PLO: How Does Your Hand Play Postflop?

Even though the preflop equity of playable PLO hands are pretty close, this does not mean that they should be played the same way. One important consideration when deciding whether to limp, call or reraise is how your hand play postflop.

Three factors can be considered:

• How often does your hand hit the flop
• What it tends to hit
• How does it fare against your opponents’ range

The more potential a hand has, the more often it will hit the flop. More specifically, suited hands can hit a flush or a flush draw, rundowns can hit a straight or a straight draw, unpaired hands can hit two pair, and paired hands can hit a set.

Sets are more frequent at omaha, since there are more pairs in a four-card hand, but the odds for hitting a set are pretty similar to holdem ie. about 7 to 1. Naturally, with a double paired hand, you have two chances, so to speak, and your odds are about 3.5 to 1. Anyway, with a pair in your hand, you won’t hit a set very often, and you have one card less to hit two pair: with JJ78, there are only three two pair combos on unpaired boards — two jacks up, one eights up — and there are only two jacks left in the deck to do so.

The straight and flush potential don’t involve such trade-off however; they are not exclusive, and it is just better to have them when you can.

So, a hand like 789T has a lot of potential, with two possible flushes/flush draws, the straight/wrap and the two pair or pair+kickers. This hand flops very well.

Conversely, QQ93 has very little potential, since its only hope is to hit a set or win unimproved. This hand’s main strength is to hit top set against middle or bottom set, or to catch the unwary overplaying a bare two pair. Most other match-ups tend to be close equity-wise, as good draws are so powerful at omaha.

Hands like 2345 are weaker than they look: the gapless rundown is good for straight potential, but the low cards deprive it of many combinations, and several wraps are only 9-outers (eg. on the A3T flop). Furthermore, most of the two pairs it can hit are very weak, and the flush or flush draw is obviously dominated by any other one.

Weak features like small flush draws are not of great use alone, but when they are combined, they can form decent combo-draws, that can well be beat in one or two areas (eg. when its straight draw is dominated), but even then they generally keep enough live outs in another area to ensure correct equity. In other words, when these hands hit the flop, they are tough to beat everywhere, being so “multidimensional”.

However, if the pot is multiway, it’s all possible that someone covers you on one side, while the others dominate you elsewhere; if a better made hand is out there, and someone is on a better flush draw, and someone else got the same wrap as you, you’re in bad shape obviously. This means such holdings play better heads-up, when there is much less risk to have your outs covered everywhere.

On the contrary, hands like non-premium queens prefer multiway pots, so that someone can hit the underset or something else that won’t have enough odds. Kings and aces can setmine multiway if the situation is right, but it’s generally better to isolate so as to either take down the pot when they miss the flop, or win unimproved when their draw didn’t get there. Being suited adds a lot of playability to these big pairs: an overpair+FD has a strong equity against most hands.

Naturally, when your hand plays better heads-up, you should consider raising if this is an option, and it’s often better to call if your hand plays better multiway — unless you can put in a pot sweetener.

As usual in poker, know what you want to do from the start, and don’t improvise each time you have to act.