- What Is Omaha Hi Lo
- What Is The Nut Low In Omaha Hi Lo
- What Is The Lowest Hand In Omaha Hi Lo
- What Is The Nut Low In Omaha Hi Low
As for outs in Omaha H/L, we have to be careful about whether we are asking about outs to improve our hand or about outs to the nuts. It sounds like you are asking about lo OR hi outs. Omaha Hi-Lo is also referred to as Omaha Eight-or-better. The 8 is the important bit - it means that only hands where all five cards are 8 can play as the low. The nut (best) low hand is. The best hand in Omaha Hi-Lo is the 'wheel', which is A-2-3-4-5. This gives you the nut low hand, and also a great high hand with your straight. The 'High' Part of the Split. Ok, now we're going to discuss the 'hi' part of Omaha Hi-Low. The high part of the pot is 1/2 of the total pot size, and is awarded to the best high Omaha.
Claiming both the high and the low splits of the pot in Omaha Hi-Lo is the best win you can hope for. This guide helps you to understand more about achieving this. Best Omaha Sites. Discipline in choosing those hands with both nut high and nut low potential is key. Issuu is a digital publishing platform that makes it simple to publish magazines, catalogs, newspapers, books, and more online. Easily share your publications and get them in front of Issuu’s.
Omaha Hi-Lo is a fascinating game packed with action! The action, at least in small-middle stakes games, is not only loose but many times also weak. By having four cards, and playing for high and low, some players frequently find a “reason” to stick with their hand. However, even if their hand has some potential, pot odds often do not justify playing it. So, many novice players play too loosely, stick with their hands when they shouldn’t, and end up making many mistakes.
Most errors originate from poor preflop hand selection. Understanding which Omaha high-low starting hands are solid and under which circumstances they are playable will significantly improve your game!
Starting hands
The best starting hands in Omaha hi-lo have both strong high and low potential. Since aces are the best cards for high and low, they are excellent starting hands! Almost all playable starting hands contain at least an ace! On the counterpart, cards between six and nine, are considered weak. So, any starting hand containing one or more of these cards usually decreases in value.
Another deal-breaker is to have trips in your starting hand! This is because you can only use two out of three, so you have an unusable card in your hands. Your chances of hitting a set also decrease. Let’s take a look at the strongest starting hands.
Top hands
The best starting hand is AA23, followed by AA24. These hands have excellent high and low potential! If one, or even better, both aces are suited, the strength of the hand increases as it also has nut flush potential.
Powerful starting hands with both high and low potential
- AA, with one or two low cards (the smaller, the better), like AA2x or AA35
- A2 or A3 with two high cards, like AKJ2 or AKQ3
- A2 or A3, with a big pair, like KK or QQ
Strong only low starting hands
- A2 or A3 with one or two more low cards (the lower, the better), like A23x
- 2345, 2346, 2356 (the flop must contain an ace, and at least another small card, or the hand may become useless)
Note that if one or no low cards come on the flop, these hands lose their value
Strong only high starting hands
- AA, with two high cards, like AAKJ
- A with three cards ten or higher, like AKJ10 or AKQJ
- Four high connected cards, like KQJ10 or QJ109
- High cards with one pair, like KKQJ, or KQQJ
- Double paired high cards, like KKQQ
Note that if three or even two low cards appear on the flop, these hands go down in value. So you should adjust your play accordingly.
Trouble starting hands to avoid
Unlike Holdem, in Omaha hi-lo, it is ok to play a little looser preflop. The idea is to try to see many flops with hands that have potential. However, you must remain selective and avoid some trouble hands, especially when playing in a full table.
Some hands may seem attractive, but will only make second or third best! Don’t play them as they have a negative expected value. For example, avoid playing A4x or A5x type of hands in a full table, as they may get you in trouble more often than not.
What Is Omaha Hi Lo
The same goes for the high. With everyone having four cards, it is more probable that someone will make a monster hand, so you don’t want to be drawing for second or third best! For example, if you are drawing for a queen-high flush, you will often lose to an ace or king-high flush. Even if you make a set of nines, you will often end up second best to a higher set! Let’ take a look at some other trap hands.
- 333A, AAA4 type hands have minimal high potential, and even if they make a low, it may be second-best.
- 9876, 8765, 7654 may seem keen but are really not! With these hands, it is tough to scoop the pot. If you make a nut straight, most of the time, there will be a low, and you will split the pot. If you make a straight with high cards, a better straight may beat you!
- High pairs with two one or two trash cards like KK9x or QQxx are weak hands. Do not confuse with the value of a pocket pair in Holdem. In Omaha hi-lo, with straight and flushes appearing often, a single pair is not all that great.
So, how to bet preflop?
In Omaha hi-lo, taking the lead in the hand with preflop aggression is less crucial than in Holdem. So, raise preflop mostly for value when you have powerful hands and position.
From position, when several players have limped, you can widen your range and add in see cheap flops with some speculative hands. Raise with premium hands for value. Most of the limpers will call you, and you also want to build the pot to be able to make big bets after the flop.
Out of position, limp with hands that have both high and low potential, to see a multiway flop.
Multiplayer versus heads-up preflop requirements
Some of the hands that are not good enough for a multiway pot go up in value heads-up. When playing in a multiway pot, you want your hand to have nut, or close to nut potential for the high and low. When playing heads up, you can win the low or high with medium-strength hands. For example, heads-up A4 is often good enough for the low, whereas in a multiway pot, it is a weak hand.
What Is The Nut Low In Omaha Hi Lo
Also, heads-up you can win the high with a hand like two pair or a set, even when the board has some flush or straight possibilities. If the board is dry, even top pair-top kicker can win you the pot! In a multiplayer pot, when the board has flush or straight potential, you should expect that someone will have it most of the time!
In a nutshell
In Omaha hi-lo, you often see players playing too loosely. By adopting a selective starting hand strategy, you gain a significant advantage over your opponents. In multiplayer pots, play hands that have strong high and low potential, and avoid hands that can give you second or third best!
I hope you found this post helpful. If you have any questions or suggestions that you want to share, please leave a comment below.
What Is The Lowest Hand In Omaha Hi Lo
You will come across many references to the importance of ‘scooping’ in Omaha Hi-Lo, this article takes things one step further by explaining exactly why this is a critical strategy for the split-pot Omaha poker games – and then showing you the best way to go about scooping your opponents.
Scooping refers to taking both the high and the low sides of the pot at showdown in PLO8 games. The best way to look at the importance of this is to turn things around, and ask what kind of profits you can expect from taking only half of the pot at a time?
Firstly, take a heads-up pot, here your profit for winning either the high or low sides is the ‘dead money’ from other players who have folded at various points throughout the hand, this is often a small proportion – say 10% to 20% of the total pot size. After rake you are lucky to get the full 5% to 10%, and importantly you had to risk you stack to get this.
Obviously, multi-way pots make winning half worthwhile… but not by as much as you think! What we need to account for is the risk of being ‘quartered’ for the low pot on some occasions when playing multi-way. For example winning half of a pot which 3 players each contributed $10 will give you a profit of $5 each time. Now, being quartered just 20% of the time makes a big difference – 4 times out of 5 you win $5 for a profit of $20. Yet 1 time you lose $7.50 meaning your average profit for all the hands is just $2.50… best not to even think of a 10% chance of losing both sides of the pot.
The key point is that profits from winning half the pot will be small, in order to make a good profit in Omaha Hi-Lo you need to scoop the occasional pot!
Well, that was the why… now onto the how! This section is divided into 2, before the flop and after the flop – those critical decision points in this entertaining game.
The single most important decision you will make in Omaha 8 or better is whether or not to enter a pot in the first place. Being selective with Omaha hi-lo starting hands is important – but more important still is choosing those starting hands with potential to scoop the whole pot. The single most common reason for losing money in this game is seeing a flop with those ‘speculative’ hands because it is cheap to do so… discipline in choosing those hands with both nut high and nut low potential is key.
High only hands can of course scoop a pot where there is no qualifying low hand. This will happen approximately 30% of the time – meaning high hands do have a role to play in this game. The problem that most inexperienced players face here is that adding the high hands to your starting requirements simply means you are playing far too many hands overall… stick to the real monsters when going high-only (in particular from later position) and be prepared to release your hand quickly should there be low hands possible on the flop (unless you flop the stone cold nuts as a high hand!).
What Is The Nut Low In Omaha Hi Low
After the flop scooping involves being aware of the type of hands your opponents are playing and ensuring that any draws you play are to the nuts. Suited aces with other low cards are considered premium hands in Omaha 8-or better because they are likely to be drawing to both sides of the pot when they hit. You will be very unlikely to do any scooping when drawing to 2 non-nut hands – and may in fact end up losing both sides of the pot. If you flop the nut high and have a draw to a low then play this very aggressively (particularly if there are no re-draws to stronger high hands).
If you flop the nut low you need to be cautious that one or more opponents do not have the same cards (particularly when you hold A-2-X-X). If you have high potential such as the nut flush and / or backup in the form of another baby card then aggression will show a profit over time.
Of course, scooping a pot is much easier when you are facing bad opponents who are likely to draw to second (or even third) best hands. If you are not yet sure where to find the PLO8 fish (and avoid the sharks!!) then check out our guide to the Best Site For Omaha 8b Hi-Lo Poker!