Omaha Tournament Strategy
Omaha Hi Lo (also known as Omaha 8 or Omaha Eight or Better) is a “split pot” version of the popular Omaha poker game. In this version of the game, there are two winning hands in each round: the high winner and the low winner.
The high hand winner is the player with the highest value winning hand – the same as in the standard version of Omaha. The low hand winner is the player with the best hand featuring five unpaired cards valued 8 or lower. Flushes and straights are ignored in the low hand. If you know the basics of Pot Limit Omaha Hi strategy, you should have no problems getting to grips with Omaha Hi Lo strategy, so here are some tips to get you started.
Omaha Baseball Tournament
Part of the 'How to' series where I'll give the basics and some pointers on how to play all the different poker variants.Check out my Full Contact Poker Podc. One of the biggest leaks in a Pot Limit Omaha player's game is overvaluing starting.
Be prepared to fold on the flop
An essential Omaha 8 strategy is to recognize when you have a weak hand early on and get out quickly. The game favors the highest value hands so if the flop offers you little, it’s time to fold. Betting on average hands is a flawed Omaha Eight or Better strategy that will quickly end your game.
Forget about bluffing
If you are planning on bringing your Texas Hold’em bluffing skills to the Omaha Hi Lo table, think again. The game is driven by strong hands so when the betting starts, the chances are you are going up against players with high-value combinations. Bluffing in this situation is a sure-fire way to get beat. There are some Omaha Hi Lo strategy advanced situations where bluffing may be useful, but it takes time and experience to understand such nuances of the game. Until you reach that point, bet the hand you have.
Don’t commit too early
If you are dealt a strong early hand such as A-A-2-3 double-suited, don’t be tempted to raise early. You will reduce the field while committing a lot of money before you have seen the flop. It’s much better to keep as many players in the game as possible if you have the potential to hit the “nuts”. Some players may raise early if they have a good but not strong hand to try and force other players to fold but this strategy can backfire after the flop.
Remember, the key decision you need make after being dealt with your hole cards is whether to play your hand or not. If you have a premium hand, you should play but avoid raising until after the flop when there is a multi-way pot there to be scooped.
Pot Limit Omaha Tournament Strategy
Omaha Hi Lo 8b Strategy
- How To Play Omaha Hi-Lo Split 8-or Better — Clear And Concise Guide – The Rules Of How To Play Omaha Hi-Lo.
- Omaha Hi-Lo Starting Hands Guide — Starting Hands Guide For Omaha Hi-Lo 8 or Better and PLO8
- PLO8 Poker – Ace-Two Errors & How To Spot Them — Every PLO8 Player Enjoys The Sight Of A2 As Part Of Their Starting Hand, However There Are Times When A2 Errors Can End Up Costing You Chips.
- Omaha Hi-Lo Point Count Systems For Starting Hand Selection — Dr Hutchinson’s Omaha Hi-Lo Point Count System Reviewed – Useful For Online Play??
- High Only Hands In PLO8 Poker – For The 30% Of The Time A Low Is Not Made, An Introduction To Profitable High-Hand Play.
- How To Avoid Being Quartered In O8 Poker – Avoiding Being Quartered In Certain Situations Can Make A Big Difference To Your Bankroll.
- Playing Static Flops In PLO8 – Cardrunners Coach Dan ‘CampFireWest’ Deppen takes us though some advanced strategy ideas.
- Omaha Hi-Lo Probability Math – How Often Will You Make A Low? — How Often Will You Make A Low For Different Starting Hands.
- All-Ins Pre-Flop In No Limit Omaha Hi-Lo — No-Limit Omaha Hi-Lo Strategy Should Include Defense Against The Constant All-In Overbets Pre Flop in NL08.
- Straights In Omaha Hi-Lo, A Closer Look! — Straights, Draws To Straights and When To Play Straights In Omaha Hi-Lo… A Closer Look!
- Omaha Hi-Lo Probability Math – How Often Will You Make A Low? — How Often Will You Make A Low For Different Starting Hands.
- Scooping PLO Hi-Lo Pots – The Why And The How! — Lets take a look at taking the high and low splits of the pot in O8 games.
Phil Galfond is a pot-limit Omaha legend, both online and live. He earned his first WSOP bracelet in 2008 in a PLO event before picking up his second this summer in the $10,000 No Limit 2-7 Draw Lowball Championship. We caught up with Galfond yesterday at the start of the dinner break in the $50,000 Poker Players Championship to ask him about PLO tournament strategy.
Pot-limit Omaha continues to be a hugely popular game. This year’s $1,000 PLO event at the World Series of Poker broke the record for biggest non-hold’em live tournament, as 1,293 players took part. This gives us more than enough reason to dive into some PLO tournament strategy talk with the man known as “OMGClayAiken.”
Galfond began by pointing out how PLO tournaments start out a lot like cash games, with deep stacks and lots of room to move around. But as the game gets shorter, the action changes considerably.
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“With shorter stacks you can’t get away with playing as loose, because there is less room to maneuver,” Galfond explained. “You’re going to have to tighten up a bit, and as you approach the bubble, the final table, or when at the final table, ICM situations make you need to tighten up even more just because there are so many spots in PLO where [it will go] raise-reraise-call and you’re both going to flop a hand you have to go with,” Galfond said.
The fact is, getting into a coin-flip situation on the flop is much more prevalent in PLO than in no-limit hold’em, notes Galfond — something worth taking into account before becoming too liberal when calling reraises before the flop.
If you’re not too used to playing pot-limit Omaha, in cash or tournaments, the preflop three-betting strategies in PLO might be quite foreign to you. Galfond explains that the game definitely plays a lot differently than NLHE before the flop.
“I certainly fold more to three-bets in PLO tournaments compared to cash games, but if you do that you can get run over a little as well,” he said. “I combat that by opening a bit tighter and then I have the hands that I can continue with, and if they want to three-bet me with really bad hands it will hurt them more than me.”
Being dealt pocket aces in pot-limit Omaha also requires completely different approach than in hold’em, something those with PLO experience already know. Galfond offered his take on how to approach those hands, which might be among the trickiest to play in this game and format.
“Even in cash games I wouldn’t be reraising with most of my aces versus a raise and three callers, just the more premium ones. In a tournament especially, there is less incentive [to reraise] for two reasons…”
- it’s introducing variance that you don’t need; and
- a lot of players three-bet less frequently in tournaments, so when you do three-bet I think people put you on aces more often than they would in a cash game and maybe even more often than they should...
…it then goes three- or four-way to the flop, and they [will have hands that] play very well against your hand.”
This discussion might make it sound as though you should be three-betting more in PLO tournaments, since your opponents will suspect your range to be stronger than it actually needs to be to be three-betting. But when asked if this is the case, Galfond said “yes and no,” going on to stress the need to balance your play.
“I think people will play poorly when you three-bet non- hands or decent hands that are not aces that don’t contain ace-king, because those are the boards they let you win on. But [by three-betting] you’re introducing the variance you don’t really want in a tournament, especially as you get [deeper].”
Reducing variance seems to be the right way to play PLO tournaments, so can we argue that we should always just be calling with aces before the flop rather than reraising?
“I wouldn’t say always, but usually,” answers Galfond. “If you’re short enough to get a third of your stack in, or more, then I think it’s probably best to push your equity while you have it. The other nice thing, even when you get only a quarter of your stack in, you do end up with a lot of fold equity on the flop. Depending on the situation, if you’re five from the money when 100 players cash, then I would just be calling, but in normal situations I would just three-bet.”
Then there’s the one situation we all hate — being the short stack. A lot has been written about short-stacking strategy in no-limit hold’em tournaments, but how do we approach being on the short side in PLO?
“Especially in PLO there really is no need to panic as you get short, because there are no antes. In a nine-handed tournament, the blinds are coming around only once every nine hands and they are not that big generally, compared to a no-limit hold’em tournament where there are a lot of antes in the pot and where you [can] get anted away.”
“In PLO, you can really wait for your spots. I see it a lot in PLO tournaments — people get short and they feel like they need to make a move, and [often] they feel like they need to three-bet, but you just don’t. You can stay patient in PLO tournaments.”
Before Galfond went on his way to enjoy the rest of his dinner break we asked him one last quesetion. So... tight is right in PLO tournaments? Galfond smiled as he responded.
“More or less,” he said. “It’s not fun, but it’s right.”
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