Making The Adjustment To Limit Big O

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Limit Big O Eight-Or-Better is simply Omaha Eight-Or-Better (O8b) played with five cards.

It is often played alongside Super Stud Eight-Or-Better or chosen in lieu of regular O8 within a mixed game rotation. It is a highly profitable variant to play against loose players as your opponents will often fail to properly adjust to the ramifications of getting the additional fifth card.

While going from four cards to five is only a 25% increase in the number of cards each player is dealt, the number of combinations increases almost tenfold, from 270,725 to 2,598,960 possible hands. As a result, we are 56% more likely to be dealt an A-2 and 62% more likely to get dealt aces.

After the flop comes down, strong hands are common and if it’s possible, it’s often probable, especially in multi-way pots. Most players don’t appear to take all of this into account and tend to overvalue their holdings, both before and after the flop.

Low Draws

As previously mentioned, we are 56% more likely to be dealt an A-2 in Big O than in the four-card game, and more often than not your holding will also be accompanied with at least one other wheel card as shown by the distribution below:

In Big O, approximately 60% of the time our A-2 holding will also contain an additional wheel card which increases both the high potential of our holding and provides counterfeit protection. In regular O8 (let’s just refer to this as O8 for now on), most of our A-2 holdings lack this additional benefit.

In O8, we are going to be playing the vast majority of our A-2 holdings, even those as mediocre as A 2 7 9. Our A-2 is a bigger favorite to be the only one out and it’s much easier to scoop with a mediocre high holding.

In contrast, a hand such as A 2 7 9 J is a marginal start in Big O; from early position in an eight-handed game we should limp or even consider folding. This holding should definitely hit the muck in the face of substantial action before it is our time to act.

Even when we flop the nut low or a draw to it, we are often going to be taking the worst of it as we often don’t have a great deal of high equity, another A-2 is often lurking, and we can get counterfeited later on in the hand. To make matters worse, another A-2 in the pot will frequently overplay his hand and end up costing you money in three-way pots.

If getting involved with mediocre A-2 hands is less than ideal, calling raises with a hand like A 3 7 9 J is obviously worse. However, if we have an A-3-4 combination our hand has enough value to come in for a single raise. When we flop a deuce and another low card, not only will we have counterfeit protection, but we will also often have a low straight draw as well.

For example, with A 3 4 9 J on a board of 2 6 K we have approximately 45% equity against A K K 2 5 while the holding of A 3 7 9 J only has 35%. This makes a world of difference as we will more often scoop our opponent when we are lucky enough to flop a deuce and another low card.

As we almost always require an ace to flop in order for our low draws to be good, a bunch of low cards (e.g. 2-3-6-7-8) are usually not very good hands in Big O. And when we are getting really good odds to enter the pot it usually means that most, if not all the aces are out in your opponent’s hands.

If we do decide to enter the pot, we should usually have at a minimum, a 2-3-4 or 2-3-5 combination and some other value component to our holding. Position always helps; we can take a flyer on some of these holdings from the button even if we suspect a few aces are out.

Overplaying Aces

Bad aces are another commonly overvalued hand in Big O, in some situations players are re-raising or capping the action when folding would have been the best play. For example, if the hijack opens and the cut-off three bets it is a mistake to cold four-bet with A A 8 9 10, yet this type of play is observed fairly often.

First of all, against two fairly strong hands, this hand has the least amount of “hot/cold” equity:

In addition, this hand will be very difficult to play well post-flop and has reverse implied odds. If our aces are a little stronger, perhaps we have an ace high suit and/or some decent low cards we can come in and just calling the three-bet may be best strategically. The nature of our holding will be more disguised, and we can sometimes promote our high, low, or scoop prospects by getting in a flop check-raise.

In Big O, a holding such as A A 8 9 10 is really only playable as late position open attacking the blinds, or as an isolation three-bet (preferably from the button) versus a probable wide range.

Post-Flop Play

In the five-card game it’s more dangerous to draw to non-nut hands, especially in multi-way pots. Drawing to a full house with trips on board is a dubious play because when someone holds three of a kind they generally hold three more “killer” outs to a full house.

Sometimes it’s also correct to fold the nut low draw or even the nut low itself when we have no counterfeit protection, no high prospects, and it appears likely at least one other player has the same low draw. We should not be in there cold calling raises when we have virtually no chance to scoop because even if we do manage to hit the low we could get quartered or worse yet, end up counterfeited on the river.

You will find that many of your opponents will play too loosely before the flop and hang on for dear life after it when they feel they have any chance to win some portion of the pot. Sometimes, they will take you down with them when they overvalue their holdings and you both get quartered, however, it is usually a small price to pay because the games are often quite good. Hang in there and keep your cool! ♠

Kevin Haney is a former actuary of MetLife but left the corporate job to focus on his passions for poker and fitness. He is co-owner of Elite Fitness Club in Oceanport, NJ and is a certified personal trainer. With regards to poker he got his start way back in 2003 and particularly enjoys taking new players interested in mixed games under his wing and quickly making them proficient in all variants. If interested in learning more, playing mixed games online, or just saying hello he can be reached at [email protected].