Overplaying Aces in Omaha
Marcus Bateman
/
Marcus Bateman /
10 August 2009 /
Leave a Comment
This is one of the most fundamental mistake you see bad Omaha players make over and over again. They look down at aces, make a big re-raise pre flop, then lose a massive pot on a scary board to someone else's flopped monster.
As you will quickly realise when you first start playing Omaha, learning how to play big pairs is critical if you don't want to go broke very quickly.
The key thing to understand about Omaha is that no hand is actually very strong pre flop. Unlike in hold'em where you have a limited number of possible hands, all with a reasonably straight forward percentage chance against each other, in Omaha you have vastly more hand combinations, and it is rare for you to ever have more than a 60% edge pre flop. As a result of this, Omaha is a game built much more around the flop, turn and river, and around the big, five card hands of poker like straights, flushes and full houses.
Because of this, one pair is not usually a very good hand in Omaha, and getting your whole stack in post flop with just an over pair is often a recipe for disaster. Mostly in Omaha you are looking to try and hit sets with big pairs, or to try and make nut flushes with your aces.
This brings up the next key point about playing aces in Omaha, which is that not all aces are equal. A hand like AcAsJc10s is hugely more powerful than a hand like AcAs7hJd. In Omaha you always want the whole of your hand working together, with as many possible hands to be made as you can, and as a result your aces have to be considered in the context of the other cards, not just on the fact that you have a pair.
Omaha is a much less black and white game than hold'em, and as a result aces lose a lot of their power, yet still seem to hold the same mystique to players. The reality is that if you treat aces in Omaha like you do in hold'em you will go broke over and over again against even half decent players. Look to have your whole hand working together, try and disguise it well pre flop and hit big hands to put in those big bets.
The Problem With Weak Aces in Hold'Em
Danglers in Pot Limit Omaha
Read More Poker
The Floating Explosion
One of the key changes that has affected all games in the last twelve months or so has been the massive increase in the number of players refusing to believe flop bets. It used to be the case that weak...
Flatting with aces in PLO
This is one of the hardest things to drill into good Hold'em players when they start playing Pot Limit Omaha - learning to flat with aces in many situations. Although there is certainly a time and a place to flat...
How to play a good or bad card on the turn or river
Most players are aware of how 'good' or 'bad' a card can be on the turn or river in Hold'em or Omaha. Good cards can throw up great bluffing opportunities, make your hand much safer to proceed with, or make...
The Three Poker Sites Who May Have Messed It Up For Everyone
For anyone who talked about how softened the internet generation were to gambling compared to the old Texan road players, the events of the last few weeks in poker have certainly hardened everyone who may have not seen the darker...
