Sean Poker

It doesn’t take long for beginners to figure out that the nuts are out much more often in PLO than in NLHE. With four cards in hand, it’s very common for someone to hit a flush when the board is three-suited, even if it was a backdoor draw. Likewise, a paired board automatically brings threats of full houses, and three or four connected cards can very well give someone a straight.

This means that it is more dangerous to raise someone on these boards if you don’t have the nuts yourself — or at least a strong draw to a better hand — since the risk of drawing dead or very thin is quite real.

Consequently, it is rarer to get raised “light” on these types of board (called “locked down boards” by Phil Galfond, who discussed them in a Bluefirepoker video — site to be reviewed soon). In NLHE, it is more difficult to represent the nuts, and a suspicious villain will often call you with a good hand, figuring that only a very small part of your range gives you a monster, and the rest generally hits top pair or two pair at best, which could still be outdrawn if you happen to have it. In other words, suspicious calls, or simply pot-control with an average hand, are harder to achieve on some boards in PLO.

As a result, bet/folding becomes a serious option on many boards — all the more so when checking would only present the very same choice to your opponent, and you would have a hard time calling his bet.

For instance, if you have AJJ9 on a J83 flop in a 3bet pot; you bet, villain calls and the turn is the Q. It completes a straight, but villain could be on two pair or on the flush draw; since you would not check the straight if you had it. Your opponent can then figure out he has a free hand to steal this pot if you do check. On the other hand, if you bet and he doesn’t have the straight, he can’t really raise, barring some special metagame.

Naturally, you need to pay attention to what you represent, and what the range of your opponent is; don’t pay him off when a likely of his got there, but if he has a pretty wide range, taking a non-committing stab will often be a good move.

The idea also applies to donk bets, which put your opponent in a difficult spot if a large part of his range missed the board. But let’s leave that for another post.

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.

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For a start, look at what kind of flops you would like with your hand (the fewer, the worse), then if your hand runs a significant risk of being dominated (eg. QQxx vs a raise, or even these 7745 that can be tempting), then — last but extremely important — if position is good. You should play fairly tight from OOP, and pretty loose from button and cutoff. Reason? You’ll often miss the flop, and you can’t go to war profitably against a good player who gets to see what you do before he acts.

Let’s look at different starting hands:

• AK66 no suit: sucks, what do you want to hit? Small sets aren’t gold in PLO, far from it. You’ll miss and fold quite a lot.

• AQT9: much better, and if the ace is suited you actually have a good hand (you can hit top two, straight and flush draws, trips with overcards etc.). Raise it with position, if limped or folded to.

• KKT9 one suit: good strength, decent draw potential. Open raise it IP.

• 789T: nice hand, flops quite well, can hit sexy combo draws if suited.

• 4556: looks good, but small pairs are a liability, since you actually play three cards (456) with an extra small set potential — but it’s not really worth it.

• JJ56 suited: weak hand, jacks are easily dominated and you have weak FD with almost no straight potential.

• 568T: beware gaps in top of your hands, as if the flop fills them, there will always be the risk of better draws out there eg. on 479 (dream flop for you), you’re in bad shape againt 8TJx.

• A567 suited: can hit straight draw+nut flush draw (nice result), but this doesn’t happen that often. Don’t pay too much to see the flop (but you can raise IP, as usual).

• AKQJ: looks like a monster, and it is good, but don’t fall in love. AAxx dominates it, since the former plays three cards, and any FD can severely cripple an otherwise good wrap (eg. on 39T vs A3xx). If double suited, now we’re talking.

Hope it helps — but don’t forget that PLO is very much a postflop game — and position is king.