Learning Omaha

Hi guys

I have already reached Silverstar for February and can't seem to win a hand with AA, KK or QQ lately in the sngs. So, I am using this week to learn some new games as I said in my last post. I started last night by joining four 0,01/0,02 cent Pot Limit Omaha tables. This is really a game of the nuts! It is looks like holdem except you are dealt four hole cards. Your final hand needs to be two from your hand and three from the board. Best poker hand wins.

I only played about 400 hands, but ended up profitable (2.14 bucks lol). I got stacked early on one table when my nut flush lost to a full house on the river. But I tripled up on another table when I made the nut full house on the turn and had two active opponents. One had a nut flush and the other had a weaker full house.

My basic strategy was to play hands where all four cards were 10 or higher, but especially when two of them were a pocket pair or Axs. Post flop I would continue if drawing to a nut flush or nut full house, but would fold for example QJs with a flush draw if facing heavy action since Q high flush is not the nuts. I also laid down a few nut flushes when the board paired and a house seemed likely (I learned my lesson the first time...)

Unlike holdem, this is really a post flop game as no starting hand is that far ahead of any other. All in all this was a fun experience and I will probably play more of Omaha in the future. After this short but profitable session, my confidence was high. So, I moved on to the next game. Pot Limit Omaha HI/Lo.

Pot Limit Omaha HI/Lo works just like above except that the pot can be split between the best high hand and the best low hand. You need five cards lower than 8 to qualify for the lo, but straights and flushes are ignored. Thus A2345 of any suit is the nut low.

There are a lot more possibilities here to win half the pot. However, being a complete newb, I wanted to keep it simple. My starting hands had to contain Axs lower than 8, preferably Axs and Axs. This way I had the potential of winning both the high pot with a nut flush and the low pot with Ax both counting as low cards too. "Scooping the pot" gives the most profit. Moreover, if you flop a drawing hand, you have better odds of winning at least one of the halves of the pot.

Here again I joined four micro stakes tables and played about 400 hands. I was up a bit on three of the tables, but struggled on the fourth. People were very aggressive there and I lost most of my stack on one hand pretty early (I went to the showdown with a hand that looked good but wasn't the nuts). I recouped a fair amount on that table, and was slightly profitable or break even on the others. I ended up down 27 cents in total.

It is really easy to play like a loose passive donk in Omaha since every hand appears to have some potential, but you better have some serious post flop skills if you want to play that way. I tried to play extremely tight, but still found myself playing too many hands. Worse, I found myself chasing draws for hands that weren't even the nuts.

Raise sizes also seem quite different from NLHE. Again, since I'm a complete idiot, I opted for a simple solution. I either was passive and simply called, or aggressive and always raised 100% of the pot. I never made any other raise size. And, I never tried to bluff a single hand.

This is a whole new world of poker and plenty to learn. I'm just happy I got through my first learning experience without spewing cash:)

If I play tonight I'll start working on the elements of the 8-Game Mix. I want to get a taste of all the games before focusing a bit more on any one in particular.

Good Luck at the tables!

Roland GTX