Thoughts on Omaha Eight-or-Better - Part I<br>By Mark Tenner and Lou Krieger

Authors' note: This column is based on material that will appear in slightly different form in our upcoming book on Omaha eight-or-better, to be published this fall.

We'll never know for sure, but it certainly seems like Omaha was invented by hold'em players who figured that by giving each participant four starting cards instead of two, there'd be more action and bigger hands, and with four cards to start with, each player would be capable of playing many more hands. And if that's the case, those inventors were right on a couple of accounts.

Hands tend to be bigger in Omaha, and there's certainly more action because many participants can find something worth playing in almost every hand they're dealt. After all, even the weakest Texas hold'em players have learned that hands like 9-3, 7-2, and a raft of others just can't be played profitably, and they've learned to release them. But you'll still find Omaha players who are willing to enter the pot with hands like K-Q-8-8, 2-4-7-10, and a host of similar hands.

All poker games require patience, and those who play too many hands – you'll find some Omaha eight-or-better players, particularly in games with lower betting limits, who play virtually every hand – can never win money in the long run. Patience is nothing more than emphasizing the "be selective" part of our "Be selective, be aggressive" mantra.

Because you have four starting cards in your hand, which represent six unique two-card combinations, you should play hands in which your four cards are coordinated in some meaningful way. Many of your opponents won't do this, and they'll be playing hands that include danglers. Suppose you've been dealt Q-J-10-3. You've got a three-legged stool with a dangler. Three legs might suffice if you were milking a cow, but it's not good enough for milking the money from an Omaha pot. That trey in your hand is a dangler; it does not work in concert with any of the other cards in your hand, and it's as if you were playing only three of your cards against all four cards in your opponent's hand. Guess what? With four cards in his hand, your opponent has six potential starting combinations, presuming those cards all work in concert with one another. But you've relegated yourself to just three potential starting combinations. By sitting on a three-legged stool instead of a four-legged chair, you've cut your starting combinations in half.

Yes, sometimes you can play danglers and get away with it. But those occasions are in pots that have not been raised, you are on or next to the button, and your other three cards are very strong. But that's it. And while you're learning the game, if you simply refrain from playing danglers altogether, you won't be missing out on much.

Patience in Omaha eight-or-better means becoming a bit of an extremist. You want to play hands at the high or low end of the spectrum, and if you're playing correctly, you'll be throwing away hands in the middle. Imagine Omaha eight-or-better as though it were a game with the sevens, eights, and nines removed from the deck. If you can hold that image in your mind, you'll do OK in the long run.

Patience also requires that you avoid some hands that might look good to the uninitiated. Suppose you're dealt a hand like 9-9-8-8. Two pair always looks good, but this hand will kill you. If you make a set of eights, you've already got a low card on the board, which increases the likelihood that someone else will make a low hand and take away half of the pot. If you flop a 9 on the board with no low cards, you've got to deal with the possibilities of someone else having flopped a bigger set, a straight, or a draw to a straight.

Play patiently, and avoid those dreaded sevens, eights, and nines most of the time. While you'll win some of the time with those cards – actually, you'll win some of the time with any combination of cards – in the long run you'll bleed to death at the table. Be selective, be patient, and throw those midrange cards away.

If you've been playing Texas hold'em for any length of time, you're probably aware that there are some hold'em hands that start out strong and generally remain strong no matter which cards jump up on the flop. A pair of aces is certainly a hand in that category. If you've been dealt that sacred pair, you're going to have a strong hand unless the flop contains three suited cards unmatched by your aces, or three sequenced cards such as Q-J-10 that are right in the playing zone. And even in these situations, you might not have any reason to be worried if there's no appreciable action. After all, your opponents won't always have every straight or flush that is possible just because of the board's alignment of cards.

But in Omaha, as you'll learn, regardless of how strong your starting cards may look, the flop is critical. Let's look at a hand like A A 2 3. This hand doesn't come around too often. You've got a big pair and a three-card draw to the best possible low, and both of your aces are suited, so you can make the nut flush if the board manages to come up with three spades or three clubs.

But wait, you've just seen the flop, and it's J J 10, and you don't have a red card in your hand. Now, there's a bet and a couple of calls, and maybe even a raise. What should you do? That's easy. Fold. Sure, you've got two pair, aces and jacks. So what? This isn't Texas hold'em, where two pair is usually a good hand and frequently a winner. This is Omaha, and with nine cards from which to make a five-card poker hand, you've got a lot more possibilities than you do in a game like Texas hold'em, where you are choosing the best five-card hand out of seven.

Your possibilities for a low hand are dead. If there's a flush draw afoot, it's not your suit, so your chances of making a flush are dead, too. Any 7, 8, 9, queen, or king could result in a straight (so would an ace, but you'd love that, since it would mean you made a full house). Someone probably has at least trips, and a full house is already a good possibility. You could make a full house if another ace falls, but drawing to two outs is a sure path to the poorhouse.

To paraphrase a country song, "Your good hand's gonna go bad." And bad it's gone. So, we'll paraphrase another honky-tonk classic while we're at it: "Take these cards and shove 'em." At this point, no matter how pretty those cards may have looked before the flop, your course of action is painfully clear, and the only sane thing to do is fold.

But there's a positive spin to all of this. In Omaha, you can see quite clearly that this flop has brought your hand to death's door. But in a Texas hold'em game, you might never be sure. Does your opponent have trip jacks, two pair, a big straight, or flush draw, or is he bluffing with absolutely nothing at all? It's hard to tell. But in Omaha, you can take it to the bank that your hand is doomed. Throw it away now, with no regrets, no remorse, no second-guessing. It's just a good hand gone bad, that's all.

If you want to think of poker as being something like a sporting event, imagine a baseball game with about 3,000 innings instead of nine. If that were the case, you wouldn't be too concerned if your team was outscored 9-0 over the course of any nine-inning stretch, as long as they performed well enough to win in the long run.

That's what Omaha eight-or-better and every other form of poker is about. It is a very long game. And if you make the very best decisions you can at the table today but go home losing money, there's no need to worry about it, or berate yourself, or try to think of what you might do differently. Anytime there's a turn of a card involved, you have a game with an element of luck involved, and in the case of poker, it takes a pretty long time for that luck to filter out. Only then can anyone look at the results and say with some degree of certainty that the results achieved are the result of skill, and skill alone.

All you can do in poker is carefully choose the game you decide to play in, and make the very best decisions you can. If you aspire to become a winning player, you must realize that all you have control over is the quality of decisions you make at the poker table. Many of your opponents will blame and even berate the dealer for a run of bad cards. Some bemoan their fates, complaining that they, of all people in the universe, have the worst luck of all. That's nonsense. You know it. And they probably know it, too, except for many people, it's easier to place the blame anywhere but squarely on their own shoulders, where it rightfully belongs.

Many of these players are too focused on short-term results. They want to make every session a winning one. It's one thing to want to win every time out. No one likes losing at poker. It's a blow to the bankroll and to our egos and pride. But better players realize that no one wins all the time, and these players have also learned that poker is really a 3,000-inning baseball game, and what happens today is not nearly as important as the score at the end of the year.

My newest book, Internet Poker: How to Play and Beat Online Poker Games, is available through Card Player and at www.ConJelCo.com, and all of my books can be found at major bookstores and online at www.Amazon.com.