Omaha Hi Lo: Pre-flop
Strategy
There are a few different steps
to becoming a successful Omaha Hi Lo Player. You
must learn the basic rules, and from there you
can start to develop strategies to be a better
player. Once of the first and most important of
these strategies would be the Pre-flop
Strategy. A good Omaha Hi Lo Pre-flop
strategy could almost carry you though the
entire hand without having any idea what to do
on the Flop, Turn and River. That is why, you
must focus first on your strategy before the
flop, and the rest will all fall into place
later.
Identifying and Analyzing
The very first thing you are
going to do when a hand starts is analyze and
identify. What that means is that you are going
to gather as much information as you possibly
can. Start out by thinking about your position.
Position is very important in every poker game
you could possibly play in.
Before you look at your cards you
need to analyze and identify your opponents.
Look around the table and take note of their
actions, chip stacks, tendencies, etc. As the
game goes on you will have a table image for
each player. Think about who is in front of you
and who is behind you; that should have a lot to
do with the decisions you will make. Once you
have thought about your position, your opponents
and everything else that is going on, you can
look at your cards and think about that. There
are certain cards that you will base your
decision off of solely on the information you
gathered above.
Playable Hands
The next step after you have as
much information you could possibly have before
any betting has been made, will be to figure out
the value of your hand. The value of your hand
will be different in every situation (even if it
is the same hand). You have to combine all of
the information that was discussed above and use
it to identify the value of your hand. From
there you will know if you should fold, raise,
bet or call.
A good way to figure this out is
by using a points system from 1-5 (1 being the
weakest and 5 being the strongest). You would
come up with your own way of ranking hands, but
it would basically come down to your opponents,
position and hand. If you are going against weak
opponents your hand value might go up. If you
have good position your hand value would go up.
Example:
Hand = 7(s) 8(s) A(h) 2(h)
The hand above is not the best
hand, but it is also not a bad hand. The cards
are working together fairly well and you have a
lot of possibilities, including A2 which is
likely to make a low hand. Still, there are
several hands that would be better starting
hands than this one.
Now, if you are in late position
and your opponents are loose, this hand would
probably be valued at a 4 (which is obviously
good). Now if you where in early position
against strong aggressive opponents the hand
would be valued as a 3 or even possibly a 2. So
you can see why it is so important to take that
first step of analyzing and identifying.
Making Good Plays
Now that you have all of the
information you need to make the proper move,
you will need to implement it. This is the part
where you are really going to have to use your
own style to decide what to do with good hands
and marginal hand. Generally, you want to make
sure you are betting and protecting your good
hands. At the same time, you want to make sure
you are not showing a specific betting pattern.
That means you wouldn’t want to only bet when
you have a very good hand and just simply call
when you have a marginal hand.
You will need to figure out your
own style, but a good rule of thumb would be to
play hands that rank at 4 and 5. Fold that hands
that rank at 1 and 2. Then, for hands that rank
at 3, you will have to calculate the odds and
figure out if it is worth it or not. If it is,
make the call; if not, you should fold.
A big part of a good Omaha Hi Lo
strategy would be to create your own. This is a
great place to start, but you have to mold your
personality and playing style within the
strategies outlined here. If you are able to do
that, you will have absolutely no problem making
a great profit with this game. If nothing else,
you will at least be able to properly play the
game the next time it is called in your Dealers
Choice home game. |
