Omaha Hi
Lo: Making it through the Showdown
Each and every hand in Omaha Hi
Lo should be played with phases. Each
phase of the hand takes a different thought
process and strategy that should be taken. It
starts with good hand selection before the flop
and moves from a good flop strategy to the
strategy that needs to be taken after the flop
- which would be making it through the showdown.
It is important to keep in mind
that the most important aspect and phase of
Omaha Hi/Lo is the beginning phases. The pre-flop
strategy and the hand selection are extremely
important. All of the different phases must work
together to make one solid strategy. If you are
not playing the pre-flop
strategy the right way, it would be pointless to
even try to play a good strategy after the flop.
Everything you do from there will lead up to
what you will do in the end. Think of it as
shooting off a gun. The pre-flop
is basically aiming the gun (very important
obviously). Then on the flop, that is where you
would pull the trigger. The rest of the hand is
just watching it hit your target.
The Turn
At this point you are probably in
one of two different situations. Either you are
on a monster draw, or you have already hit the
hand you were looking for. If you are on a
monster draw, you still have one more card
coming up. Chances are you have a lot invested
into the hand already, and you still have a
monster draw. If you did hit then you are good
to go. So assuming you have a hand at this point
(whether it is because you hit your draw, or
because you already had a good hand) now you
need to make money.
The important thing as that you
still have every reason to believe that you have
the best hand at this point. If you thing you
have fallen behind to a huge hand (maybe you had
a straight, and a flush hit), then you need to
get out of there. If you still have the best
hand, you are going to want to make as much
money as possible. Remember you are playing
Omaha Hi/Lo. It shouldn’t be hard to get paid
off in this game. Players will be drawing, going
for highs and going for lows.
The River
The river is the easiest part of
any poker game. You do not need to put too much
thought into the hand at this point. In fact, it
probably will not get down to the river very
often. If you have done your job and got as much
money into the pot as possible with the best
hand, there is a good chance that all the chips
will be in the middle before the flop. If you
were slow playing or value betting all the way
through, the river will be the premium time to
get the rest of the money into the pot.
This is basically the time to
brush everything up and get the most profit as
you can. If for some reason things are not
working out like planned, and you completely
miss your monster draw and no longer have a
chance to win then you would obviously need to
fold. For the most part however, this will just
be a nice finish to the hand. Get as much money
in there as possible. Put the rest of your chips
in the middle and give your opponent a tough
decision. If you have a monster, then hopefully
you will get some callers.
Overall, you aren't going to have
many problems to worry about on the turn and
river; just play poker. The hard part is the
beginning phases of the hand. The hand selection
and the decisions you make on the flop and
before the flop will be very important to what
you do after the flop. Those decisions will
reflect everything that happens to you for the
rest of the hand. You will definitely have a lot
more players showing down in Omaha Hi/Lo as
well, so keep that in mind. |
