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Short Stacking In Omaha

One of the reasons that the variance is so high in Omaha is that you regularly encounter situations where players flop such big hands that neither can fold.

Be it your top set vs an opponents 13+ out draw, or middle set vs an opponents straight and flush draw - in Omaha your will regularly be faced with situations where you cannot fold but are still only a slight favourite at best.

One of the best ways to deal with this is to buy in for the table minimum. This allows you to avoid the problems of having to play monster pots with slight equities with large portions of your bankroll. As a short stack your options in Omaha are much easier, you simply raise or call a raise pre flop, then put the rest of your stack in on any flop you hit (or miss in some situations). By doing this you take out many of the complicated situations that playing deep stacked can get you into - such as having to make big decisions when a scare card comes on the river for example.

Short stacking also has another major advantage in Omaha, it allows you to pick up a huge amount of dead money if played correctly. Imagine that you are short stacking at a table full of deep stacks. As so many more players will call pre flop with marginal hands in Omaha when playing deep stacked (due to the implied odds and extra card combinations in each hand in Omaha), there will frequently be situations where one player raises, a few more call, and you can comfortably stick the rest of your stack in with big pairs or big wrap hands ('wraps' are hands with lots of straight possibilities like 7s8s9h10h etc).

As there is no implied odds from you now (due to getting your whole stack in pre flop) many of the deep stacked players will fold their marginal hands, allowing you to race your hand against one or two opponents with lots of dead money in the pot.

As no hand is ever that far behind in Omaha, this is clearly a great situation, and one which allows you to run up a big stack from nothing. The consequences of this are great, as you can build a big stack from a small buy in, and also feel less bad if you do lose that monster pot later on, as you built your whole stack from just a couple of small buy ins. Buy in short, pick up the dead money, and watch the dollars roll in...

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11 August 2008 / About Marcus Bateman