admin
I love Omaha Hi Lo, I know it has mixed feelings among players. I notably watched Tonkaaaap playing it and cursing it saying it was a stupid game. I disagree, I’m moving more toward Omaha as my preferred game over regular nl holdem.
I don’t mind if it’s PL or NL either is fine, after a few levels, the PL factor gradually thins out and doesn’t tend to effect the game anyway. OK I digress a bit, the point of this article is to try and nail some of the finer points of the game.
There are some subtle intracacies to it and even though I’ve been playing it and winning at it for a fair while, there are some bits to it that I don’t fully understand. It can get a bit confusing. I decided to write this article in order to clarify what exactly the f is going on so I can improve my game slightly.
This article will be a work in progress and I will update it when I find other intracacies.
Late reg
I do notice that the games can surprisingly go on for soooo long sometimes. You need to pay
attention to the late reg levels and perhaps buy in after a few hrs have played out. Sometimes you get late reg til end of level 15 which could be after about 2.5 hrs. Yes you could have an advantage in playing the first two hrs and accumulating some chips but I think there is definitely value in just skipping out the first 1hr or 2 and jumping in later on. You won’t be so fatigued and you could potentially make some bold moves and rebuy if it fails to get a cheeky late stage double up. This could drop you in nicely into the pack with much less effort.
The Lo Hand
So the obvious winning Lo hand is A2345. If you have this then you have the nuts lo hand and also
a straight and chances are you are looking to be going all in by the end of the hand. But what about the next best lo hand?
Is it A2346 or is it 23456? Which is better? Are they equal? Clearly the latter is a straight so that’s a nice thing to have, but is it a better lo hand?
No
The Ace is the Daddy.
You ALWAYS have to use two of your cards
There was a situation that came up recently where there was a flush on the board, all 5 cards were hearts. I always knew that you can’t use one card for a flush (or whatever hand) in omaha, If you have the ace of hearts and there is four hearts on the board then you may well only have ace high with a kicker and you don’t not have that flush that you want so badly, as you wouldin hold em
The truth was that when I saw this communal flush, I thought I had a flush, I think I just talked myself into it even though I certainly did know the two card rule. I didn’t lose much chips making a little cheeky bet and finding out that I certainly didn’t have it and the guy that called me took it down with a crappy pair. Of course everyone has it if there is a communal hand in regular poker but it doesn’t apply to omaha. There are so many scenarios where this is a factor, I think all you need to know/remember is YES YOU DO have to use two cards – always.
So I’ll leave it there for the moment, I hope I clarified a few things for you (and me) and I’ll add more if I find them.
It’s a cruel game :/
