Pot-Limit Omaha

In a recent column, I looked at the two different types of board texture — dry and draw-heavy. So, how can you use this information to play better? On draw-heavy boards, expect to get action from a wide range of hands; on dry boards, consider slow-playing the nuts, as there isn’t much that can call. Vary your bet size based on the strongest hand available, rather than on your actual hand. Whether or not to bet and how much are two factors closely linked to board texture.

Evaluating hand ranges

Let’s say that you’re up against an aggressive, bluff-happy opponent who likes to chase. He raises preflop, and you call in position with the K J 10 8. He leads at a K 10 7 flop. Draws have good equity on this board, and there are many of them, while sets are still in his range, but your hand is too good to fold, so you call. He bets big again on a 6 turn. He probably would slow down with a set, as you can plausibly have the straight. Sometimes he has the straight, but is still drawing a lot, so you call again. He goes all in on the 4 river. All of the draws have missed, and you don’t expect this villain to value-bet thin with a set, so you call, and win against his A J 9 7.

The next hand, a tight player raises, you reraise in position with the Q Q J 10, and he calls. The flop comes A K Q, he checks, and you bet half of the pot. He calls, the turn is the 8, and he checks to you again. You bet two-thirds of the pot this time, and he calls. The river is the A, he leads out for a pot-sized bet, and you decide to fold. It’s difficult to put him on an exact hand with which he’s check-called two streets that beats you, but this is Omaha, he has four cards, and people are capable of trickery; he could easily have A-K-J-10, or the A K that picked up a flush draw on the turn.

To put your opponent on a range of hands, evaluate his actions in the context of the board run-out. In both of these hands, the board texture defines the range you’re getting action from. In the first, there is a very wide range of hands betting the river, most of them weak, so you have an easy call. In the second, you have an easy fold, as the villain is tight and doesn’t expect you to fold, given the action. What draw can he call both the flop and the turn and bluff the river with? With no plausible draws, his range looks like a better full house than yours, and nothing else.

Bet-Sizing

You raise preflop, and the big blind calls. When checked to on a J 10 7 flop, if you decide to bet, bet big against observant opponents. Lots of hands hit this board very hard — straights, sets, and combination draws. With a straight, you bet big to charge his draws; with a set, you’re also betting to build the pot. With any draw, you’re encouraging a fold, but also building the pot to get paid off when you hit. So, if you bet the flop when you’ve completely missed, you need to bet the same size, or your opponent will be able to put you on a bluff.

On a K 8 3 flop, however, you can bet much smaller; even one-third of the pot is acceptable. With no draws and few made hands available, you should get many more folds. A bet of one-third of the pot needs to get a fold only one-quarter of the time to show a profit, regardless of your equity, but what can an opponent call with? If you play turns and rivers well, he’ll be hard-pressed to call you down with one pair, potentially paying you off when you have the goods and folding when you don’t. If you have a set, you want to encourage your opponent to call, but if you are bluffing, you have the option of giving up as soon as your flop bet is called.

The same logic applies to the turn, but draws usually have less equity than they do on the flop, so you can bet smaller. However, there are now more made hands out there. It’s up to you to decide how much to bet on each turn; sometimes you would bet more if it brings another draw. If it completes one of the draws, though, you might bet much smaller, to represent the made hand when you still need to hit, and to encourage a call when you make the nuts.

On the river, you can consider varying your bet sizes more than on any other street, as the draws either hit or missed. Betting small works well as a bluff, as you’re representing a big hand, trying to milk your opponent, while giving yourself a great risk-reward ratio; it also works nicely with a weak made hand, keeping your opponent in with the weakest portion of his range when a big bet might blow him off his hand.

If you decide to bet, make it a large bet when your opponent’s range is stronger; when bluffing, you won’t get a fold with a small bet, but with the nuts, you want him to pay you off for as much as you can get. As a consequence, weight your betting-the-river-big range to mostly nut hands; a pot-sized bluff needs to work half the time to show a profit, and against a strong range, you’ll need to bet big to get a fold that often.

To beat most games, stick to a simple, tight-aggressive, positional strategy. However, a lot of medium-stakes games, especially online, are filled with excellent players. To beat these games, simplicity won’t cut it; you’ll need to refine your strategy. Read betting patterns in light of board texture and add in a solid, functional bet-sizing strategy, and you can nullify their edge and beat even these tough games.

Michael Piper has been playing pot-limit Omaha for a living both online and live for more than three years. He posts online under the screen name “wazz,” and coaches at Cardrunners.com and Plomaha.com.