Omaha Eight-Or-Better Hand From The 2015 World Championship of Online Poker

This is a hand I played from PokerStars’s 2015 World Championship of Online Poker $1,000 Omaha Eight-or-Better event. We are already in the money as 32 of 208 starting players cashed. We’re down to the final two tables with 15 players left.

Limits are 5,000/10,000 and I start the hand with 34,425 in chips.

Preflop: I open-raise under the gun eight-handed with A 3 5 6. This is a straight-forward open. I have A-3 for my main low component and 5 and 6 sidecards work well as both backup lows and for flopping strong high hands when low cards come.

Even though middling cards (6, 7, 8) get a bad rap for being weak in Omaha eight-or-better, a six is always a decent card to have with hands that make wheels, because the six-high straight will dominate your opponent’s wheel and win three-quarters of the pot. This specific hand makes a lot of wheels (we have three wheel cards, meaning three combinations that make wheels, A-3, A-5, and 3-5), so the six is particularly helpful here as that situation will be more common.

Some players advocate open-limping these hands, arguing that they play better in multi-way pots, but I prefer raising my entire range here. In the later stages of tournaments, the remaining players tend to be better hand-readers, so dividing your hands into those that raise and those that call gives opponents vital information without much upside. These players also tend to play tighter, meaning that the hands you are trying to induce to enter the pot won’t even come along.

I have 3.5 big bets, just enough to play a full hand with this preflop raise and a bet on each street. My open-raising range here is very similar to the one I would have in a cash game in this position. People tighten up way too much in these kinds of situations because they don’t want to bust the tournament, but this is a profitable open without any large payjumps in sight.

There is some merit in tightening up a bit and I would consider folding some mediocre high hands such as K-Q-10-9 single-suited because they don’t get paid fully on their implied odds (when all in before the river) and because they lead to elimination more often. However, this low hand doesn’t have that problem because it often gets at least half the pot.

Lojack calls, Cutoff calls, Button calls, the blinds fold, four players to the flop.

Flop (47,500): Q 6 7

I check.

I’ve flopped the second nut-low draw, bottom pair, a bad gutshot, and a five-high backdoor-flush draw. I have several weak holdings and there are many hands (much fewer combinations of three hands) that have me crushed. How should I proceed?

I can bet and hope the next player raises to isolate me, but it’s unlikely for that to happen on a board as wet as this. I may have a better chance of isolating myself if it checks to the button, who bets anyways. Also, if the pot is bet and raised ahead of me, I have the option of folding. Thus, I like checking and definitely continuing if I’m only facing one bet when the action comes back to me.

Lojack checks, cutoff bets, button folds, I raise, lojack folds, and cutoff calls.

This is one of the better ways the action behind me can have played out. The button has forfeited his equity in the pot and I raise here to attempt to kick out the lojack. With only 24,425 left in my stack and almost twice that already dead in the center, my collection of weak and medium-strength holdings are worth getting all in, but would prefer to be heads up. Even if my intentions are somewhat transparent, the lojack still has to worry being jammed by a real hand from the cutoff.

Against a random A2xx hand, my hand has 45.9 percent equity. There are certainly worse hands that I could be up against, such as A-3-Qx or A-3-7-x, in which I have around only 37 percent equity, but there is enough dead money between the blinds and the players who called preflop to withstand even that. This raise with a weak hand is made better by the fact that I am shortstacked. By the time I have raised, I only have 14,425 left in my stack. This means that the times that lojack or cutoff wake up with a monster, I am all in by the turn and don’t have to suffer the pain of a river bet.

Turn (67,500): 10

I check, cutoff checks behind.

Most people just bet here because they want to be all in without thinking about the implications, but with 1.44 big bets here, my check guarantees that I can preserve .9 big blinds if I want to.

If I bet, I am required to call the raise that would put me all in, but a check-call means I can still fold the river or have my opponent check behind a better hand there, leaving my tournament life intact. It’s worth noting that I have no fold equity. If I had any, I would go ahead and bet, but there aren’t any hands the cutoff could have bet the flop four ways and not want to see a river heads-up. Betting doesn’t accomplish anything and risks everything.

Even though Omaha eight-or-better has no antes, having one big blind is still valuable because of how close hand equities are preflop and because players with a normal stack have to forfeit their equity in the pot, while an all-in player never has to.

River (67,500): K

I bet, cutoff folds.

This is a bluff. Even though we have a pair and sometimes have the best hand, this is too weak of a holding to bluff-catch with. By betting, I’m trying to get hands such as A-2-10-x or A-3-4-7 to fold. I don’t have a great read on my opponent, but there are certainly opponents that would fold even better hands, such as a queen, king, or even two pair here.

I have the ace of clubs, which removes a lot of hands from my opponent’s range that beat me. By betting the flop and checking behind on the turn, I would normally expect him to have the nut-flush quite a bit, so having the nut-blocker drastically changes how often a hand can call us here. It also reduces the chances that I get bluff-raised.

This hand showcases several nuances about Omaha eight-or-better and tournament play. It was also just a high leverage hand for me deep in the tournament – I more than doubled up by winning 47,500 in chips without showdown. I remember exclaiming “YES!” so loud after the hand that my roommate laughed from behind closed doors downstairs. ♠

Ben Yu discovered poker while at Stanford University where he developed his prowess for mixed games. He has lived for the WSOP ever since 2010 when he broke out with a 2nd place finish in the World Series of Poker $1500 limit holdem shootout. His poker-induced adventures have included living abroad in Rosarito, Mexico and Toronto, Canada to continue playing online and traveling the European Poker Tour circuit to in search of the most delicious schnitzels and pierogies.