Short Omaha Primer

I'm planning on writing a bit more comprehensive one for Omaha Hi/Lo, but I posted this recently in Liquid Poker forums as a response to a post on switching from Hold'em to Omaha. I think these advice should be enough for a fairly competent NL Hold'em player to beat the small stakes Omaha games.

"First off, micro limit omaha isn't as high variance game as you guys say. Sure you can go few buy-ins direction or another and the situations are often 60-40 and such...

But the thing about micro limit Omaha is that players consistently and quickly lose stacks when they're drawing dead. You will see people pushing all the way with AAxx on QJTT9 3 to a suit boards even at PLO$50 (I haven't played higher, but I hear it will get harder around what - PLO400?). This significantly decreases the negative variance since by playing smart, you can control the pot size and you don't have to to push the 51% edges so hard.

Playing short-handed or heads up omaha requires some practice though, so i'd recommend you to play some at full ring game first and when you get the feel for it, move to less player tables. Many of the players in Omaha play it like Hold'em, which allows you to make easy money off them. With the following few tips, you should be able to average something like 10 PTBB/100++:

1. Only draw to the nuts. This is especially important in Omaha, although the emphasis isn't AS strong in heads up play, it's still important concept to realize that in Omaha, Reverse implied odds when drawing to second best hands can be huge and a lot more often than in hold'em, second nut draw is that bad end of it.

2. When you flop the nuts, like straight - have a redraw. If you flop the nutstraight on, say flushdrawy board without a redraw, you can be one of the following:
-Dead to a split in case someone holds the same straight with a redraw
-30-70 underdog against flushdraw & a set
-Slight favourite over set or flushdraw
-Massive favourite against a bad end of a straight (this is probably the rarest, but you commonly see it in the micro stakes)

3. Play hands that supposedly make the nuts. This is where your former Hold'em experience kicks in. You want to play hands preflop that will make nuthands (preferably with redraws) postflop. This means that having a suited ace is a bonus and having wraps (ie. 5678 or A567 w/ fd) are hands you're searching for. Big pairs are also good but MOSTLY FOR SET VALUE. You'll see people go broke with one pair all the time in the low stakes and it just makes you giggle. Hands like AT83rainbow or AK83 rainbow don't make a lot of winning hands so you can go ahead and muck'em right away. Also note that having more than 2 of same suit makes it more disadvantageous for the flushdraw - in some cases it can be good if you have 3 flush cards and a straight on flushdrawy board, but no nut-flush draw. Then you probably take someone's fd outs out. ;)

Also notice that bottom or even mid-set isn't necessarily a powerhouse hand. It's very vulnerable, even against something like fd+two pair or two pair and a straightdraw and in case of playing against higher set - well, you know the thrill. And this occurs a lot more in Omaha than it does in Hold'em. In short-handed play, it's fairly easy to know where you stand and this is what comes with experience - having some hand reading skills from hold'em will definitely help you get started.

4. Raising preflop becomes mostly a position buying move. You're not betting as much value preflop as you can in hold'em and the bet size is limited. Raising up AAxx is just as correct as raising up something like 5678ds. Even on these stakes, people often assume you have AAxx after raising and it's easy to play against that. Also, when someone raises in micros, there's a fair chance he has AAxx and you can play accordingly - they're almost guaranteed to overplay it postflop. So your raising, besides getting the pot bigger, also becomes a move you wish to use to get a better position in the later streets.

It is said that usually reraising AAxx preflop isn't probably a good idea unless you can get 25% of your stack in with the reraise. That way you can push the rest in on flop, to minimize the advantage of your opponent knowing what you probably have. Either way, I do not know if this is true and I personally don't like to make big moves preflop since they're simply unnecessary in Small Stakes Omaha. If you can get AI with reasonable AAxx(ss or ds preferably), go ahead, but you can be as little as 60-40 (or was it even a bit worse) favourite in the worst case scenario.

5. Play position. This is very important in Omaha. You're very very often drawing so it's important that you can use your positional advantage to the maximum. You also play your opponents the more short-handed the games get. There are many nits in those games and unlike hold'em, even against amateurs, you will know where you stand most of the time. You have better control over the pot and can make them big when you have a big hand. Amateurs don't have this skill or luxury OOP so pay attention to this.

The End."

I will write one on Omaha Hi/Lo on the coming days probably - that game is like printing money - seriously.

I hope this helps any of you who wish to start learning a bit Omaha, it should be all the advice you need to beat at least PLO25, PLO50, probably PLO100 and PLO200 as well. This of course somewhat assumes you know something about poker etc. before jumping in.

Good Luck,

Cheers!