Posts Tagged ‘high pot’
Strategy For Omaha Poker High-low 8 Or Better
Omaha High-Low 8 or Better is a free-wheeling game, and chips come in from all directions. With both a high pot and low pot to go after, many players stay interested in the pot, especially since the river card on fifth street can so dramatically change a player's possibilities of winning.
The first four cards dealt in Omaha—your down cards—are the only cards you alone use, and thus are very important in determining your chances of winning. As in all poker variations, you must start out with solid cards to give yourself the best chances of winning.
There are great starting cards, good starting cards, and poor starting cards, as in other poker games, but what appears to be good or bad pre-f lop may change in a flash when the flop throws three more cards into the mix. Then there are two more community cards that will fall, opening up even more possibilities and making and breaking other hands.
With such a wide range of possibilities, hopes stay high for players, and betting can be fierce. Thus, one of the key strategies to follow in this version of Omaha is to play on the tight side. Don't get sucked into the rampant betting that sometimes occurs, not unless your possibilities are good enough. Speculation can lose you a bunch of money in a hurry in this game.
Another major consideration in Omaha High-Low 8 or Better is your position at the table. Since it stays constant throughout a round, and leverage is everything in Omaha, all plays must be made with position being foremost on your mind.
Starting hands with two very low cards give you a strong starting position in Omaha. An ace and a 2 are good, since if three low cards fall on the flop, you have the nut low with two more betting rounds to go. Or if two low cards fall on the flop (say it is 3 7 J), you just need one more non-pairing low card for the nut low. Other starters such as 2 3, 3 4, A 3, or A 4 are also good cards to have. They put you in good position to go for low.
Since low hands can be quartered, the best starters in Omaha 8 high-low would be ones that gave you both high and low possibilities. Consecutive suited low cards, such as A 2, 2 3, 3 4, give you excellent chances of going low and wheeling or flushing to a high hand. Combine these low cards with A A or A K, and these two way hands hold out many possibilities. The hand A K 2 3 with suited cards is very powerful, with nut high and nut low straight possibilities. A 2 3 4 suited gives nut low and wheel possibilities. High starting hands of A A K Q and A A K K can hold strong if the flop is all high cards, preventing low hands from taking half the pot.
The relative value of high hands relates to the flop not only for the cards and possibilities it gives both you and your opponents, but also for the chances it gives players to form low hands, which immediately devalue the pot by one half. This is a key concept that players going for the high end of the pot must consider in Omaha. For example, for any player to qualify for a low total, there would have to be three low cards on board. If three low cards (8 or below) appear, it is likely that one player has a valid low. But if two low cards or fewer are on board, there will be no low hand, and the high hand will take the whole pot.
Thus, when making your decision on how to play a high hand, you must consider its strength on a different relative merit than straight high games if there will be a low hand grabbing half that pot. The pot is now worth half of what you might normally expect Thus greatly affects the pot odds and how you need to view your high position.
When low cards will cut into your pot and take half of your action, you need a higher winning expectation and assurance of taking the high half to make the betting profitable. The great danger in high-low games that regular high or low players don't consider is this dilution of the pot, which makes betting and playing strategy considerations fundamentally different. That is why hands with the strength to go both ways are so valuable in high-low games.
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