Posted by Evans Clinchy, February 10, 2015
- Omaha Hi Lo 8b Strategy Omaha Hi Lo (also known as Omaha 8 or Omaha Eight or Better) is a “split pot” version of the popular Omaha poker game. In this version of the game, there are two winning hands in each round: the high winner and the low winner.
- Omaha Hi Lo Tips. Pot limit Omaha hi lo, also called Omaha eight or better or PLO8, has been growing in popularity over the last several years. If you are able to master the complex game of Omaha hi-lo you can make a great deal of money. The influx of relatively inexperienced eager to try something other than holdem has created a burgeoning O8.
If you’ve spent some time dabbling in various poker games, you’ve no doubt learned the basics of Omaha – you get four hole cards, share five community cards, and form the best five-card hand possible using two from your hand and three from the board. But Omaha Hi Lo is a much trickier game. You’re playing for a split pot, with half the money going to the best hand and the other half to the lowest five cards (with 8 being the highest possible value of those 5 cards).
It’s a complex game to be sure, but if you spend some time brushing up on Omaha Hi Lo advanced strategy, you might find that playing the game at the top level is a lot of fun – and mighty profitable, too! Professional poker player Sammy Farha has won two Omaha Hi Lo bracelets at the World Series of Poker, earning almost $900,000.
It’s a complex game to be sure, but if you spend some time brushing up on Omaha Hi Lo advanced strategy, you might find that playing the game at the top level is a lot of fun – and mighty profitable, too! Professional poker player Sammy Farha has won two Omaha Hi Lo bracelets at the World Series of Poker, earning almost $900,000. You could follow in his footsteps.
Here are a few tips on playing Omaha Hi Lo like the pros.
Play for the Nuts
The golden rule of high-level Omaha Hi Lo is this: if you’re in the pot, you want to have the best possible hand. If you flopped a draw to the lowest possible straight, don’t bother sticking around. Your hand might get there, but you still could lose to the higher straight, wasting a whole lot of money in the process. Since everyone’s holding four cards, there’s that much more of a chance that everyone’s got something decent, so you shouldn’t mess around with suboptimal holdings. Even if you’re holding A-3 and thinking you’ve got a good shot at winning the low half of the pot, someone else is likely to have A-2, especially at a full table. Countless players have gone broke in Omaha Hi Lo with the second-best hand.
Embrace Drawing Hands
By the showdown you want to have the best hand, but on earlier streets you should learn to love playing with a draw. If you have K-5-4-3 and the flop comes A-2-J, you don’t have anything yet, as you can only use two cards from your hand, so you haven’t made a straight or a low. However, if the turn brings any three, four, five, six, seven, or eight, then, all of a sudden you’re in business. You might even actually be a favorite post-flop against an opponent with a made hand, even though all you currently have is king high! Bet with confidence.
Even Made Hands Are Risky
Keep in mind, though, that even if you’ve made your hand, you’re still not bulletproof. You might hit your straight, but your opponent could still have outs for a flush. Maybe you turned the flush, but the guy to your left with trips still has redraws to hit a full house. You could have the nut low with A-2, but if the river brings a deuce, then your low is “counterfeited” and your opponents with A-3 will “suddenly” have you beat. Perhaps your low will indeed be the nuts but someone else at the table also has the same hand, so instead of winning half the pot, you just get a quarter. Bottom line: Even with a great hand, you might be in trouble.
Be Ready to Gamble
The beauty – and at the same time, terror – of Omaha Hi Lo is that it’s a game of variance. When you’re risking a lot of money on drawing hands and your opponents are doing the same, you’re going to see some crazy swings in luck. You might find yourself winning and losing more in a single session than you ever did playing Texas Hold’em. But hey, that’s part of the game’s appeal. If you’re ready to get in there and gamble, Omaha Hi Lo might be the right game for you.
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Pot limit Omaha hi lo, also called Omaha eight or better or PLO8, has been growing in popularity over the last several years. If you are able to master the complex game of Omaha hi-lo you can make a great deal of money. The influx of relatively inexperienced eager to try something other than holdem has created a burgeoning O8 economy.
Unfortunately there are a few obstacles to overcome. The game is a more complex than no-limit holdem. There is also less information available in terms of dedicated strategy content, articles, and videos.
That being said, the following information is a great place to get started. Check out our Omaha hi-lo tips and then get to a table and practice.
Top 5 Omaha hi-lo Tips
1. Your Cards Matter More
Unlike holdem, where you can play position and abuse the tendencies of weaker opponents, in Omaha you will frequently need cards to win. That isn’t to say that you can’t find good spots to take pots away from someone. You can. But because there are 36 cards handed out preflop in a full-ring game of Omaha hi-lo, someone is going to have a very strong hand most of the time.
Look for strong hands with potential to win both the high and low sides of the pot, or very strong potential to win one side of the pot. Use the following guidelines to rank your starting hands, adding value for suited and double suited hands (at least king high suited).
Very strong hands include: AA23, AA2x, AA3x, A234, A23x
Strong high only hands include: AAKK, AAKQ, AAJT, Any double paired hand 9s or higher
Playable hands include: A2xx, A3xx, A-baby and a pair, 23 and a pair
2. Bluff Less Often, Pick Your Spots
Bluffing in Omaha hi-lo should be done with consideration for the situation and the opponent, and in general bluffing should happen less often than in no-limit holdem.
Times when bluffing makes sense: Very scary turn or river, the low misses, paired board on the river, ace on the river.
Essentially you must ask yourself, what is my opponent’s likely holding, and would it make sense for me to be holding a hand that beats him. For instance, if your opponent was representing the nuts on the turn, and you were drawing to a solid low with A23x, and the river pairs the board, you can try to represent a full house.
3. Play for the Nuts
Because so many cards are distributed pre-flop, there is a strong likelihood that one of the players at the table will have the best possible hand by the river. For this reason, the 2nd best possible hand, or second-nuts is a dangerous hand to show up with.
If you have the second best high and the second best low hand in a 3-way pot and the other two players are raising and re-raising, there is a good chance you’re going to lose your stack.
Be careful of king-high flushes, A-3 and A-4 low, weak full-houses.
Ideally you should play for the nuts to at least one side of the pot, and hope to hit a reasonable hand on the other side of the pot. A made high hand with a low draw is a powerful hand and a made low hand with a flush or straight draw is a powerful hand.
4. Educate Yourself
Omaha Hi Lo Poker Strategy Book
There is less information available for studious Omaha hi-lo players, but there is still plenty of good information available to players who look for it. Cardrunners and other poker training sites like it have Omaha hi-lo content in the form of strategy articles and video content. Additionally there are dozens of helpful players on the twoplustwo forums who are knowledgeable about the game of Omaha hi-lo and eager to help up and coming players.
5. Practice
More important than anything else is practice. Put yourself in tricky situations, use your brain and reasoning skills to try to determine the best course of action, and then learn from your sessions as best you can. Practice makes perfect.
This is even more important with an ‘unsolved’ game like Omaha hi-lo. The more you play the more you will figure out what play style suits you, which moves work and which ones don’t. Check out a quality poker site like Pokerstars with plenty of Omaha action; sit down at the O8 tables, and play!
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