Pot Limit Omaha is THE game for 2009 (you heard it here first), with the game gathering momentum in the UK. In the first of a new series, Noel Hayes takes us through the fineries of this complex game.
Simply put, Pot Limit Omaha is poker for junkies and those who seek out variety! As with all poker games the fundamentals remain the same – a set will always beat two pair and a full house will always beat a flush – but there’s no stripped deck or fancy variants with this game; if you can play Hold’em, then you can play Omaha.
Whilst the fundamentals are the same the skill set and appreciation of the nuances of game flow and hand reading are an ever more important skill. But before you can even stretch that far there is a need to focus on what I perceive to be the two most important fundaments of the game – starting hand selection and the power of position.
Position, Position, Position
Of the two you may be surprised to learn that I rate position to be the most important factor in the game. Such is the importance of position in PLO that if I was to arrange a heads-up match between a winning PLO200 player and the best PLO player in the world with the conditions of the match stating that the PLO200 player retained the button in every hand, I would back the small-stakes player to be a winner in that match over a meaningful sample of hands.
When you have the button you have a chance to dictate the pace of the action and, as in Hold’em, when it is your turn to act you can do so with a mass of extra information. At this point every other opponent on the table has made a decision and those decisions give you information upon which you can decide the best course of action for the remainder of the hand.
If you were to raise 50% of your hands on the button and continuation-bet smartly it’s quite likely that you have a winning strategy without thinking about it any further. Your aggression will force others from the pot as they are disadvantaged by holding weak or marginal hands out of position which they are forced into folding as they can’t be sure of a plan for the hand and would be forced to get out of Dodge on the turn if their hand doesn’t improve.
The corollary is that you should play extremely tight out of position. Many players bleed money from their play in the blinds with many deciding to complete the small blind and call raises from late position openers when sitting in the big. However, you’re immediately handing your opponent a large advantage in a hand in which he has the initiative. You are allowing him to play an inflated pot when he has position on you; this should be your aim, so don’t oblige him unnecessarily by playing poor or marginal hands out of position.
Starting Hands
In Omaha, your starting hand selection is vitally important. This is the area where many players transitioning from Hold’em struggle. They see hands containing A-K combos and automatically think it should be played as if in Hold’em. As you will quickly learn, though, this is not the case. However, unlike Hold’em, there is no hard and fast starting hard ranking with factors such as your opponent’s range dictating the strength of your starting hand. For example, A-K-K-10 double-suited is a very strong hand but it plays very poorly against A-A-K-10. For that reason I tend to favour hand groupings rather than hand rankings.
At the most basic level double-suited connected cards are the way forward. Start with broadway cards (e.g. A-K-Q-J) and work downwards towards middle rundown hands (e.g. 9-8-7-6), but there is a cut off point; 2-3-4-5 double suited, for example, doesn’t hold a multitude of worth as it’s very hard to make the nuts, so for this reason 5-6-7-8 and upwards is the preferred cut-off point for me.
One-gappers (three connected cards and a 4th card with one gap in the sequence) are also strong hands, more so if they have suits to accompany them. It’s preferable to have the gap at one end rather than in the middle and it is even more preferable that if your hand must have a gap that it is at the bottom of the sequence. For example, 6-8-9-10 is preferred to 6-7-9-10 and 6-7-8-10 as again you have more opportunities to make the nuts.
Big pairs also play well, giving you the opportunity to make top-set hands, but again there is a cut-off point. Small pairs don’t play well in PLO and many times you will check-fold the flop if it doesn’t improve your hand. The times you do flop a set you often have huge reverse implied odds as the possibility of putting your money in when drawing to one out is high (not so much of a problem if you are good at hitting one-outers!)
In general playing pairs purely for set value isn’t a great idea. K-K-6-2 rainbow soon becomes a trivial fold from under the gun. Hold’em players who are new to PLO will take some time to come around to the realization that this is optimal play, but remember, it’s a four-card game and the better your four cards work to compliment each other the better your expected profit from playing this hand. I generally have a cut-off point for pairs and it tends to be around 8-8 or 9-9 but it’s strongly dictated by position, the number of players in the pot and my side-cards.
Tight is Right
When you move from Hold’em to PLO the best strategy to adopt is to play tight and respect position. Due to the high variance nature of the game the learning curve can be a costly one; for that reason a mindset of “tight is right” is the best route to take.
In the early days perhaps its best to steer clear of the cash games and dabble more in sit n’ gos and tournaments. This way you get some excellent gameplay exposure, the blow to your bankroll is limited to the cost of the entry and you have a chance at a decent score. It affords you the opportunity to experiment with different techniques and styles, help you find your comfort zone and allow you to gain a greater understanding of the game.
Where to Play – Online
As a starting point I have outlined some of the available PLO tourneys at various online cardrooms:
Full Tilt Poker
As the home of high-stakes PLO cash action it is unsurprising that Full Tilt offers quite a comprehensive PLO tourney schedule. Their periodic FTOPS series offers high buyin events with big fields and large prizepools. On a weekly basis the Saturday evening $200 entry, $30,000 guaranteed event is the highlight with an abundance of daily $30 and $20 events also available which come in many varieties of 6max, full ring, freezeout, rebuy and knockout tournaments.
PokerStars
The big daddy on PokerStars is their Saturday evening $200 freezeout tournament which generally attracts the biggest online names. They also offer the very attractive schedule of daily tournaments with nightly $100 events taking place from Monday to Friday and $20 6 max events talking place every night.
iPoker (PaddyPower Poker, Blue Square, etc)
As a beginning player trying to learn for cheap the iPoker network offers a host of PLO tourneys to suit everybody’s wallet, ranging from $1 freezeouts right up to $50 re-buys at regular intervals. The highlight of the week is the Monday night $4,000 guaranteed $50 R/A event which takes place at 9.50pm.
Entraction (Devilfish Poker, NoIQ)
Thursday night on Entraction is PLO night with the E10,000 guaranteed event taking place at 9.30pm. Entry is E50 with re-buys and add-ons available. |
