Poker writer lou Krieger and expert players Annie duke and Linda Johnson share the following advice on inproving your Omaha H/L game:
• Draws and traps to avoid: Here are some of the draws you ought to avoid and some trap hands you need to be on the lookout for:
1. Top and bottom pair
2. Third-best flush
3. Second-best straight
4. Second-best low hand
5. K-Q-Q-X and similar holdings
6. J-J-10-X and similar holdings
7. 7-6-5-4 suited or unsuited
8. 6-5-4-3 suited or not
• Some miscellaneous tips: Here are some miscellaneous tips to improve your Omaha eight-or-better game. They are covered in more detail elsewhere in our book, but we’ve listed them here so that you can access all of them in one place.
1. If you’re playing $10-$20 or lower, after the flop you should generally draw only to the nuts or have multiple high-quality draws.
2. If you’ve been dealt A-3 or 3-2 with nothing else of real quality, you ought to throw it away if you’re in early position. In late position, A-3 is almost always playable, but 3-2 is not.
3. While late position allows you to play more hands, middle cards such as 9-8-7 — particularly hands with nines in them — should not be played.
4. When you’ve made the nut low on the flop and are sure you’re going to be quartered, you have our permission to occasionally muck your hand, particularly when you have no backup to protect you against getting counterfeited, and no possibilities of making a high winning hand. If you’re holding A-2-K-Q, it may look good if the flop is 6-5-4, but if you suspect that one of your opponents also has an A-2 in his hand, the best you can hope for if there are three others in the pot with you is that you’ll get your money back. It’s sort of like, “Heads they win, tails you tie,” and that’s not a rosy picture, is it?
5. On the river, you can usually raise if you’re holding the nut low when it’s fourhanded, but generally just call if you’re playing threehanded.
6. When you’re in the cutoff seat or on the button in a pot in which no one has come to play, either raise or release. Do not call.
7. In multiway pots, early-position strength should be bet because you’d like to attract paying customers. Deception is unimportant. When your opponents see the flop, many of them will find any possible excuse to call and see the turn — and the river, too.
8. If a player in early position bets into a raiser, do not call with anything other than the very best of flop fits. In this situation, it’s really OK to throw your hand away.
9. An ace is the most important card in Omaha eight-or-better. Next in importance is a deuce. A 9 is the worst card, and if you hang around an Omaha eight-or-better table long enough, you’ll find that nines, eights, and sevens appear in more losing hands than any other cards.
10. According to World Series of Poker bracelet winner and Omaha eight-or-better expert Linda Johnson, 6-5-4-3 is the worst starting hand combination that most Omaha eight-or-better players consider a good hand, and one they will play on a regular basis.
11. The flush factor: You’ll be dealt a suited or double-suited hand the vast majority of the time. So will your opponents, so when you do draw to a flush, be certain it stands a good chance of winning the pot, or at least the high end of it, if you make it.
12. It takes a bigger hand to call a raise than it does to raise in the first place. And it takes a bigger hand to overcall than to be the first caller.
13. Although many players think of Omaha eight-or-better as a game of drawouts, it’s worth remembering that seven-ninths, or 77 percent, of your hand is known on the flop.
14. The river card is the least important card in Omaha eight-or-better. All of the important action takes place prior to the river. If you have the best of it before the river, you’ll win more often than not. Get your money into the pot when you have the best of it, and save your bets when you don’t. While that sounds simple and obvious, many players do not follow that axiom.
15. High-stakes poker player Annie Duke’s list of mistakes many players make in Omaha eight-or-better:
• Playing stranded pairs; hands like K-K-8-4 are unplayable, but hands like K K 2 3 and K-K-Q-Q can be played
• Overestimating the value of small pairs, deuces through eights, since these sets become very vulnerable when hit
• Overestimating the value of A-2
• Overestimating the value of A-A
• Underestimating the value of big connecting cards, because it is tougher to get trapped with them
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