Suited kings in Pot Limit Omaha
/ Marcus Bateman / 18 November 2010 / Leave a comment
Although a king flush is a stronger hand than a low flush in PLO, it is nowhere near as strong as the gap would suggest. If anything, the gap between the nut flush and the king flush is probably larger than the gap between the king flush and a low one
One of the most dangerous and problematic hands in Pot Limit Omaha, suited kings are often strong enough to lean you towards getting a lot of your stack in, but weak enough that you will often be saying goodbye to it when you do.
Like many of the very problematic hands in PLO, many people seem to be very hung up on these hands as a result of their strength in Hold'em, but breaking free from this way of thinking is crucial to long term success in Omaha.
The key difference between these hands in PLO and Hold'em is simply that any kind of two card flush (even a quite low one) on a non paired board is pretty much always a huge hand in Hold'em. As a result, in practical terms the king flush plays very similarly to the ace flush in Hold'em, as you will be ahead of your opponent such a large percentage of the time that basically ever folding with them is a huge mistake.
However, in PLO, not only are two card flushes much more common, but the nut flush is out there so often that basically any flush other than the nut flush should be treated with caution. The king flush is by far the most dangerous of these hands, simply because it appears so strong (after all, there is only one hand that can beat it) that you can be easily tricked into getting all in with it, where you may fold a lower flush, even though in reality the two hands are not actually that far apart.
Although a king flush is a stronger hand than a low flush in PLO, it is nowhere near as strong as the gap would suggest. If anything, the gap between the nut flush and the king flush is probably larger than the gap between the king flush and a low one - anything other than the nut flush is so often behind in PLO, that big flushes and small flushes usually play in a very similar way in Omaha.
Unlike in Hold'em, where a king flush will get action from small flushes/other hand so often that ever folding it is nearly always a mistake, in PLO you will rarely get action with such a hand from lower flushes, but will get all you can eat from players with the nut flush. This is clearly a huge difference, and one it is critical to adjust too if you want to keep your game sharp. PLO has many subtle changes in hand strength from Hold'em, and perhaps nowhere is this more obvious than in how king flushes play - a lesson that can prove very costly if not taken into account very quickly.
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