The importance of having a multi-direction hand

Poker Strategy / Marcus Bateman / 05 August 2010 / Leave a Comment

In Omaha you are always looking to see flops with hands that can give you numerous possibilities of play

Matthew Pitt recently posted a hand in the comments section of my piece on top two pair in Pot Limit Omaha that was not only an interesting hand in terms of top two pair, but also in the fundamental importance in PLO of having as many options in your hand as possible when seeing flops.

As Matthew's hand stood, it was a pretty easy fold had he not also had the second nut flush draw, but with that extra part of his hand, he had far too much equity against his opponent's likely ranges to consider folding. This is a point that all good Omaha players understand, and one which will frequently bite you if you ignore it.

In Omaha you are always looking to see flops with hands that can give you numerous possibilities of play. Perhaps the best example of this in action is with the hand that weak PLO players make more mistakes with than any other - aces.

A hand like AcAh9s2d is a much, much worse hand than something like AhAcJh10c in PLO. With the first hand, all you can really do is aim to hit a set and hope it holds; where as with the second hand you have vastly more possibilities on most flops. It can hit two separate nut flush draws/made hands, a nut straight draw/made hand with jack ten (all straights you can make with jack ten will be the nut straight), as well as top set.

If you saw a flop of Ad8h9h with these two hands, you can see the huge difference between them. In the first case, you have top set on a draw heavy board, a blocker to hitting a full house (one less nine in the deck), and are actually extremely vulnerable in this spot. In the second instance, you not only have top set, but every draw crushed - any action you get you will basically be free rolling against straight draws, miles ahead of any flush draws, and crushing any sets - obviously a huge difference.

Although these are clearly two polar extremes of the concept, the principle stays true as you venture into the middle ground. Omaha is a game where extra possibilities add up very quickly into huge margins, and sticking to playing hands that have all four cards working together will both make your life much easier post flop, as well as making you huge amounts of money against players getting involved with non multi way holdings.