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January 15, 2006
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Poker Lessons)
Poker Lesson: Finding the Low Cards
in Omaha Hi/Lo
Author: Mike Matusow
A while back, I played a hand in an Omaha
Hi/Lo Limit tournament that had everyone at my table jumping
off their chairs. They thought I was crazy and couldn't believe
my play. But I made the right move. In fact, the play illustrates
an important Omaha
Hi/Lo concept that's not widely understood.
Here's how the hand went down.
It was a nine-handed table. The under-the-gun player
raised and another early position player three-bet. Two other
players called the bet cold. It came around to me in the big blind,
where I held 9-K-Q-2. This is usually considered a pretty trashy
Omaha-8
hand. But I didn't fold here; I four-bet. I then flopped the nuts
and took down a huge pot. When they saw my hand, the players went
crazy. How could I four-bet with that kind of trash?
I could do it because I made some good assumptions
based on the way my opponents played their hands. This was a tournament,
where most players tend to be pretty cautious. Few will play any
hands that don't contain Aces, and just about everyone is sticking
to hands with a lot of low cards.
So when the under-the-gun player raised, I felt
pretty confident in assuming that he had an Ace with some other
low cards. The same goes for the player who three bet. The two
callers must also have had hands that they thought were pretty
strong. I could be all but certain that all four aces were dealt
to these players, and that they held a lot of the deck's low cards.
I was also confident that, in this hand, the flop
was going to come at the high end of the deck and that I'd have
a chance to sweep a huge pot because there would be no qualifying
low. And that's exactly what happened.
This hand shows that in Omaha
Hi/Lo, you can often make some good assumptions as to what
cards remain in the deck and what the flop is likely to hold.
For another example, say that you're in the big blind and it's
folded to the cutoff, who raises. You see 9-T-J-Q. With all but
one player folding, you can be pretty sure that almost everyone
else held a number of medium and high cards. So the deck is ripe
with low cards, which will probably help your lone opponent's
hand. Your best move is to fold this hand pre-flop and wait for
a better spot.
Of course, the better your position, the more information
you'll have. So you shouldn't even consider playing certain hands
in early position. Something like 2-3-4-5 might be playable from
the button or the big blind if there hasn't been a lot of action.
The lack of raising would show that the Aces haven't been distributed
and are still in the deck. But in early position, you just don't
know what's out, so you need to muck the hand. The same goes for
hands like T-T-J-Q and T-J-Q-K. There are times when prior action
will show you that these hands are worthy of a three-bet or four-bet.
But in early position, it's best to just let these kinds of hands
go.
Being able to predict a flop is part of what makes
Omaha
Hi/Lo so much fun. You really can't do these sorts of things
in Hold
'em. If you hone these skills, you're sure to be a tough Omaha
Hi/Lo player.
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