Dealing with players who only three bet big pairs in Omaha

Pot Limit Omaha / Marcus Bateman / 30 June 2010 / Leave a Comment

Only re-raising a minute percentage of your hands in any form of poker is dangerous because it telegraphs your exact hand to astute players.

Particularly at the lower stake games, you regularly encounter Omaha players who only really re-raise big pairs, and isolating who they are and how to respond to them is fundamental to maximising your win rate in these games.

Only re-raising a minute percentage of your hands in any form of poker is dangerous because it telegraphs your exact hand to astute players, but nowhere is this more dangerous than in Omaha.

Unlike in some other forms of poker (most notably Hold'em), in Omaha no hand is a big favourite pre flop, and this makes your raise much less likely to drive out players, with the result that you will often have multiple callers to deal with (never fun with big pairs in Hold'em - let alone a game with so many extra hand combination).

Not only do you have this key problem with driving out players, but due to the pot limit nature of the game this is confounded by not being able to bet more than the pot. Pre flop with multiple callers in Hold'em, you can simply put in a big squeeze and try and force everyone out - not possible in a pot limit game. Not only this, but pot limit games are much harder to get to showdown in for the same reason - not being able to bet over the pot means that to play for stacks you nearly always have to get past the flop.

Add all of these problems to the final key point about Omaha - that of strong hands being the norm - and you can finally see just how much of a problem only re-raising your big pairs is. You will struggle to get that many chips in pre flop, usually get multiple callers who may well know pretty much your exact hand, often have no more than a pair on the flop, find it very difficult to get to showdown without having to commit your stack by the river, all in a game where one pair is usually a pretty weak hand and where straights, flushes, full houses and sets dominate the big bet end of the hand.

Not a great combination.

By opening up your three betting range in Omaha you not only make your game much harder to read, but you also can generate more action on your other big hands from weak players putting you on aces (as they only three bet aces why should anyone else do anything different?), as well as thinning the field more often, as good players realise your range is larger and not worth pursuing you with anything just to try and crack your over pair - by far a better combination of factors.

Show me more Pot Limit Omaha Strategy Articles