Omaha Eight-Or-Better: Playing Against A Raise From Outside The Blinds

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!

In Limit Omaha Eight-or-Better (O8), as in all poker games, the decision on how to best proceed when someone raises the pot in front of you is a function of the opener’s tendencies and position, your holding, and how many players are left to act.

The Gap Concept was first introduced by David Sklansky in Tournament Poker for Advanced Players, and essentially states that you require a stronger hand to contest a previously opened pot than what was needed to open yourself. This is partially due to the fact that you can no longer win the pot uncontested and also since your opponent is representing some strength, you in turn require a stronger hand.

The difference in hand strength from what you would have raised had the pot been folded to you, versus what you are playing against a raise is known as the “gap.” Most, if not all games, have a theoretical “gap” yet due to the nature of different variants the size will differ.

The theoretical ‘gap’ in one winner games such as Limit Hold’em and Seven Card Stud High is quite large since being dominated is a big deal in those games. The premium hands such as big pairs often don’t need to improve in order to win and when they do help along the way, the lesser holding is often in really bad shape.

It’s much smaller in O8 since equities run really close as the strength of various hands against each other can change dramatically once the flop comes down. However, there are still many O8 hands that we should fold that we would have otherwise played in the absence of a raise, especially holdings that don’t fare particularly well against the combinations of A-A, A-2, and A-3 that are often found in a raising hand.

Suppose we are second to act in a six-handed game and a solid player opens from first position. This player is going to have a high concentration of holdings containing A-A and A-2 and against that range we don’t want to get involved with mediocre low hands such as A 3 7 9 or A 4 5 J.

Had the action folded to us we probably would have played those hands, however, against a raise they will often be dominated and there are still players left to act.

In this specific early position situation, we should even consider folding weak A-2 hands such as A 2 7 9 that lack other prime low cards and are also weak on the high side. We can, however, still play good high oriented holdings such as A K J 10 and while we don’t want to be up against A-A, our opponent’s low hands don’t pose a threat.

Assuming we hold a hand that we believe is appropriate to play against a raise, we then need to decide if it’s in our best interest to three-bet or just simply flat. Generally speaking, you can probably never go too wrong reraising any hand you chose to play; however, simply flatting can be best with many holdings. For example, hands such as A 2 4 5 and A 3 4 10 require specific help in the way of low boards and/or picking up nut flush possibilities and so it makes sense to just call the raise in an attempt to pull in more potential customers.

Even if your opponent is playing too many hands, it can still make sense to flat those holdings that can make the nuts when help arrives. Since you don’t have much in the way of raw high strength, isolating him may actually be more to his benefit than to yours. The weak holding that he may have is more exposed multi-way, meanwhile a hand such A 2 4 5 has more ability to beat a large field.

Hands with more built-in high potential such as A A 3 5 and A K 2 4 should be three-bet regardless of your reads on the player who opened. The high aspects of these hands are less robust and fare better in short-handed pots. Of course, if you end up getting some obstinate calls from the players left to act, that’s okay too.

Holdings such as A K 2 4 can go either way as the A-K combination prefers to be heads-up, but nut flush and prime low draws want many players. This is a common Omaha conundrum where the ultra-premium hands crave multi-way pots, but we also want to get more money in the middle.

In Pot-Limit O8, it may make more sense to cold-call as future bets can get very large and a re-raise may shut out someone who was destined to lose his stack to you with a dominated hand. However, in Limit O8 we can’t felt someone and players will often cold-call multiple bets with less than premium hands so three-betting is probably best.

Now let’s move on to a relatively common late position spot where the cut-off, who we will assume is opening 30% of hands, raises, and we are on the button with a one way low holding such as A 2 4 7. If we took a poll of experienced O8 players, the majority of them would probably say that flatting is basically the only play since folding an A-2 on the button to a single raise is out of the question, and since our holding lacks high potential we would prefer to try and pull in the blinds.

This seems reasonable enough. However, if we do flat and the big blind comes along we are mostly hoping to win half of a small pot. It’s going to be hard to make a strong high hand or get two opponents to fold which we need to do in order to scoop.

My preference would be to three-bet the holding where Plan A would be to win a decent sized pot without a showdown. Should that fail, we can then resort to Plan B which entails hitting a big hand to scoop or just using our low cards to escape with half.

For example, suppose we re-raise and the flop comes down as K K 9. Even though we have no hand and no draw it’s probably worth making a “zero equity” bluff in case our opponent completely whiffed as well. Our opponent may be suspicious, however, there’s not too much he can do if he missed with a low oriented hand of his own as our three-betting range contains many combinations of A-A and A-K.

A 2 4 7 has 44% equity against a 30% opening range so we aren’t taking too much the worst of it especially considering the dead money from the blinds and we have position. All things considered, it might be a close decision where the skill level of the players involved may aid your decision process.

For example, if the cutoff player is a straight-forward opponent and the big blind is a very good player then a re-raise is probably best. As in many poker situations the best course of action depends on your opponents and their tendencies, your image, and current table conditions. ♠

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].