may sound great, but you are about a 3:1 dog against J-T-9-8 for top pair with a 13-card nut straight draw, as well as J-T-8-6 for the 16-card nut wrap.
The problem is that many of the cards that give you a straight will give the nut drawing hands a bigger straight, which pretty much defeats the purpose of drawing at all. Potentially worse is that hitting a nut straight on the turn (with a 6 or 5) could leave you getting freerolled. Alternatively, your opponent will still have a live draw, in which case he'll pay one pot-sized bet on the turn, but only pay you on the river if he outdraws you. The deeper the stacks, the bigger the advantage the player with the nut straight draw will have on you, even though he may technically have fewer "outs" to make a straight.
10. Don't give free cards. Rarely is a hand strong enough on the flop in pot-limit Omaha that it can afford to give free cards to the opposition. For one thing, not only could a free card cost you the pot but also you might be trapping yourself into losing an even bigger pot, where your potential gain is minimal.
For example, let's say you hold 9-8-7-7 and the flop comes 7-6-6; any overcard that comes could give someone with an overpair a bigger full house. And so, instead of you trapping the opposition, you might find yourself paying off the opposition with your stack.
For another, the drawing hands run so big in Omaha that a 13-card straight draw is standard, while 17-card and 20-card straight draws are possible. You might be holding top set - the stone-cold nuts at the moment - on the most innocent-looking flop, only to have the turn card create a monster draw for players who had no interest in the flop.
For example, you hold K
K
4
3
in the big blind and the flop comes K82. You check the flop, hoping to get somebody to bet at the flop so you can check-raise, but instead the flop gets checked around. Now the 9 hits the turn, and all of a sudden J-T-7-6 for a 20-card straight draw is even money heads up with you to make a winner in the river: throw in a flush draw, and he is now a favorite. Instead of taking the small pot, you may be in a virtual coin toss for a large pot.
