Split Pot Games: The Basic Principles

Card Player Magazine, available in print and online, covers poker strategy, poker news, online and casino poker, and poker legislation. Sign up today for a digital subscription to access more than 800 magazine issues and get 26 new issues per year!

Please let me encourage you to reach out to me with article ideas and questions for future columns. You can tweet to me at @FossilMan, or send me a message at info@fossilmanpoker.com.

Of course, there are many forms of poker beyond no-limit holdem, and I don’t just mean pot-limit Omaha. There are other flop games, and many stud games and draw games as well. Most forms of poker are one-winner games, but many forms are also split-pot games, most often hi-lo split.

Some poker games are even hybrids of two of these other games. For example, Dramaha is a favorite of mine, where half the pot goes to the best Omaha hand, and half to the best draw hand, playing both games simultaneously. If you are playing any of these poker games where the pot is split, whether between the best high and best low, or between winners of different forms of poker being played at the same time, there are some very important basic principles you want to keep in mind.

As in any form of poker, the overriding consideration is to make whichever decision will, on average, put the most money in your pocket. In split-pot games, one important principle is to mostly play starting hands that have good potential to win both halves of the pot. If you play a hand that has little or no chance of winning one half of the pot, it should be a massive favorite to win the half for which you are contending.

Regularly playing hands that have just okay potential for one-half of the pot, and very little potential for the other half, will cost you a lot of money. About the only time it is going to be correct to play a one-way hand is if you are in a pot with many opponents, and as such winning half will still yield a solid profit. Or, if you’re in a tighter game, and there is a lot of fold equity to be had, you might try to bluff or semi-bluff with a one-way hand.

When playing a one-winner game like holdem, to be a great player, you need to know how to do more than just wait for strong hands, and then get paid off. This means that sometimes you should be aggressive not just with strong made hands, but other hands as well.

One of the best types to add is a good draw. If you play A Q in hold’em, and the flop is all small or medium cards with two hearts, this is a great spot to play a hand strongly that is currently not that strong (only ace high). If you play it aggressively, maybe everyone folds, and you win without making your draw. And if they don’t fold, you have up to nine hearts to make a flush, and up to six other cards (the aces and queens) to make top pair, which might be good. As such, it is a well-known strategy to play both your made hands fast, and your best draws just as fast, so your opponents won’t learn you have a strong made hand every time you bet or raise.

This strategy can lead to some huge mistakes when a holdem player first plays a game like Omaha eight-or-better. They know they should sometimes play a draw aggressively, as a general principle, not just their nut hands. But then, in a multi-way pot, after somebody bets, they raise with a strong one-way draw.

This will often cause some (most) of the opponents to fold. But, the last thing you want is to drive out all the other players except for the opponent who has a good hand the other way. Now, you will often get heads-up with somebody who is freerolling you. If you miss your draw, they scoop the pot. If you do make your hand, they still win half. By driving out the other players you insured there was nobody else’s money in the pot for you and the other hand to split.

One of the major principles whenever playing split-pot poker, is to determine when the hand you are playing wants multiway action (that is, play it to keep other people in), and when it prefers to push other players out of the pot. This is not always an easy determination to make. However, if you get this right most of the time, you will be a very tough opponent whenever you sit down in a split-pot game. ♠

Greg Raymer is the 2004 World Series of Poker main event champion, winner of numerous major titles, and has more than $7 million in earnings. He recently authored FossilMan’s Winning Tournament Strategies, available from D&B Publishing, Amazon, and other retailers. He is sponsored by Blue Shark Optics, YouStake, and ShareMyPair. To contact Greg please tweet @FossilMan or visit his website.