Your Starting Hand
Since you don’t know what four cards your opponent holds, you always can speculate on how this hand will do against that hand and which is a better starting hand.
However, expect for the absolute best starting hands, any hand you have can be counterfeited by a similar starting hand either one notch higher or slightly lower with an additional draw.
Although your hand won’t be counterfeited every time, it happens a lot in multiway pots.
This is why you must be careful with many hands that look reasonably good.
But in short-handed pots,you have to play these hands out and play goodpoker (Playing good poker includes understanding how your opponent plays, how the board cards relate not only to your hand but also to the type of cards that your opponent plays, and how your opponent perceives you at that moment)
Most hands run very close, usually less than a 3-to-2 favorite heads up. Consequently, the most important skill is the ability to outplay your opponent.
Low hands tend to have a playing advantage over high hands, because scare cards often appear and the holder of the high hands does not know what to do.
However, the low hands also have some disadvantages, which usually occur when the high hand is forcing them to call all the bets. Thus there is a tradeoff on both sides.
As previously mentioned, the high hands do well heads up. But in multiway pots, they must make very big hands and frequently need redraws to ensure their profitability.
For example, if a third low card comes on the river, besides making a low hand, it also might give someone a small straight that can beat a high set. But if this card also gives the high hand a flush, enabling the high hand to lock up the high side, then it is not so bad.
These redraws are extremely important, as straights frequently come out and you need the redraws are extremely important, as straights frequently come out and you need the redraws (which also can give you the low) so you don’t get scooped as often.
An ace is a key card in this game, because it is needed to make the nut low when there is no ace on the board. Also, it makes the nut flush when it is suited up.
These after the draws come through a lot, and some of them are back-door plays. Finally, when the ace makes a straight on the high side, it is of course the nut straight.
You want to play hands that include an ace, although you must realize that in a multiway pot, one or more of your opponents also probably holds an ace.
In this case, it is less likely that another ace will come out for low. It is also important that your ace be suited with some other card in your hand, because when a lot of people are in, it is likely that you will be against someone who holds an ace-deuce or an ace-trey.
In general, there are few starting hands that you should play where all four cards are not closely interweaved.
Unless you hold an ace-deuce, which does not always require all four cards working together, consistently starting with three or fewer coordinated cards will prove to be very costly.
You sometimes can play just a dry ace-deuce, particularly if there are live players in your game who regularly play any two low cards.
Another possible exception to playing only coordinated cards might be a hand like ace-trey-four-ten, with the ace suited to one of the other cards. But even this hand has some of the cards working well together, though not necessarily all four of them.
The reason it is so important to have all four cards working together is that many pots get jammed on the later streets, and you often will need the extra outs – that is, draws or redraws to better hands that these cards provide. As stated earlier, these extra outs are secret of this game.
A lot of other hands may be tempting, but you are dealt enough of the totally coordinated hands that you don’t need to fool around with weaker hands, unless the pot will be played heads up, which makes a major difference.
This idea is important in other forms of Omahs, but it is even more important in Omaha eight-or-better, because you tend to get jammed so much on the later streets concepts.
Introduction / General Concepts / Position / Low Hands / High Hands / Your Starting Hand / Starting With Big Pairs / When You Are First In / How To Play Your Hand / Play on the Flop / When Your Have the Best Hand / Afterthought
