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Jim Green explains some of the potential traps in Omaha
OK. By now, I'm assuming you've learned how Omaha works, maybe even know a bit about starting hand selection and reading the board. This article is going to try and provide you with an introduction to some of the costly traps that Omaha has for the unwary.
1) Dirty Outs.
Omaha, as I have probably said before, is a game of draws. It's important to know all of your outs (for example, a runner runner flush hits about 3% of the time, so there might be a little more value in your hand than you were thought). However, it is more important to know which of your outs are dirty. Dirty outs are cards that may help an opponent more than they help you.
There's an old proverb that says when God wants to curse a man, he gives the man everything he ever desired. Omaha feels like that sometimes. For example a card that gives you a straight makes a flush for someone else or gives you a flush and your opponent a full house, then you could well be in a world of hurt. Be careful that when you count a card as an out that it will actually help you more than your opponents.
2) Getting quartered.
When two players have equally strong hands for half the pot, they split it between them, each winning a quarter of the pot. This is fine if the pot is big, but if it's been three way the whole time, and you don't have a high, you might end up having put one third of the money into the pot and only get one quarter of it back - a losing proposition. I have made a lot of money by having nut high and nut low against a person with nut low who thinks they are freerolling for high. I take the high half, and half the low - I get half of every bet or raise my opponent makes.
Split pots are much more common in Omaha, than any other game I've played. They are especially common for low hands and straights (although I have seen two players split high with exactly the same full house). The potential of getting quartered is another reason why you should be playing to scoop. Getting quartered in both directions still gives you half the pot, and picking up three quarters of the pot is a very nice outcome.
3) Getting counterfitted
You might have the nut hand now, but the next card (or two) could change that dramatically. For example, you have A2KQ and the flop is 56T. You have draw to the best possible low. The turn is an 8, filling your low draw, so you should be good for a share of the low side of the pot (since you are wary of being quartered you're not counting on taking all the low side). The river is a 2. That's OK, you still have an A2568 low. Unfortunately, there are now a lot of better lows. Anyone with A3, A4, or even hands as bad as 47, as long as they have two unpaired low cards, now beats you because they can make a 7 high low to go under your 8 high.
Similarly, you can be counterfitted for high. If the board is QJ4 T, and you have AK, you just made the nut straight on the turn (sure, you split with any other AK, but hey as long as the board doesn't pair, you've got the nut straight). Unfortunately, if the river is an A or a K then a lot more nut straights become possible (anyone with the missing card and one of the four high cards on board now also has the nut straight).
By now you're probably thinking "how does anyone ever win in Omaha? It's just like bingo." Well, these are just worse case scenarios, things to be aware of. I wanted to warn you of the dangers so you can be aware of them and not learn about them the hard way like I did. I didn't mean to scare you off, Omaha is still a game where good play, will give you a massive advantage over your opponents.Comments on Some Omaha 8 Dangers |
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