Marcus Bateman / Marcus Bateman / 13 March 2009 / Leave a comment

Some of the most profitable poker games out there in the current era are pot limit Omaha games.

One of the key things that needs to be understood about Omaha is that raising before the flop starts to become much less to do with the strength of your hand, and much more to do with your position.

The mix of fast and heavy action, huge numbers of possibilities with each hand (which induces players into seeing flops with many more hands than they do in hold'em) and the fact that the game is still relatively unsolved in terms of a unified strategy, have all contributed to its explosion as the new big game in town.

One of the key things that needs to be understood about Omaha is that raising before the flop starts to become much less to do with the strength of your hand, and much more to do with your position. Hands which should be called with or even folded in certain situations pre flop are in other spots great hands to re-raise with. This hardly ever occurs in hold'em, where a strong hand should nearly always be raised regardless of the action in front of it.

A good example of this is when playing low wrap hands. Imagine there are three of four limpers to you on the button with a hand like 4h5h7c9c. Raising here is largely useless with your hand, as all the players will call due to the great pot odds, and your hand does not actually play very well in a big multi way pot, where both your flush draws are probably dead and you are effectively looking for a rainbow flop that gives you a straight - clearly not a good time to be building a big pot.

Compare this to a situation where a loose weak player raises under the gun and it is folded to you on the button with the same hand. Here is a great spot to re-raise and try and isolate the player. As you will probably be now playing a heads up pot, with position, with a hand where both flush draws are probably live, where you can flop a massive and very well disguised hand or draw (is that 2h3h6c flop really going to look like it has helped the big pair that you are representing?), or bluff many boards if you miss, all against a weak player - clearly a great result.

Re-raising a large range of hands in position is one of the hallmarks of a good Omaha player. By building big pots, in position with many different types of hands, you put your opponents in very tough situations. Omaha is arguably the game where position is the most important, and your hand strength is only as strong as the position you are playing it from. Look for as many spots to build big pots in position and watch the dollars roll in.

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