Common Mistakes in Pot Limit Omaha Part 1 – Aces and 2 Card Hands
In Omaha and indeed in poker as a whole success is gained not so much by how much we do right but by how few things we do wrong. If you can cut out or at least keep to a minimum the amount of mistakes you make you will be well on the way to being and staying a profitable poker player
Only raising with Aces
In Omaha the reasons for raising preflop are not just because you have a good hand and are raising it up, of course that is important too, though not as much as it is in hold em, in Omaha it’s also important to raise the pot simply for the purposes of building a pot, particularly when you are in position, raising the pot to gain premium position and of course it’s also important to be raising to steal the blinds at times. Since hands in Omaha are closer in rank than hands in Hold em, very tight poor players are unwilling to raise preflop unless they hold A-A-x-x, they are completely missing the many points of why it’s important to raise pre-flop in Omaha, not only are they playing far too tight, but when they do raise it up with their A-A-x-x hand they have all but told their opponents what hand they have, making them easy to play against post flop.
If you have position on such a player you can play quite a wide range of hands and either try to outdraw them on the flop, or if they are tight enough to drop A-A-x-x you can often take them off the hand with or without a genuine hand. And of course if an Ace does flop, unless you have hit a straight or flush yourself or perhaps a premium drawing hand then you can safely fold without having invested much in the pot.
Playing 2 card Hands
You will see many players playing too many 2-card hands in Omaha, especially those that are new to the game and coming from a Hold em background. In Omaha you have 4 cards, and ideally all 4 cards should be working together – hand such as Qh-Jd-Th-9d is an excellent starting hand in Omaha for example, giving you 6 possible 2 card combinations to work with. Sometimes having just 3 cards working together can be good enough to enter a hand with, especially in late position and/or if people are playing many thrash hands or if the opposition is poor generally. However routinely playing hands such as J-J-x-x, where you have only one ‘playable’ hand out of a possible 6 is a bad mistake, the inherent disadvantage of such a holding should be obvious when you factor in that many of your opponents will have hands in which 3 or all 4 of their cards are working together, Realize that there is only one way to hit the flop and that’s by spiking a Jack, even in that ‘lucky’ circumstance there is still the chance that your hand will get outdrawn or come up against a better set.
