When I first started to play internet poker, I headed for the texas holdem tables. One day, while distracted, I accidentally joined a single table Pot Limit Omaha Hi Lo  tournament. Despite not knowing anything about the game, I proceeded to eliminate all 9 players within the next 30 minutes. "This game is SO easy!". Of course, I was the first one out in the next tournament and the one after that. But it didn't matter. I was hooked! Over the next few months, I continued to study the game and improve. Looking back over my records, I see that I have crushed the game at the lower limits over hundreds of hours. My Pot Limit Omaha Hi Lo articles will help you to do the same!

The good news is that you do not need an exceptional talent, "luck", or some sort of a mystical esoteric quality to do that. It is well within your reach if you are willing to learn and persevere. The fact that you are reading this article indicates that you have already taken the first step. Don't stop here!

I suspect that most of you come to Pot Limit Omaha Hi Lo from hold'em. You probably played some no-limit hold'em tournaments and low-mid limit hold’em cash games. Some of you may have done extremely well. Others may feel discouraged with their results and feel like quitting. But regardless of your past results, O8 may become your new "best game". Let’s look at why O8 is such a great game to play:

1. Easier to master than hold'em and stud - contrary to appearances, the decisions in Pot Limit Omaha Hi Lo are somewhat simpler than those in hold’em and stud. This is particularly true of pre-flop hand selection and decisions made on the flop.

2. Easy to beat – at low limits, the Pot Limit Omaha Hi Lo games are typically very loose. Mistakenly, many players consider Pot Limit Omaha Hi Lo to be hold’em with four cards. Consequently, they play more hands than is optimal for maximizing their profit. This creates a great opportunity for those players who are more selective and understand hand values. The good news is that there are few good players at the lower limits. And it sometimes takes poor players a long time to discover that they are really losers at the game. Once poor players start losing, they usually blame "bad luck" for the results instead of their play. Inevitably, such thinking will only keep them playing (and losing) longer.

3. Pot Limit Omaha Hi Lo has lower variance – because it is a split game (high hand splits the pot with low hand, if there is a low), the Pot Limit Omaha Hi Lo variance is less than that of Hold’em and Stud. This can be an important fact for a number of new players who easily go on tilt. Lower variance means lesser swings. Typically, new poker players do not respond well to wild fluctuations. Pot Limit Omaha Hi Lo is more gentle in that respect than Hold’em or Stud. If you tilt easily, Pot Limit Omaha Hi Lo might be a better game for you.

Let me be honest with you. I am very hesitant to write this article. I wish you wouldn’t read it. Or if you do read it, DON’T play at my table. If you apply what you learn from this article, you will be in a position to start beating the majority of low limit games out there.

What is the single biggest mistake that beginning Pot Limit Omaha Hi Lo players make? Watching and playing the games for thousands of hands and hundreds of hours I think it is safe to say: playing too many starting hands.

In the previous article, we discussed how winners play to scoop the pot. Winners always keep an eye out on how well their cards are coordinated. Most of their edge comes from playing better preflop than their opponents would with their cards. In this article, we are looking at how to apply these general principles in selecting and playing specific starting hands. What should you look for when you are dealt a hand?

 

Look-for #1: Key Card

 Certain cards are more important than others. Ace is the key card in Omaha high/low. It is a perfect scooping card in that it is the best high and low card. Here I will iterate an advice given by most other poker authors: as a beginner, you would not be losing much if you did not play any hands that do not have an ace in them. There are certain strong hands that do not have an ace in them (such as KK23 or KKJQ double-suited for example), but most of them are hard to play for a beginner. Stick with an ace when you’re starting out. You’ll be happier when you count your chips. In a ten-handed Omaha game, 40 cards are dealt out preflop. That’s close to 80% of the deck. This means that on average, there will be about three aces out preflop. If you do not have an ace, you are not only missing a key scoop card in your hand, but you are also increasing the chance that somebody else has it instead of you.

Sometime in the 90s, I enrolled as a computer science student at a certain Canadian university. The first year was tough enough. The program had an 80%+ drop-out rate. I survived thinking how tough it was, not knowing what was ahead of me in the second year. I had to take a course in discrete mathematics with one of the best computer scientists in the world. No sweat. I took math courses before and always excelled. But this time it was different.

Sometimes players say that Omaha hands “run close together in value”. Others disagree with that statement and claim that they do not. Usually, neither side makes any cogent argument for their claims. What exactly does it mean to be “close in value”? A quantitative judgment presupposes some sort of a measuring stick, preferably a mathematical basis. Since most players come to Omaha from hold’em, it would perhaps be of interest to make some comparison between the preflop values of similar hold’em hands and Omaha hands.

Across different poker games, there is one thing that can be counted on: there will be players going on tilt. One often hears hold’em players complaining about losing large pots on the river (“oh man, another suckout, I can’t believe this”). Perhaps they have not played Omaha. It can be a game significantly more painful than hold’em. In Omaha, you will see many pots decided on the river because of multiple draws, re-draws, and “surprise” counterfeits. For example, if you flop the nuts for the high side, your hand is not nearly as strong as it may appear to you. The turn and the river will often make very strong hands possible (flushes, full houses, and quads). A player who does not understand this fact will be more prone to tilting. “I can’t believe I got outdrawn again!”. The first step is to understand the nature of the game. The second step is to prepare psychologically for your losses.

One dictionary defines fish as “any of numerous cold-blooded aquatic vertebrates of the superclass pisces, characteristically having fins, gills, and a streamlined body”. I am not sure how many omaha players fit that description but you will definitely find plenty of fish in the game. In this article, we will look at some of the most common characteristics that poor omaha players share.

Perhaps the biggest reason why people lose money at poker is tilting. And perhaps the biggest reason for tilting is having unrealistic expectations. Many omaha high/low players live in a la-la land, a land of boundless optimism that knows no statistical limits. When the flop, the turn, or the river “ruin” their “premium hand”, sometimes people go nuts. “Not me again!” I think this can be prevented by adjusting one’s expectations with reality. In this article, we will look at some typical situations in omaha high/low and their accompanying expectations.

 So you’ve mastered the basics. You understand the nature of the game, starting hand qualities, the importance of position, how high and low possibilities affect your pot odds, why a dry A2 is not the second coming…etc. The $64,000 question is: how far will this take you and how do you improve? 

The first answer will depend to a large degree on your game selection. Some $5/$10 games are a lot easier to beat than some $2/$4 games. The basic trait of good omaha games is looseness. (Be sure not to confuse looseness with short-handed aggression!) In general, the loosest games will be the easiest to beat. But with increasing knowledge on how to play the game, the game seems to play tighter. What is your edge beyond basic play? What separates merely “good” players from excellent players and experts? Something clearly makes a difference. Fortunately, most of these “special” qualities can be understood and developed to a high degree. I will address two that often separate men from the boys, so to speak.