So, You Want To Try Big O

been a few columns since our last discussion of what I like about pot-limit Omaha (PLO) and some tips on how to transition from being a no-limit player to a PLO player. I’ve been playing PLO for most of my time as a professional poker player. It hasn’t always been my main game, but it’s been a game that I can be competent enough in to be able to compete in a game if it’s the best in the room. I’ve always prided myself on being able to play lots of different games so that I can play in a different game when the game I’m in isn’t very good.

I’ve only recently started playing Big O. The limit mixed game I had helped put together at my local casino fell apart after a couple of years and a pot-limit Big O game started up. I hadn’t played pot-limit Big O at all up to this point about three years ago, but the game was good and nobody else really had either, so I jumped in.

Before we go into some of my hard-won lessons, let’s talk about the differences between PLO and Big O. As I’ll be talking about them, both games are played pot-limit, meaning that the maximum you can bet or raise is the size of the pot or all of your chips if you have less than the size of the pot, and both games are Omaha so you play exactly two cards from your hand and three cards from the board. After that, the game gets a little different.

First of all, the Big in the name comes from having an extra card. In addition, the game is played hi-lo with an eight-or-better qualifier. This means that if there are three unpaired cards eight or lower, the pot is split between the best qualifying low hand and the best high hand. Aces count for high and low and straights and flushes don’t disqualify you from having the best low. So, the best possible low hand is A-2-3-4-5.

Since there are so many cards in your hand and you can’t use all of them or all of the board cards, one of the most important things I think a person who hasn’t played Big O can do to get accustomed to reading the board and what is in their hand is to deal out some full boards and some five card hands. Start by reading the board and figuring out what the best possible low and best possible high hands are. Then, look at the hands dealt out and figure out what the hand is.

In hold-em, it’s very easy to tell what you have. In PLO, it’s a little more difficult, but still pretty easy in my opinion. I’ve been playing Big O as my main game for the last three years and every once in a while, I still look at someone’s hand and have a tough time figuring out what it is.

This also gives you a feel for the strength of hands that could be winning in Big O. Don’t forget that just because there is a low possible, two low cards in the hand don’t always make a qualifying low. If you have A-2-K-Q-J, and the board is 8-3-2-10-J, you don’t have a low because your deuce is paired and you don’t have a third low card to qualify.

Now that you have a feel for reading the board and your hand, let’s talk about the all-important thing in Omaha games, hand structure. In the column about PLO, we mentioned that it’s important in PLO to play hands that have correlation over all four cards. Well, in Big O, that’s not exactly what you’re looking for.

In Big O, you want to have scoop and three-quartering potential in the hands you play. There is always a high hand, and about 60 percent of the time there will be a low possible, so scoop and three-quarter hands are either all high hands or hands with both high and low potential. A hand like A-4-9-7-J with one suit to the jack is a mediocre hand for high and a mediocre hand for low. We want to play either very strong high hands like A-K-Q-J-10 with suits, very strong low hands like A-2-3-6-7 with a suited ace, or hands with potential both ways like A-A-K-2-3 suited or A-K-Q-J-2 with a suit to the ace. These can all make very strong high hands, very strong low hands with re-draws (In Omaha games, it’s important to play hands that have backup as someone else quite often has the nuts as well and your potential to improve to a better hand than the current nuts is valuable), or very strong hands both ways.

Since you have five cards in your hand, you will always have a hand with at least two cards of one suit and sometimes you will have two cards of two different suits. As a result, Big O is a game of flushes. The most profitable hands tend to be those with suited aces in them.

Finally, and this is very important, just like in PLO, it’s likely that you’ll take a look at a hand with five cards in it and think that it has infinite potential. How can you possibly miss when you have five cards in your hand? The problem isn’t missing with five cards in your hand, the problem is hitting a medium strength hand, being up against someone with a better one, and not being able to get away from it.

This is only an introductory foray into how to play Big O, but hopefully it gives you the confidence to try the game out in a casino after you’ve spent some time learning how to read hands at home. It’s a game I’ve enjoyed improving at and there are always new things to learn. After all, it’s the only poker game I know of with Big in the title! ♠

Gavin Griffin was the first poker player to capture a World Series of Poker, European Poker Tour and World Poker Tour title and has amassed nearly $5 million in lifetime tournament winnings. Griffin is sponsored by HeroPoker.com. You can follow him on Twitter @NHGG