PL Omaha Tournaments - Top Tips

If you are new to Pot Limit Omaha, tournaments are a great way to get started.

The first thing to think about is starting hands. When you first begin playing PL Omaha it’s best to play when your four cards all work together.

A hand like 7889 has four cards working together, as opposed to 2889 which only has three cards working together and a fourth known a dangler. Try to play hands with both straight and flush possibilities. Aces are obviously the strongest hand pre-flop in Omaha, and AATJ and AAKK double suited are the best starting hands in the game. Other hands with four consecutive cards like 89TJ are also very strong especially against more than one opponent. You should always try and see a flop with these hands. Hands with two pairs like 77KK are also very good as you will have a good chance of flopping a set.

Here are some points to bear in mind when playing Omaha tournaments:

• Do not overplay bad Aces. If you have AA47 with no flush draws and the flop comes 67T, its time to pass if anyone bets. Unless you have committed over half your stack before the flop, you have to chuck them away.

• Try and only draw to the nuts especially in multi way pots. 5678 may look like a big draw on a 9T2 flop as you have 13 cards to make a straight. Only three of those cards give you the nuts though. If someone holds 8JQK you are in terrible shape.

• If someone bets big in PL Omaha they normally have a hand. This isn’t the case in NL Holdem where people bluff far more often.

• Go Aces cracking. If you are sure that an opponent has Aces and will commit all their chips even if the flop is not favourable you can go after them with hands such as 5789. As long as you don’t have an Ace or a pair in your hand they are not much of a favourite over you. You may be able to get them to commit after the flop when you have become a massive favourite.

• Always look for extra outs when calculating whether you should commit all your chips in a tournament. For example if you hold AdQd3s2s and it flops 8d9d4c giving you the nut flush draw, then you would only have a 41% chance of beating two pairs. If you held AdQdJhJs on the same flop, you could beat two pair now if a ten or jack comes. This increases your chances of winning the hand to 57%.

• Bet strong draws in PL Omaha. If you hold 789T and the flop is 56K, you can win it there if you make a pot size bet. Even if you get re-raised, your draw is strong enough to go with the hand.

• Try and only draw to the Ace flush in PL Omaha. This is especially the case if you have no other way of winning the hand. You will often find that someone else is drawing to the Ace flush, so your hand will be no good even if the flush comes.

The best thing about Pot Limit Omaha is that it is great fun to play the game because you are able to get involved in the action a lot of the time. You can play most hands before the flop and still be a winning player.