Sam Stein Talks Pot-Limit Omaha

Sam Stein has been an absolute force on the tournament circuit for the better part of the last two years, but a big live-tournament win had always eluded him. After so many close calls in no-limit hold’em tournaments, he finally broke through with a victory in a $3,000 pot-limit Omaha event at this summer’s WSOP. At the final table, Stein outlasted fellow pros Brock Parker, Adam Junglen, Christian Harder, and eventual runner-up Ben Lamb, earning a $420,802 payday.

Here, Stein gives us some insight into his progression as a pot-limit Omaha player.

“I’ve been playing pot-limit Omaha for about two years. I started out with online cash games, learning from guys like Ben Lamb and Chance Kornuth. I consider them to be two of the great minds in the game, and I honestly picked up a lot just by watching over their shoulders and seeing them break down hands street by street.

“I probably could’ve started off lower, but I jumped right into the $25-$50 games online, playing shallower stacks. I wanted to make sure that I had a good grasp on the common situations and the numbers associated with the game before I expanded to more deep-stacked poker.

“Pot-limit Omaha tournaments should be approached differently than cash games. I honestly think that a good no-limit hold’em tournament player would fare well in PLO tournaments, simply because they have a good understanding of basic tournament principles. My basic strategy was to see as many flops as possible and take as many pots as my competition would allow. Most PLO players like to err on the side of caution, and it’s your job to quickly figure out who is there to splash around, who is just playing the nuts, and who will call you down light. After that, it’s all about picking your spots correctly and maximizing value when you have the best hand. Be sure to go after all of those pots that nobody shows any interest in. Believe me, they add up.

“If you are a good hand-reader, you actually can get by without too much technical knowledge of the game. PLO doesn’t have to be a game of showdowns. If you can stay aggressive and make the passive players uncomfortable, it can be easy to chip up.

“In the event I won, I really didn’t turn up the aggression until the later streets of each hand. It doesn’t make sense to overprotect your aces or inflate the pot preflop. The hand doesn’t really start until the flop hits, and even then, you want to be careful. Ben Lamb played one hand in which he flopped the nut straight and a straight-flush draw, but was somehow an underdog to an opponent’s wrap and higher flush draw. That’s Omaha. In a cash game, it’s a no brainer to pump the pot when you flop big, but when you factor in your tournament life, sometimes it’s better to wait for a safe turn card before committing a big percentage of your stack.” ♠