Common Mistakes in Pot Limit Omaha Part 2 – Mistakes made with drawing hands
Drawing to non nut flushes or straights
Omaha is often described as a drawing game, and this is not without just cause. If a hand is played to the river then very often there is at least one made straight or flush out there. This being the case, it is a massive advantage to be drawing to the nut draw, particularly the nut flush draw. If you do have a non nut draw you need to be highly cautious on how you proceed, if at all, on the flop and turn, it can be a very costly mistake indeed to be drawing to the river in Omaha, hitting your hand and losing your entire stack with a King or Queen high flush to the nut flush.
Having the Ace high flush draw is such an advantage that in suitable circumstances, if there is 3 cards of a particular suit, even if you have just the lone Ace of that suit, you know that every player knows they don’t have the nuts that you can on occasion (if the other players are aware enough) steal the pot.
Drawing to a flush or straight when the board is paired
This is a common mistake of a poor Omaha player, who only thinks of their own ‘pretty looking’ hand. A nut flush draw is usually a pretty looking poker hand to see on the flop, however it loses most of it’s value, particularly in a multi-way pot if the board is paired, chances are someone has at least a set, in fact you may already be drawing dead if someone has been lucky enough to have flopped the very real possibility of a full house. If there’s any heavy action on such a flop fold without a second’s hesitation, in fact often you may need to fold if there’s any action at all, as you don’t want to be sucked in to losing more on later streets.
Discounting kill cards
Kill cards in Omaha mean the number of cards available to an already made hand to make it better so that any opponent(s) is drawing dead or for a re-draw against an opponent who makes their hand. The most common example is where one player has trips and the other is on a flush or straight draw. The player on the draw not only has to hit his draw but has to hope the other player doesn’t hit one of his ‘kill cards’ to make him a full house or four of a kind. Someone with trips on the flop can have up to 7(6 to full house, 1 to four of a kind, note they have less than 7 outs if one or more of their other hole cards match the other cards on the board) outs to hit the turn, and up to 10 on the river. So players with drawing hands need to factor in that hitting their draw, even the nut draw in itself is no guarantee that they will win the hand by the river.
